Spring Cleanup

This weekend has been beautiful in our little corner of the planet! Although the forecast said we'd have thunderstorms, they ended up holding off and we had plenty of sunshine. Today, the temperature was up to 74 F, and we were able to get much of our spring cleanup accomplished. I noticed that my rose bush has gone from buds to leaves in the last few days!

My daffodils, which had been in bud last weekend, were in glorious full bloom today! My son even picked one just for me.

My cannas, which curiously enough winter over here in Missouri, are starting to put up shoots.

My hostas are also up - this one has leaves, several other types are only nubs. The pink stick is just a popsicle stick colored with a marker. My 4-yr old son helped me mark all the flowers so he will know not to pick them when he helps me with the weeding.

I found a volunteer hollyhock next to the fence. I think he'll be staying - I'll have to remind Jeremy not to hit it with the string trimmer!

And, here are the peonies! Just zooming right into spring, starting to unfurl just the tiniest bit!

And, lastly: I filled and started my fountain! I just love the sound of the running water coming through the open windows in the spring time. When the weather turns hot enough to force me to turn on the air conditioner, I really miss this sound. And the sound of the windchimes. Here's a close-up.

Newspaper Pots

I saw this video tutorial on eHow teaching how to make seed-starting pots from newspaper earlier today and decided to give it a try!




Instead of a drinking glass, I used an old empty prescription pill bottle - about 1.5 inches diameter. Accordingly, I only used half a sheet of newspaper instead of a whole one. Here are my results! Although making as many pots as I wanted proved to be a bit tedious, I was surprised at how well they stayed together. They were quite wobbly while empty, though.

Once they were filled with soil and watered in, I was able to straighten them up nicely, and they seem to be sturdy enough to do the trick! I'll let you know how they turn out. Here's a close-up:

Bloom Day - March 2009

As I was looking around in my yard for any sign of something in bloom, I began to give up hope. As I mentioned earlier, I have daffodil in bud, but that seemed to be the closest I could get. As I was cutting back the "winter interest", resigned to the fact that I would have nothing to offer until April, my 3 year old daughter came running over to me, eyes shining, with a viola! She was so excited to find a flower again, she was bouncing! Needless to say, I got very excited about this as well, and had her show me where she found it. She brought me to the place and lucky enough, there was one more, which you can see in the photograph. I then came inside and called Julie (my sister, who lives on "The" farm), asking her to find blooms up there for our Bloom Day post. She thought she would be unable to find a bloom, due to the freeze we had a few days ago. However, she was wrong too. I came in at dark to find her email with a picture of a lovely yellow crocus! So, until April, HAPPY BLOOM DAY, EVERYBODY!!

Gardening - Fun for the whole family

Gardening with children is rewarding for both them and us. Here on the farm, we garden with 10 kids, both boys and girls, with ages ranging from 16 down to 3 year olds.
We enjoy letting them "help" us plant the veggie patch, (younger childrens' fingers are great with seeds!), pick the ripe veggies, pull weeds, and watering. In the flower patches we plant new varieties and they bring in the most wonderful bouquets our perennials shower us with.
Gardening leads to great conversations and is a great way to teach children many things without it feeling like school. Our little ones have learned their colors, how to count, bug varieties, how a seed grows into a plant, responsibility and the joys of a job well done. But most importantly, we all enjoyed time together as a family! The summer months are not the only time that a garden can be a joy as a family. From the first of January we are often found at the dinner table with seed and flower catalogs planning for our new gardens. The kids are encouraged to give us their top choices of flowers to put in. This year my older girls (16 and 13 year old) are helping their younger sisters (5 and 3 year old) plan the plants they want in their play area. We're putting in herbs for my oldest who is an aspiring chef, my 13 year old loves flowers that are gigantic so we searched for giant varieties. We're putting in a new hibiscus plant this year, so we can make Southern Bell dolls out of the blossoms... just like Granny made the for the older two.
Kids and gardens go together like sunshine and rain. You just can't have one without the other.
The photo here is of my youngest, who was 3 in August of last year. A few days ago we had a warm day and worked outside. At the end of the day, as we were putting our tools away, she grabbed a play shovel and dug up my Yucca plant, which she replanted with "fresh" dirt! When I asked her why she replanted the plant, she simply said "Cause it's spring"! She was very proud of herself... cause she did it all by herself!
She defantly has the gardening bug, my plants may never stay where I put them but I bet that future April Fools Day will be a lot of fun!

Daffodils are in bud!

While out enjoying the mid-60 degree weather, I discovered a very happy thing: My daffodils have buds!! I checked around and found several other garden residents starting to show up for spring: The Stella d'Oro daylilies are poking through last year's leaves, the rose bush has some tiny buds, and the red shoots of the peony are showing. Being without crocus as I happen to be, the daffodils are my harbingers of spring. A truly happy day!

Are your tools ready for spring?

Here on the farm, we are all anxious to get out into the sunshine. Winter is about to shed her mantle of cold and wind and change into the warm breezes of spring. Now is the time to get back in touch with our shovels, trowels and hoes. We're making sure the handles are stong and the ends are sharp and ready for use. Hope y'all will be ready for that first warm and sunny afternoon back in our gardens!

Crop Counting

One aspect of gardening that is is new to us since we started offering our flowers commercially is Crop Counting. While we may have gone around in early spring to find evidence of flowers making it through the winter, it was never mandatory, and there was no accuracy issue. We could always check back later to see if a hole needed filling. We now find ourselves in the midst of the crop counting process!

Now that the plants have begun to green up, we will be in the fields counting them to update our availability amounts on our website as weather permits. Don't be surprised or alarmed if the numbers available change from day to day as you browse the site. This process may continue well into April.

Be on the Lookout for Dwarf Iris!

In just a few short weeks, look for the Standard Dwarf Iris varieties to begin blooming! We look for them between the 1st to 15th of April in northwest Missouri - maybe earlier on extra warm years. Watch for them when you see daffodils or forsythia in bloom!

Is your ground starting to thaw?

Ours finally is. Now is the time to go through your beds and find any plants that have been pushed above ground level by the winter process of heaving. Re-set those plants at a proper planting depth when your soil is workable to give them their best chance to perform at bloom season. After all, no matter how much we like to dig in the dirt, it’s the blooms that make it all worthwhile!

Gardening with Dogs

I have two dogs, whose names are Tonka and Bandit. Tonka is a female Great Pyrenees and Bandit is a male Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix. While these two animals may be wonderful companions and fabulous with the kids, they really are nothing but destructive where gardening is concerned. Bandit is a 'chewer' and Tonka is a 'smotherer' (she lays on the most lush plant she can find.) Therefore, I have confined most of my gardening adventures to my front yard, which is quite small compared to my back yard. I have three flower beds in the back, one being a rock garden that I had hoped would keep Tonka from laying on all my shade plants. Alas, she taught Bandit to lay on them instead because he fits in the spaces better. Another bed in the backyard is full of plants that are more prolific. I have some Four O'Clocks there that come back from seed each year, some iris that have managed to survive, Salvia that seems to be offensive to Bandit, and a couple of Stella D'Oro daylilies. The dogs run through, dig in and lay in this bed at will, but amazingly it usually still looks nice. The third bed is a complete disaster. I made the colossal mistake of placing the bed in a nice, sunny spot next to the house. What I didn't know is that Tonka spends her afternoons napping in the sun in this very spot. All the daylilies I have planted in this bed are dead or pathetic, and the bushes have all been chewed to the point of oblivion. Somehow, I can't seem to give up the idea of having flowers in this spot, so I continue to try, year after year, to get something to grow.