I feel like you deserve an explanation. Yes we have had 2 successful seasons of beautiful flowers. Yes, we have had some beautiful photo shoots.
When starting a new business/farm from scratch the to do list is endless. We really hoped to be open this fall, but a few setbacks with the fencing and open trenches made it unsafe to open.
So here is the story
Not yet.
July 2023 we had a full field of beautiful sunflowers ready to bloom, then it happened… neighboring cows came through and ate every single one.
so we replanted. Hoping for blooms before the freeze We had just enough time. So we had a race with mother nature. Our perserverance was rewarded! We had blooms before the freeze!
So the obstacle was a great learning experience. We learned how late we could plant, we also learned that Arizona is an open range state and the fence I didnt want was neccesary.
We still didnt open to the public… I was still working full time at the hospital and only had 2 weekends a month and it simply wasnt enough time to pull it off.
Late October / November 2023 we planted larkspur hoping it would germinate and make it . The 10 rows of sunflowers self germinated in March! What a gift we thought. (more on that to come) The winter was a great teacher. We learned how to use row covers and had to replace the drip manafold when it didnt survive the deep freeze.
We did have success with the 2 -100 foot rows of larkspur and 2 -100 foot rows of bachelor buttons! Actually they were the best I have ever grown and they seemed to survive the a little drought. However the Sunflowers which I was hoping to compliment the larkspur became infested with a meally bug brought on from the late spring rains. So once again…
Not yet.
Late July and early August 2024
Planted sunflowers and zinnias. Once again we had obsticales to overcome. The sunflowers didnt germinate evenly and had to be replanted. The zinnias took longer to plant as well. The lesson learned here was just keep at it.
We were finally rewarded with beautiful zinnias and an spotty sunflowers except 2 entire rows were that taken out by deer as their personal snack isle .
We could have opened for the last week of September and October for our subscribers but still not ready.. Again another challenge, we were hit with an early frost.
Not yet.
The gift here is we can plant the larkspur and cool season annuals earlier this fall for blooms hopefully for Mothers day! So thanks for following along on this journey! As promised you will be the first to know and be invited out to pick the beautiful spring blooms!
