Happy Friday y'all! It's a beautiful day out here at the absolute peak of Spring. A nip to the air this morning and a potential frost this evening though, so we may lose some foliar friends to frost. Hoping it doesn't damage the peonies too much or take out my favorite plum tree. I really want those plums. We all do. Communally gathering around a bountiful tree, silently stuffing our smiling faces with juicy sweet plums is a highlight in my memory banks. It happened one summer out of 13. One summer the fruit escaped the frost and every friend we had over got to share our delight in the magic of this unbelievable plum tree. Unparalleled in flavor. The other plum trees produced fruit that year too….but not like this one. Fingers are crossed.
We will be covering all of your plant sale plants to protect them from frost. If you already picked yours up, you should take protective measures as well.
We've updated inventory for our heirloom chrysanthemum collection! Check out this link to see what's available. We also updated our plant sale inventory for our locals! And even added a few new items! Check the sale out here!
We've also added a section to our website with information on how to care for mums, hellebores, and dahlias that you may have purchased from us. Our mum customers get the added bonus of a video tutorial on how to propagate their own cuttings, which can be found on the care card that arrives with your plants.
A couple tips for poppy customers….we have instructions (as well as a video link) on how to manually assist poppy pods to open on your care card, but if you really want to pop them open fast, put them somewhere warm. We'll sometimes put a vase in the greenhouse if we want open poppies quickly for a photo shoot. Of course, once they open, bring them to a cooler location so they last longer, but heat dramatically accelerates the progression of your poppies. Conversely, if they are open, but you want to slow them down to keep them happy before an upcoming event, you can put them in the fridge to suspend their progression.
If you come out to Comer at the end of the day to get your plants, you might be here in time to swing by the Comer Distillery, Soldier of the Sea. It's a great addition to our town where the whiskey is produced with certified organic corn and honey, both produced locally. In fact, one half of the duo that runs it (Jennifer Berry), was Mandy's beekeeping instructor 20 years ago. She produces all the honey that they use to create the different whiskeys. We're not whiskey drinkers generally, but their products and cocktails are so much better than anything else we've encountered, that we do tend to have more than one when we swing by. In fact, the farm team popped over last night to celebrate Carrie's birthday and confirmed once again, that yes, it is indeed delicious. Pop in for a drink, or to pick up a bottle for that whiskey lover in your life.
Mandy and I just finished hamming it up for a photoshoot this morning for an upcoming flower book we'll be in. We recently became friends with an incredible photographer with a long history of amazing work who was itching to take photos of the farm, so we asked if he wanted to be on this project and he was more than game. Daniel Dent was in the fashion world out west, but now focuses on editorial and portrait work and he's supremely talented. Check him out if your into beautiful images.
People keep talking about Mercury in retrograde, which I know nothing about, but I've got a broken walk in cooler, broken tractor, and broken riding mower to go hit with a hammer and curse at, so I must end this dribble post haste.
Be well and be nice and be as happy as you can muster!
Steve
