It’s Getting Real

April Anxiety

Moonshot | 4.6.26

Hello friends,

“April showers bring May flowers,” or at least that’s how the saying goes, but what it doesn’t mention is everything in between. The soaked soil that doesn’t drain fast enough and the sudden heat that speeds everything up before you’re ready. The sharp drops in temperature and crazy winds that wreak havoc on all the best laid plans. April weather in Phillipsville breeds uncertainty. The temperatures are all over the place and precipitation appears out of nowhere. All we can do is let Mother Nature have her temper tantrums, deal with her mood swings, and make the best call we can, knowing full well we might be second-guessing it tomorrow.

What’s happening right now

Melissa has returned to her day job and is nearly back to 100 percent after her hip surgery. The Physical Therapist released her to perform a structured, daily exercise routine on her own. She’s out in the gardens planting, weeding, and handling some of the work that keeps the farm running.

The Lisianthus is still moving along at its own pace. We sowed the seeds at the beginning of January with a fair amount of apprehension and concern, knowing its reputation as a tricky flower to grow, but it has held steady. Slow, but steady. The Eucalyptus, planted mid January, is growing well but has decided to get floppy on us. They probably need to go outside.

The Dianthus, Foxglove, and Feverfew we planted last fall are doing awesome. It’s amazing that they spent nearly five months under a blanket of snow and are now some of the biggest, greenest plants in the gardens!

The Anemones and Ranunculus have been harder to read. Warm days pushed them to start budding instead of focusing on root development, so we’ve been cutting back the buds. Growth is there, just not the kind we really want. Hopefully, the colder start to May we’re expecting will set them straight.

The Stand is open for a short run of tulips, marking the first flowers of the year to leave the farm. After a long winter, this shift is really refreshing. It’s one thing to grow them, but totally gratifying to finally put them in someone’s hands. We’ll also be putting random bunches of other flowers out as they bloom until we have enough of a mix for full fledged bouquets.

Up in the grow room, the Lilies we planted in crates are growing strong. Four plantings so far, starting in mid March. The first round is beginning to bud, and the rest are right on schedule. These should be our first bouquet focal flower of the season!

In late winter and early Spring, we are continually cycling through successive plantings of annuals and perennials under lights. Once they have outgrown their space on the shelves, they make their way out to the greenhouse where they harden off and get ready for transplant to the gardens, or into pots for Market.

The greenhouse is packed with seedlings. It has made hardening off all those young plants so much more manageable. We used to shuffle them in and out of the house, to and from the “front” porch or the equipment trailer deck so they could adjust little by little to the outside world. We don’t miss all those trips up and down the stairs with our hands full of trays!

Outside, things are starting to take shape nicely, and the cold hardy annuals we’ve transplanted are settling in well. It’s good to see them take hold, but they aren’t out of the woods yet. As of April 30th, they are all tucked in under frost cloth again, protected from another forecasted light frost.

Most of the perennials in the gardens are waking up and putting on new growth. They are the stress relief around here- the set-it-and-forget-it plants. The Peonies we planted last fall are pushing through the mulch and the Allium are already starting to bud. The Joe-pye and Bee Balm we divided and relocated in October are coming back strong.

The rest of the countryside is waking up too. The trees, bushes, and grasses are turning that special early Spring green, filling in day by day, and dandelions are popping up everywhere, offering the bees one of their first meals of the season. Spring has definitely returned!

Lessons Learned

All the rain April has given us certainly tests our patience and has us adjusting at every turn. The ground stays wet longer than we want it to, which makes it harder to get anything planted or worked. We can’t even drive the tractors around the property for fear of tearing up the ground. Almost every step is squishy, and timing becomes less about readiness and more about finding a dry enough window to get something done.

That has been especially clear in our new annual area on the eastern slope. We prepped it last year by tilling, amending the soil, and laying out established rows, with landscape fabric marking the paths between them. We knew drainage would be an issue, but we wanted to see what a full winter thaw and early spring rains would do.

It didn’t take long to get our answer. There were small streams running down through the beds, and the March winds pulled up a good amount of the landscape fabric. The bottom three beds, in particular, turned into a muddy mess.

The long term plan is to install wood raised beds in that area, but that is not in the budget right now. For the time being, we’re building the rows up with compost and soil, giving the roots somewhere more hospitable to live, and laying down wood chips in the paths to keep things more dry and workable.

So far, it’s doing what we need it to do. We’ve already been able to plant some of our seedlings out there and get them established, which is more than we could say a couple weeks ago. It has taken some adjustment, including giving up a couple of our vegetable beds and several new perennial beds to annual seedlings while we work through the wet conditions in that space.

The next step will be digging a swale at the top of the slope to help catch and redirect the runoff coming out of the woods before it picks up speed. We also have the deer fence started around the area, which will matter more and more as things grow in.

It’s not the finished version of this space, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction. Around here, progress usually comes down to making the next better decision.

Garden Experiments

We decided to try growing early sunflowers in the greenhouse this year. There are two successive plantings of Pro Cut Gold and Vincent’s Choice reaching skyward in raised beds.

So far, they’re responding well. The staggered plantings should give us a steady run once they start coming on, assuming we can keep them moving through these temperature swings.

If all goes as planned, these, along with the Lilies will be some of the first strong focal flowers making their way into early bouquets.

We are also trying out sheep’s wool as mulch in a couple of flower beds this year, and it took a minute to get used to. It’s a bit like pulling apart dense cotton candy and tucking it in around the plants.

It’s pretty oily, and it smells a bit like a barnyard. The dogs and cat didn't know what to think of it at first and approached the beds with extreme caution, their sniffers working overtime.

A few volunteer plants are showing up around the Lisianthus, likely from seeds that hitched a ride in the wool. Those are getting pulled as they appear. Some small tufts of wool have made it out into the yard, which we are pretty sure the birds are making use of for nests.

Dealing with it is time consuming and kind of a pain in the rear but, once it is down, does what it’s supposed to do. It holds moisture in the soil and helps even things out between rains. We’ll see how it performs in the long run and maybe use it again in the future as a novelty.

We are also giving soil blocks another shot this year after trying them for fruits/veggetables a couple of years ago, and giving up on them. So far, we’re wondering why we stopped soil blocking before. There’s so much to like about the method. There are no cell trays to clean out, less plastic to deal with, and the roots air prune instead of circling. It is a simpler system in a lot of ways but, in practice, it takes a little more patience though. Mixing the soil with just the right amount of water is super important, and handling them takes a lighter touch than cell trays. It slows you down a bit until you get into the rhythm of forming the blocks.

Managing moisture is more straightforward. You can see what’s going on right away and adjust without guessing. They’re easy to water without overdoing it, and they dry down in a more even way than cell trays. They also make better use of space. You can fit more plants into a smaller area without the extra bulk of trays and cells. Transplanting is easier too. There is no fighting roots that have wrapped around a cell or getting plants out without disturbing them. The blocks hold together well, and the roots move right out into the surrounding soil once they are planted.

It’s not going to replace all of our indoor sowing methods, but it sure is nice having another tool in our chest for seed starting!

April Highlights

Our clay creations have found a new home at Werner Books & Coffee, which is totally cool. We also crossed the 1000 follower mark on Facebook, which is a milestone we do not take lightly! We appreciate every single person who follows along with what we are building here.

Not flower related, but the chickens have been doing their job, and egg production is way up. We’ve been storing them using the water glass method (keeping fresh eggs in a lime solution to extend their shelf life) and even with that, they are adding up fast. If it keeps going like this, a few dozen could start showing up at The Stand every week!

Looking Ahead

April didn’t leave much room to get comfortable. In fact, it was the hardest month so far. Lot’s of heavy lifting and long days. Heading into May, the work stacks up in a different way and should start to show the fruits of that labor.

The walk in cooler still needs to be built. We have the CoolBot now, which should be enough motivation to get that project moving.
The seedlings started inside will keep getting transplanted out into the gardens as the weather allows.
More seeds will be direct sown outside as conditions improve and we get closer to the last frost date.
We will start preparing for the first bouquets of the season, making sure we have all the supplies we need for success.
Vending plans will get dialed in, with LEAF Open Market and Lawrence Park Farmers Market both starting up in June.

Alongside all of that, we are working through the mix of excitement and nerves that comes with what is ahead. This is our second year as bona fide flower farmers, and it still feels a little unreal. Sometimes we can’t believe it’s happening and have to pinch each other…..hard.

If you have been thinking about joining the Petal Collective, now is a good time. The season is so close we can smell it, and the best flowers we grow will be making their way into those bouquets.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support what we are building here. We do not take it for granted, and we’re so glad to have you along for the journey!

Always grateful,
Chris & Melissa
Hopson Hill Flower Farm