04/13/2026
Episode #5 It’s been almost 4 weeks since the last post. That’s pretty reflective of early spring on a flower farm in the Northern US — blink and three weeks have gone by and you’re standing in a half-prepped bed wondering what happened.
Why? Because our growing season is less than 6 months, we’re essentially running two full growing programs simultaneously. Hardy annuals — flowers that love cold weather — need to go in the ground now, while we’re also starting everything that goes in after last frost (around Memorial Day up here in Sullivan County). Plus whatever perennials you optimistically committed to last year. It’s a lot.
I am writing this from an airport, which is the calmest place I’ve been in a month.
In the last three weeks, we:
• Planted 38 bare root roses
• Direct seeded nigella, bachelor buttons, agrostemma, delphinium, and orlaya
• Transplanted Icelandic poppies, calendula, violas, campanula, foxglove, sweet peas, scabiosa, and snapdragons — many of which promptly got fried when temps dropped to nearly 20°F. I was not diligent enough with frost protection. The flowers have opinions about this.
• Started seeds for herbs and greenery: basil, cress, verbena, sage, shiso, plus strawflowers, Chinese asters, ageratum, and statice
• Transplanted and began monitoring 50 heirloom chrysanthemum cuttings
• Transplanted extra ranunculus and anemones to replace the ones that froze in the ground
• Prepped more beds… slowly, because it is still too wet to do this properly
• Did other things. My hands were too tired to document them.
So. Will there be flowers for Mother’s Day?
Hmmm. It’s been a cold, slow spring and the plants are behind. We’re heads-down doing the work, but we’re going to need a miracle. Stay tuned.
