So we decided this last weekend that we would try to sell our flowers along 99E. Our farm has a field just north of Brooks so we figured we would park it there.
So we loaded up our trailer with flowers.
And made some signs.
And we sat and waited! It was such a beautiful day out.
James said he was getting fried like a turkey. I think this was about the 5th application of sunscreen for him in one day :)
Enjoying myself! :)
James' beloved hanging basket. If no one bought it on the last day, he was going to bring it home. A man bought it 10 minutes before we closed on Monday :) We were glad to sell it but James was in mourning a little :)
We had a very successful weekend! It was so nice to see everyone coming and enjoying our flowers and taking some home! We sold quite a bit. It is almost sad to see the greenhouse practically empty but very calming too :)
For those who are still interested in flowers, we do still have red petunias, pink petunias with a white center, Verbena Serenity Mix, Pink Echinacea and 2 kinds of Salvia--Marble Arch Mix (pinks and whites) and the dwarf Vista red. Plus many kinds of herbs left-thyme, spearmint, little leaf basil, parsley and chives.
If you want to see pictures of these, go back to older posts and there is a list of them with their pictures alongside. We also still have some planters available.
James and I are pretty ridiculous because we were sitting on the couch last night already looking at the seed catalogs for next year :) He has been reading the Ball Redbook too that is a big thick detailed book on how to grow flowers.
We are also thinking of growing pot chrysanthemums for sale this fall. That is a work in progress though. We are in the research stage right now.
Thanks to you all that have been reading the blog all season! It was definitely a fun journey this year.
And of course, we still want to hear suggestions of what you want to see us grow next year!
May take a break in posting for awhile. But if we decide to grow mums, I'll be back :)
Thank you all!
Above is Juan and Jonathon working hard after a day of running the crew of blueberry pickers. They look like they are working hard, right?! Washing the picking buckets is a daily chore we have to do at the end of the day...food safety!
Our blueberries! Ready to pick. This was a few weeks ago. This field is all picked now. It's kind of sad feeling walking through a field that has been picked clean. You work all year for the berries and they are gone so fast. But that is the goal and it's also a relief to have them all picked safe and sound.
Some of the hard work.
We are also selling our own berries at a stand along 99E in Brooks. We are still open if anyone is interested. Wed thru Sat's 10-6pm. We are just north of Brooks on 99E about a 1/4 mile. We sell the berries in flats like this and in smaller clamshells. We also sell Sweetheart cherries...the dark red kind that taste amazing. And we do u-pick blueberries.
This is a picture of our 2 year old field...a variety that is very new to the blueberry industry called Liberty. We will pick it for the first time this year. You can't really tell from the picture but these things are huge.
We have a lady that buys our berries to sell them at her fruit stand and this is part of a load that she ordered. Do you see why I get burnt out on blueberries :)
Picture of our corn that we were irrigating. This was taken from the combine window.
My view from the combine. Harvesting grass seed. We just finished for the summer so I now have a life again. It is a fun couple of weeks though...sitting all day in the A/C listening to 1190 KEX :)
Controls inside the combine. I need to post some pictures of the outside of this machine just in case someone doesn't know what a combine is! I took some on my dad's camera so I will have to hunt those down tomorrow.
And this is from today.... Had to take a picture of the temperature and how much I am sweating! :)
The mum cuttings arrived. Thought it was interesting how they were packed. There are 50 rooted cuttings in each of the plastic bags.
Here are all the variety tags.
Mum rooted cutting.
Right after the cuttings were potted up....waiting to get watered and fertilized in. Mums need lots of fertilizer. They are very heavy feeders. Have to fertilize every watering with water soluble fertilizer.
Getting laid out all nice.
So all the pots are planted and sitting pretty out there waiting to grow. The next morning though I find a whole bunch of the baby plants pulled out entirely, and some had all the leaves eaten off. So frustrating. So I put up a small fence not sure what type of animal it was. The next morning I come out again and more pots are ruined. So on the 4th of July James and I are out there putting a net over the top. We discovered that it was birds that were causing the damage. Did I mention that I hate birds!? Losing 50 pots out of 300 was hard to take. So the net has helped a lot but a bird or two seems to still find their way in sometimes. Plus it's hard to get to the pots now with a short net over the top....will have to raise it later.
Cutting with the leaves eaten off.
Here is the whole section that I lost.
And made some signs.
And we sat and waited! It was such a beautiful day out.
James' beloved hanging basket. If no one bought it on the last day, he was going to bring it home. A man bought it 10 minutes before we closed on Monday :) We were glad to sell it but James was in mourning a little :)
