This is an exciting month with a lot happening. Both of my stands opened Monday and there was a lot of preparation. Cleaning carts, touching up paint, new umbrellas to start kept me busy. Plants hardened off outside the greenhouse went out including Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, mint, oregano, dill, cilantro, lavendar, rosemary, astilbe, dahlias and hanging baskets. My first pop up shop at the Dublin Firehouse fleamarket was a wash. I am hoping that the rain stops soon so I can plant the 6 crates of Dahlias that were just delivered. All the first round cool flowers are in the ground. Feverfew, lisianthus, marigolds, burpleurum, cosmos, orlaya, ammi, strawflowers are just waiting for the ground to dry out a little and get long awaited sun. With all of those out of the greenhouse, I have switched over to warm weather seed starting. Trays of baby amaranthus, zinnias, and sunflowers are being born on heat mats that will later be moved to green house benches and then out to harden off. I was able to get a number of zinnias and and sunflowers in the ground.
I love walking the farm to see which perennials survived the winter. Lots of chocolate mint and mountain mint are pretty far along. Peonies are budded, but not as robust as I had hoped. The rainy weather we have had the last couple of seasons have taken a toll on them and many have succumbed to boryitis. I have started planting around the farm house which has a little higher elevation and dries out a little faster. Last fall I planted 150 peonies around the house and they are doing well, but won't have many blooms their first year. In the field I found the tiny sprigs, almost too tiny to see, painstakingly pulling out weeds delicately one at a time so not to accidentally pull the false indigo that was I planted in fall. Joe Pye weed and milkweed is also emerging. The ninebark and viburnum have foliage emerging but as usual taken a hit from the deer who manage to get in to the field through the electric fence.
It feels like a race. How fast a pace can I maintain to seed start, harden off and get plants into the ground and beat the weeds down between the heavy rain. Once I start the seeds, will I be able to find ground that isn't under water where I can plant? It is such a short season and before you know if there are not enough weeks left for your tiny plant to grow and mature enough to make it all worthwhile and you are back to the beginning. But that's ok because I like new beginnings where I can start over and take what I learned from all my mistakes and do it better next year.
#peonygirl#flowerfarmer#mayfarmer#downonthefarm