Spring in Bloom at PepperHarrow
It’s been a whirlwind here on the farm, with nearly every waking hour now spent planting, wedding, and sowing more seeds on repeat. We’ve had a welcomed unseasonably warm spring, which spurred us into planting action a little earlier than we typically plant, but because of the craziness with COVID-19, it was a happy reprieve to escape to the land and get our hands in the dirt.
The Flower Cottage
We blinged out the Flower Cottage with an extra special floral installation. This was inspiration from our time spent in London last spring, attending the Philippa Craddock Floral Design Workshop. Such a dreamy backdrop for Mother’s Day pictures and for couples visiting the farm.
We’ve been welcoming CSA members as well as people who pre-order bouquets, to the farm. We’re trying to control the number of people who come out, due to the virus, so this is our method for managing social distancing.
It’s been fun to engage with our amazing customers and to share our special slice of Heaven with them.
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Daffodils were prolific this year, especially from the new installation we put in last fall along the driveway, with all the special varieties I was so eager to see bloom. We had so many in fact, that we had to take a few to the nursing home to share with essential workers and residents. What a treat to get to share these special flowers with these special people!
Below is such an amazing capture by our dear friend, Beth Mensing of Pints by Beth. She captured our iconic Iowa Skies and rolling hills surrounding our gorgeous property. It absolutely takes my breath away!
Captured by Beth Mensing, Pints by Beth
Lily of the Valley is juuuust getting ready to stop blooming. It’s one of the MOST fragrant blooms we grow here on the farm and people were absolutely in love with it. It’s such a wonderful, old-fashioned flower with little florets that brings people back to so many happy memories. So much joy in such a tiny little bloom!
We tried a new color of anemone this year. Don’t get me wrong, we still LOVE the white, black centered anemone. It’s absolutely classic, but we wanted to try something new and our friends in California said that red was allll the rage, so we had to try to grow a few to see what the response would be here in the Midwest. Results are in: they’re a total hit! I guess it’s kind of a spoiler alert, because how can you NOT totally adore these gorgeous flowers?
Send me a separate note and let me know which color is your fave! The red one is shown to the right and the white, blacked centered is below. If you ad to pick, which bouquet would you go for?
Or, if there’s a color we didn’t grow this year, but you love, let us know that as well! We grew purple and hot pink in previous years and I kind of miss them!
Adam, shown below, was busy prepping the lavender for spring…okay, we actually had our teenage son help us get it prepped. After a day out in the field, Adam said his back just couldn’t take it any more. Who knew teenagers could be so helpful?! Ours doesn’t typically like to work on the farm, but since he didn’t get a job outside of the farm before C-19 hit, he’s totally stuck working for us. Work ethic is everything and if we left him to his own devices (haha!) he’d play video games all day. Are we alone here?
The lavender overwintered incredibly well! You can see it below, it’s totally healthy and starting to grow like crazy. We made an online educational video to show how we’ve successfully grown lavender as well as overwintered it. As many of you know, t’s not incredibly easy to grow lavender here, because of our harsh winters. It was fun putting together ALL of our tips and tricks to share! If you want to check it out, here’s the link:
https://onlinelearning.pepperharrowfarm.com/courses/growing-lavender-successfully-in-the-midwest
Look for a gorgeous field of purple late July through Mid-August as well as on-farm produced lavender products. I’m especially excited about lavender hydrosol and soap. Ahhhh….
