Everyone's in camp, including us - Flower Camp!

Hi Friends! 

I just realized I haven’t written a newsletter since early April! Time is flying by!  Spring was hectic and this summer I have been making room for fun and getting off the farm. Our farm crew has been plowing through the to-do list in what has been amazing weather this past week! It’s always funny to me that each year we have a never ending list of things to do and the weeds start stressing me out. It starts to feel too overwhelming and I start thinking about moving away so I don’t have to watch the weeds overtake all our hard work over the past 11 years. But then, in a matter of days, somehow so much gets accomplished (and weeded) that I start having to find more big projects for us. Don’t worry, there’s no shortage of those! Next up, fixing all the high tunnels/ greenhouse and cutting down the black walnut trees that have gotten away from me for a couple years.

Flower Camp for Farmers and Florists

All Flower Camp photos by the wonderful @flashback.humor

Earlier this July we brought together roughly 70 of our region's best florists and flower farmers with the help of Hillen Homestead and Ellen Frost. July is always a time of great flower a*bun*dance (I love that visual), but events and flower sales are slim because 1) everyone is on vacation in July, and 2) it’s (usually) too dang hot! So we rounded up fellow flower farmers, and told them to bring their unsold flowers and our florists customers, who make a commitment to buying local flowers instead of only using imported products. We spent an entire day laughing, talking about growing practices, making sun prints and working together creating beautiful floral installations around the farm. Farming can feel very solitary and sometimes it’s hard to enjoy the beautiful things we grow. Making a plan and space to connect, play and get inspired to continue our work has been awesome! The even was even sponsored by Farm Credit, FlowerMore, MD Department of Agriculture, ASCFG, and New Age Floral. 

The highlight of the day was making floral installations around the farm. I would estimate collectively we had about $10,000 worth of stunning flowers from all the farmers who attended. We used only sustainable floral mechanics, much of which was donated by New Age Floral. Many folks are unaware that most floral designs use carcinogenic, micro-plastics called “floral foam” to create arrangements and floral installations . The floral foam hold stems in place but also keep the flowers hydrated over time. There’s a movement to get away from these one time use, horrible products by the floral industry, but they are still unfortunately the go to for most florists because of their simplicity and effectiveness.

New Age Floral has some promising compostable alternatives to floral foam. Everyone's favorite was the Oshun Pouch , which is completely biodegradable because it’s made from coconut coir and a plant-based gelling agent that absorbs and retains moisture. Super rad product! 

Flower Camp was a huge success! I’m so grateful that I have people in my life like Maya from Hillen Homestead and Ellen Frost, that I can say “I have this crazy idea for a camp! Do you want to work with me on it?” and they jump right in and know how to pull it off! The power of community!!!!

We are back at the Baltimore Farmers Market

Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly. The caterpillars of this butterfly only eat pawpaw foliage! :)

Starting this Sunday we will be back at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market after our month off from market. Yippee! We are going to bring our Sunday best for ya’ll! Our flowers are off the hook right now! 

I have more updates but I will leave it there for now.

Thank you for reading and following along. Please do a rain dance for us! 

Elisa