The GREAT Tulip Harvest of 2023

The Great Tulip Harvest of 2023 at PepperHarrow Flower Farm is sure to go down in history as a remarkable achievement for our team. This year's harvest has been outstanding, with a bountiful crop of vibrant tulips that have delighted the senses and brought joy to all who have had the pleasure of experiencing them.

Growing in our indoor growing space, forcing our tulips through the coldest months, we took our first harvest of tulips for a special pop-up at Des Moines Mercantile at the beginning of April. It was amazing, and we were so humbled, to see the amount of local support for our local flower farm and small business! People came out in force to grab a tulip bouquet to add a sprinkle of joy to their day!

Below is a photo of how the bouquets turned out. We added a few sprigs of willow, which gave them an even prettier look. They sold out the quickest!

tulip Bouquets for pop-up at DSM Mercantile

Right behind out indoor grown tulips, the field grown tulips were ready about two weeks later. They ended up blooming about a week and a half earlier than we expected, because we had a few days in the 80’s (F). Way too warm for this time of year and it made them grow a little more quickly than they normally would have

Once we saw that a few of them were starting to show what we call ‘color crack’, we knew it was time to open our you-cut tulip bouquet experience to the public. It’s a popular on farm experience we get to offer in the spring for people to come out and pick their own tulip bouquet. As an extra benefit, we give them the option to take the bulbs home with them to plant as well. Everyone has an absolute blast!

We welcomed each guest and gave them the run down of how they can harvest tulips. Everyone loved idea of simply pulling them from the ground bulb and all, a fan favorite! There’s something pretty enjoyable about pulling tulips from the lose ground bulb and all!

Field grown tulips at pepperharrow flower farm for you-cut tulip bouquet experience

Once the you-cut tulip bouquet experience was over, we knew it was time to get ALL of the tulips out of the flower field as quickly as possible. The deer pressure is so incredible, we knew we couldn’t leave an ‘all you can eat skittle buffet’ for them. Lol!

When we were within an hour of our last guest arriving, we started pulling all of the tulips from the ground as quickly as possible. Two people = 2,000+ bulbs = 5 tractor loads of tulips into our cooler to give them nice chill time until we sell them in bouquets, which should happen over the next 2-3 weeks. It. Was. Incredible.

We stopped for a few minutes for Adam to capture this remarkable sight of one of our many tractor bucket harvests of tulips. It was a pretty cold night, but the sun was out and the sky looked incredible as the picture was being taken.

Tractor full of tulips harvested over the weekend

You can find these cheery, bold colors over the next few weeks at small retail shops of Des Moines Mercantile, Gateway Market, and for our appearance at the Des Moines’ Downtown Farmer’s Market over the next few weeks.

Reflecting on the Great Tulip Harvest of 2023, we’re left with a sense of pride and accomplishment. We’ve worked tirelessly to bring these beautiful flowers to life, and their hard work had paid off in spades.

For us, the success of this year's harvest was a testament to our love of tulips and our commitment to growing them. We are grateful to our customers for their support and appreciation of the farm's efforts.

Looking ahead to next year's harvest, the team at Pepperharrow Flower Farm is already planning and preparing for what promises to be another spectacular season. We are committed to continuing our tradition of excellence and to bringing the beauty and joy of tulips to as many people as possible.

Happy Growing!

XX Jenn and Adam

2022 PepperHarrow Holiday Style Guide

Home for the Holidays

a Guide to Easy Hosting and Decorating Tips

We love decorating for the holidays at the farm and love hosting family and friends this time of year. It’s our time of year to slow down, after a busy season of growing flowers. We have extra time to relax and hold our loved ones a little closer to us. Today, we want to give you some ideas for decorating your place for the holidays and some fun ideas for how to set your holiday table for hosting this year.

Simplicity

Simplicity is a word we love to use around the flower farm. Keeping everything simple helps with our sanity and helps remind us of what’s most important. Simplicity is best to forgo stress during this time of year when hosting family and friends. There’s no need to prepare gourmet meals for your loved ones. The main focus on this time of year is about getting together, celebrating thankfulness and spending quality time with those you hold most dear.

Adam’s most favorite easy dish we like to prepare for guests is a nod to his upbringing in Louisiana. Gumbo! It’s a favorite with our family and friends, who love this easy going, southern comfort food dish. Pair it with a little homemade cornbread and it’s hosting made easy! Scroll below for our gumbo recipe.

In a recent interview with NPR, Ina Garten also mirrored the concept of simplicity with cooking for the holidays, saying, "Make a simple meal and make it absolutely delicious. Your friends won't have any fun if you've spent the entire day baking. In fact, they'll have more fun if you're relaxed and happy."

Setting the Holiday Table

The flowers have gone around this time of year, so instead of using flowers to decorate our tablescape, we gather any remaining herbs, pumpkins, squashes, gourds, and include beautiful fruits we have around, like apples and dried oranges. Sprinkle in seasonal nuts in gold decorative dish to add an edible element.

My aunt told me, when I asked her for holiday decorating advice long ago, that adding candles always adds sparkle to holiday decorating no matter what. I definitely agreed, and candles have become my most favorite fall back to make our home or event space inviting and ready to receive guests. With candles, you can mix the colors of candles you use and you can also mix up the candlesticks you use to match the overall vibe you’re looking for with your decorating. I like to use brass or gold oftentimes with natural wood accents with dinnerware or serving bowls. The mix of organic elements with the elevated look of the gold/brass is striking.

