Open For The Season

Happy Memorial Day! We are open officially for the season and it feels good to be back :) This year, as I started my seeds, I thought of our farm stand shoppers. I grew lots of pumpkin, green bean, sweet pea, cosmo and nasturtium starts for you!

The farm stand will be open M-W-F 7:30am-3:30pm…from Memorial Day through to Halloween. I‘d LOVE to stay open through the beginning of December, but we’ll see if the farm agrees. We will also be open for several selected Saturdays over the summer, keep up to date with us on Instagram.

The roses are going crazy right now. Above is one of my favorites, the Bathsheba climbing rose by David Austen. It has almost no thorns, is fast growing and has nice long stems for cut flowers too. Best part? It smells like cantaloupe.

I finally have my dahlia rows moved to a more suitable place. Ive tried many different forms of staking. I met a 90 year old woman who told me to keep it simple and use a tomato cage reinforced with a bamboo stake on top of each tuber. We’ll see if it works! This wouldn’t be a good solution for large scale growing but for our small rows, Im hopeful! Dahlias start making their way to the farm stand in mid-late July.

We have more eggs than you can imagine! This season we are offering dozen and 1/2 dozen cartons of eggs. Do you see the extra large copper eggs in this photo? It’s practically like eating two eggs at once they are so big - you can thank our Maren breeds for these giant, richly colored eggs.

I’m the most excited about our farm that Ive ever been. We have been re-doing our garden structure, amending soil properly, and started so many seeds this year. The hens are happy and so are we…bring on the growing season!

THE BEGINNINGS OF SPRING

When I hear sprinklers in the neighborhood start, I know spring has arrived. A more familiar sign is the sound of lawn mowers and the smell of freshly cut grass. These sounds and smells take me straight back to childhood!

It is Easter today. Which is strange because the last time I updated this journal was during Christmas! Suddenly it is 70 degrees and the daffodils are making their last appearance. While it is cliche, time is truly flying by. I was able to cut several fading daffodil for our Easter table! It’s always a good feeling to make use of flowers before they bow out of the season.

In the early days of spring, I spend a lot of time walking around the farm making plans and feeling overwhelmed (and excited). There is so much to do…pruning, clearing winter brush, weeding, mowing, and amending soil are a few of the tasks. I’m a bit late to everything on my to-do list and I’ve accepted that will never change. The job that I look forward to the most is starting seeds!

During the summer I sell bouquets full of dahlias, sunflower, celosia, cosmo, zinnia and sweet peas. The sweet peas are always a step ahead as they don’t mind the colder nights. I like to collect clamshell containers all year and use (and re-use!) them for seed starting. There is a common misconception that you need a fancy greenhouse to start seeds early. In actuality, all you need is a container with drainage, seed starting mix and some sunlight. Make sure to cover your seeds at night with lids, an affordable greenhouse tent or really anything that is clear and allows light! If you find the early sprouting seeds are leaning in one direction, rotate them back and forth to avoid “leggy” starts. I have found the warmth of a seed starting heat mat is helpful if you are getting a late start (like me!). It can speed things along.

It is magical to watch seeds sprout. I can imagine the cutting garden to come when I see the green poking through the soil. I was gifted several seeds from friends and family this year. I love the idea of all my favorite people’s gardens showing up in my yard via the seeds they saved and shared with me (Thanks Mom, Natalie, Stephanie and Tasha Tudor *I bought hers but I still imagine she sent them to me herself ;)

Today I feel grateful for daffodils, sunshine, a good meal and church. I also really like biscuits, of which I had many this morning. I hope you had a joyful Easter! More updates from the farm to come!

-Jenni

Take Joy

Below is a letter written by Fra Giovanni Giocondo to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513. Fra Giovanni was a Franciscan Monk as well as an architect, scholar and many other things. The specific quote “take joy” has always inspired me. I hope you’ll enjoy the beautiful words below. I wish they were my own but second best is being able to share them!

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep.  There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. TAKE JOY! There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see.  And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.

And so, at this Christmas time,
I greet you,
with the prayer that for you,
now and forever, the day breaks
and the shadows flee away.

Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c.1435–1515)