Greetings!

The rain this week has been relentless. We’ve got soggy fields, wet boots, and smelly socks. Fortunately, we were able to prep beds on Tuesday and plant out lots of seedlings and dahlia tubers on Wednesday, which means we’re nearly caught up on planting. It’s always a race to get everything done this time of year, even more so when the weather doesn’t cooperate. We feel lucky to have been spared any damage from last Friday’s storm, which brought high winds, heavy rain, and hail to many area farmers. Unpredictable weather is a farmer’s nemesis, and we’re seeing more of it each season.

We’re thrilled to have gotten our planting done, and now we’re waiting for things to dry up a bit so we can stake and net flowers and finally get back to weeding. While we wait, we’re making do with working in the high tunnels and taking care of lingering indoor projects. Dave organized the barn and unstuck tons of buckets with our fancy new air compressor, and Carlie and I finally finished setting up automated greenhouse irrigation!

All of this rain has us nervous about the forecast for the rest of the season. The trauma from our 2018 flood season lingers, and no one wants to go back to the days of losing our boots in the flood waters as we harvest. Do your anti-rain dance for us next week, we need some dry days! I feel like the Goldilocks of rain. We need it, but only in the perfect amount.

*A very pink florist order. I love seeing the combinations of color and texture that our florists come up with each week.*

Our farmers’ market was cancelled this week to make room for Artscape, leaving us without a market for our blooms this weekend. It’s always frustrating to have markets cancelled, especially at a point in the season during which we have an abundance of gorgeous, high-value blooms like peonies and ranunculus. The flowers don’t stop blooming, so we’ve done some maintenance harvests and will store the flowers that can last until next week, but the cancellation does mean that lots of blooms that need to be harvested won’t have a home and will go to waste. I’d rather compost flowers than good food, but it’s still a bummer!

That said, we’ve found a bright spot to the market cancellation. Rather than cramming for market, we’re bringing our entire crew together for a training day and a delicious lunch. Because our crew members start work in April, when we’re immediately off to the races with tulip season, plant sales, and lots of flowers to plant and harvest, it can be difficult to get the entire crew on the same page as the season begins. This year the crew’s return was staggered throughout April for various reasons, which made it even more challenging. We are lucky to have a lot of returning crew members who help ease the transition, but things get lost in translation and there’s new information to cover. I’m thrilled that we’ll all be together and have an opportunity to walk around the farm and share knowledge with one another.

That’s all the news for this week!

Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend.

Amelia, Elisa & the rest of the Two Boots crew

Farmers vs. Rain