Decorating Outside

Adding greenery garland, wreaths, bows, bells, twinkle lights, and other seasonal accents outdoors to celebrate the holidays is a great way to add a more festive vibe to the season. We love to decorate our front porch, Flower Cottage, and the barn event space where we host guests for holiday workshops here at the flower farm.

Holiday trends to be on the lookout for this year-

Using greenery and other organic elements, such as twigs, pinecones, and grasses! This is us every season, but it seems to be catching on in popularity. Grab a greenery swag or two and use them to frame out your doors, or a fresh greenery wreath for your front door. These natural elements add a lot to the holidays and often last an extremely long time, well beyond Valentine’s Day.

We also are totally in love with gold this year. Simple and stunning like what we said above, mixing the natural elements of the beautiful organic looking verdant greenery with the elevated shine of gold accents makes for a striking combination.

Color wise, we also love the look of burgundy, beige, gold, and other rust colored accents. We think this is a trend that is on point this year. You can even add a little pink to this beautiful color mix for a visually pleasing setup.

Another trend to be aware of this year is: everything houndstooth! It’s everywhere, out in force. We couldn’t find anything last year when we did our decorating and ended up using fabric to make our ribbons (shown below), but this year is very different. You can find houndstooth patterned ribbon, accent pillows, and other decorations with the pattern everywhere.

You can see some houndstooth examples and snag ribbon for bows here.

View fullsize

Flowers

Winter blooming flowers add a lot of cheer to the season. A favorite here are paper whites and amaryllis

Neutrals

Neutral, natural looking details add an extra hygge vibe to the holidays.

Simple satin ribbon and dried flowers is elegant and easy to add to any room for the holidays.

Ready for the Holidays!

We hope we’ve given you some quick, easy ideas for hosting and decorating your space for the 2022 holiday season. Whether you’re hosting a few, many, or visiting others, we hope that your holiday season is a wonderful one. Cherish each and every day and the ones around you!

XX Jenn and Adam

Adam’s Southern Comfort Gumbo Recipe

Ingredients:

3⁄4 cup olive oil
1 1⁄2 cups flour
1 cup onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 cups cut up andouille sausages
2 -3  lbs chicken, cut into small size parts, including gizzards

2 cans of crushed tomatoes
2 1⁄2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1⁄2 teaspoons louisiana hot sauce
2 1⁄2 teaspoons salt
4 cups water
4 cups sauterne white wine

1 tsp file powder

2 bay leaves

Directions:

In a stock pot, combine oil and flour on medium heat to make a roux. Stir the mixture constantly and slowly until it browns.

When the mixture reaches a nice golden brown color, add the onion and cook ‘til clear.

Add garlic and whisk in 4 cups of water.

Stir in the Worcestershire, crushed tomatoes, hot sauce, and sausage.

Add chicken.

Add 4 cups of Sauterne wine, salt, and file.

Add bay leaves to top.

Simmer for 1 1/2 hour, let cool, and place in fridge overnight.

Next day, bring to a boil and turn down heat and simmer for 1 hour. (It’s better served the next day)

Serve over warm rice with a side of cornbread.

Inspired by Adam’s cooking hero, Justin Wilson!

PepperHarrow's 10 Year Anniversary!

IT’S BEEN A WONDERFUL 10 YEARS ON THE FLOWER FARM.

We’ve had so many success and failures over the last 10 years. It’s been full of learning and growing - of our land, flowers, and most importantly, in ourselves and our relationship. At times it hasn’t been an easy endeavor, but the reward of owning our own business, creating success, and growing the most gorgeous local flowers in Central Iowa has been worth all of it 1000X over.

Cute Celebratory Boards by @CakeDSM

Celebrating 10 years of owning a small business is pretty surreal. We high-fived, and celebrated this huge milestone, but we also found ourselves completely taken aback that it had been 10 years. It’s funny how the years seem to blend together and how 10 years ago almost feels like a yesterday.

We celebrated our special night with over 125 of our most favorite customers, they are the folks that have supported us and enabled us to hit this huge milestone. It’s with their support, encouragement, and love of our small business that has helped us build our dream into a reality! Okay, totally gushing over our customers, but y’all get the point. They’re the most wonderful peeps and have treated us so well over the years. Because of this, we treated everyone who came out to complimentary food, beverages, ice cream, and of course FLOWER BOUQUETS!

Yep, that’s right! We sent them out into our flower fields to cut their own bouquets to take home as a small token of our appreciation for them. It was the absolute BEST to see everyone enjoy themselves so much and to also see the beautiful bouquets they created. It was a hit with our Friends of PepperHarrow and something we’d like to treat our best customers to every few years.

Photo Courtesy of CakeDSM

Our 10 year anniversary celebration was not only to celebrate the farm, but we also held it in support of our local Madison County Conservation, who is building a new conservation center at Pammel Park. If you missed out on the opportunity to contribute, you can do so by scanning the PayPal QR code, below to make a donation. Or, you can send payments on PayPal via email address to: naturalist@madisoncountyparks.org

All proceeds will go directly to the conservation center as well as other nature enrichment activities for an outdoor classroom space. Next time you visit Madison County, check out some our treasured parks. You can get a list of them here.

Thank you so much for helping us celebrate 10 years and here’s to another wonderful 10 years of success to come! We can’t wait to share more of our flower farming journey with all of you, as well as more exciting announcements to come.

XX Jenn and Adam