Daffodils

The North Forty is awash with daffodil blooms.  

They are fresh, bright, and gleeful.

 Over the years, I have planted daffodil collections from White Flower Farm -

 all colors, shapes, sizes and styles.

They never fail to delight.

I like to think of this as the family photo.

This little orange and white stunner is one of my favorites.

This bouquet of rather unorthodox of daffodils came to my garden

from the Davis farm, the future sight of the North Forty Gardens.

They grew on a little knoll on the south side of the farmhouse.

I carefully dug some of them years ago and brought them to my home,

where they have been fruitful and multiplied.

They are a wild, unruly profusion of bright yellow and light green petals with no central trumpet.

 They are heirlooms, having been named in 1620 by a Flemish man named Von Sion.

The bulbs made their way to the United States with early settlers.

They were planted in Appalachia on the grounds of homesteads,

where they still bloom, hundreds of years later.

I am grateful to have them bloom in the gardens.

Both families of blooms agreed to a joint photo - 

the tamed with the wild.

Two Steps Forward . . . Three Steps Back

While my body and spirits have soared into Spring, the temperatures have reverted to January. Rain has been frequent.  Not good news for the budding flower farm.

The dozers remain idle. The well pit is flooded. The ground is sodden.

Enthusiasm has been tinged with anxiety this week. A look at the forecast going forward does little to alleviate the anxiety.

I, however, soldier on.

The work is dirty, cold, and decidedly non-glamorous. Not the picture that comes to mind when you think flower farm.

The area around the well was cleared, some of the water was bucketed out and a makeshift well cover was put in place. 

 A burn pile was started

On the brighter positive side, all planted seeds have germinated and are steadily growing under their lights in the basement. A soil sample was delivered for testing. Names of men who work with wells were secured.  An Excel spreadsheet was begun for farm expenses. Market research is ongoing.

The glorious view of the river bottoms as rain pushes its way across the valley delights me as I muck about. Even in the cold, wet, bleak early March dusk, beauty abounds.

A Dream Realized . . . well almost

For many years, I have longed to be a grower of flowers, lots and lots and lots of flowers. I have been inching toward that goal each year.  Rows of vegetables in the community garden gave way to rows of flowers. Last year, two garden plots overflowed with zinnias, cosmos, celosia, snapdragons, and sunflowers. More flowers grew on the North Forty. Sunny summer bouquets made their way to the Portsmouth Main Street Farmer's Market each Saturday morning.

Yet, I continued to long for my own slice of land on which to grow flowers. I beseeched Better Half to find me a little parcel of dirt on his family's farm.

And, here it is, in all its glory, on a gloomy February afternoon. All the trees to the right of the grain bins and elevator leg will soon vanish. 2.25 acres will be available to me for gardening. I was fairly dancing with glee.

Some pretty hefty equipment will be required to turn a forest into a garden plot.

The garden will be sited on an abandoned hog lot not used in decades. Fairly sizable trees, grape vines, and old wire fences litter the property. 

The soil is heavenly - dark loamy top soil, almost a foot deep. I spent a Sunday afternoon with Better Half digging test holes around the property, delighting in the glory beneath my feet. But, wow, what a lot of land. Glee is giving way to apprehension.

My new favorite Saturday morning hangout. Fencing, mowers, Kentucky 31, seeders, seed starting, discs, and garden sheds - the stuff of a flower farmer's existence. The free popcorn is a welcome treat, as we wander about the aisles.

I am schooling myself in electric fencing - joules, voltages, impedance, ground wires, batteries, t posts and the like.  Deer inhabit the space I will now call my garden. They will have to be dealt with.

Seeds are arriving daily from Johnny's Selected Seeds. Better Half helped me to set up a dandy growing station in the basement.

And, we are underway! The first tiny Rudbeckia seedlings have germinated. Many more will join them as spring progresses.

Torrential rains have prevented the dozers from commencing their work. As the list of tasks before me grows, I become ever more anxious to get started. I content myself with research and organization, as I wait for the fields to dry.

This gorgeous book has been a valuable source of information and inspiration.

The Floret Flower Farm blog, a thing of beauty in itself,

 is providing me with a wealth of information about growing.  

Muddy Feet Flower Farm's gorgeous arrangements spur me on.

A tour of Sunny Meadow Flower Farm,

  minutes outside Columbus Ohio,

on a blazing June afternoon last year, showed me, firsthand, 

how much effort, hard work, sweat, and persistence

goes into the business of flower farming.

And yet, I persist in the dream.

Much more to follow . . .

Please come back and share in this dream with me.

Ella and Ben

Introducing

Feeling the need to flex creative muscles this January.

Hence, a new Etsy shop is born.

Saturday Sunset

“A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, 

and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone,

 and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. 

And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon,

 and darkness crept over the land from the east.” 

― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath