Last of the daffodils for this year.
This was a great week for us here at
Bluebird Flower Farm! Our Spring Subscription started last Friday. YAY! I’m
always watching for what’s blooming, but last week I was watching everything
like a hawk, I tell you! Particularly the tulips—as I mentioned, tulips blow
open very quickly in the heat, and I knew we were going to have some warm days
mid-week. I needed every tulip I could get my hands on for the subscriptions (x
3) plus 7 Mother’s Day arrangements.
So I was
going out a couple of times per day to pull up any tulips that were ready and
get them in the cool garage. “Ready” meaning “still closed but showing a hint
of color.” I also cut lilac buds and harvested the last of the daffodils, and
the first of the perennial bachelor’s buttons. Fun times. I did end up
purchasing some flowers from a flower farm in Ogden that sells wholesale, which
was great too! Tom grows such beautiful flowers and I was happy to be
supporting a fellow flower farmer. I purchased a little bit of greenery from
the regular wholesaler as well. I had a good mix that was mostly locally grown
blooms. Just a note: as my subscriptions are a harvest share, I used all my own
flowers and filler for those!
I had a lot
of fun putting together arrangements again. I missed that in April! I put
together a few for myself last month, but there’s nothing like making them for
someone else and then seeing the joy they bring to that person when you deliver
them.
This week I’m looking forward to
subscriptions again. It’s going to be a purple week! I’ve got 2 different types
of alliums in bloom, both purple, plus blue violet camassias, baby blue
camassias, and purple perennial bachelor’s buttons. I may even find a few grape
hyacinths (purple and blue as well!) to add in there. My daughter and I
experimented last week, tugging the grape hyacinths down at the base, so that
they come off the bulb itself underground. That gave us another good 6” of
stem, so I think they would be long enough for the subscriptions. For foliage,
I will probably cut the ‘Dart’s Gold’ ninebark that’s so pretty right now, as
well as some of my ornamental plum branches which are flowering.
I want to
add in lilac blooms, but I need to experiment first and make sure I know how to
keep them hydrated. So maybe this week I’ll cut some and try some new tricks
I’ve learned along those lines, and see how long they hold up. Then I can add
them in next week if they don’t wilt in 2 days. The lilac buds were awesome in
last weeks’ bouquets.
We are
working on getting permanent irrigation installed in the garden (pvc pipes
underground that connect to removable drip tape in the beds). That will be
amazing, once we get it going. Then we can leave on vacation and not worry
about everything dying off while we’re gone!
All the
starts I planted out the first week of April are growing, but very slowly. I’m
going to give them some fishy fertilizer this week and see if that won’t give
them a bit of a boost. I need those flowers! C’mon ladies—get a move on! I’ve
got dahlias hardening off, and phlox and statice still inside, that I need to
bump up to 2” blocks this week as well, so I can start hardening them off.
I have found, in our dry and windy climate, that the 3/4”
blocks just don’t do well at all in hardening off stage. If I want anything to
survive past that, they have to be in bigger blocks, or in a plastic cell that
will retain the moisture. I have a bunch of starts in peat pots, as well, but
I’m not a fan. They dry out so quickly, and I think they are wicking moisture
away from the roots of the starts, since the peat pot doesn’t stay moist.
Again, wind. So I have decided from here on out, I will just collect the
plastic 4” pots to reuse in that instance.
Lastly, I need to
purchase some Wall O’ Waters for my kiddos’ tomato plants. They are hardened
off and need to go in the ground soon, but we are still having cold nights.
Again, I don’t want one night of frost to ruin weeks of work keeping those
beauties alive!
Always more to do, right?
What do you have growing right now?
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