Bad Blogger=Better (flower) Farmer?

Like the fate of my china asters, sweet Peas, safflowers, orange zinnias and lupine, Pistil Farm’s 2009 blog experienced a season of slow growth and well, eventual decay. It’s comforting that my troubles arose within the “worst farming season on record”, but not so much that I ever felt up to blogging my way through them. Of course for my “friends”, there’s been the occasional Facebook status update, such as “fungus and death”; “blight killed all of our tomatoes”; “how will I get through the next 3 weeks”, and repeats of “rain, rain, go away!”, but these 140 character exclamations were about all I could handle. And really, who really wants to know the travails of a beginning flower farmer? Flowers are supposed to brighten people’s day and apartment. End of story.

This is only to say that an update and THANK YOU to everyone who supported me this season are overdue.

In the case of the update, Pistil Farm got through! Despite downpours on 9 out of the 10 Friday harvests, mosquitoes up-the-nose, fungus + disease + other unsightly, rain-enduced terribleness, bouquets were delivered into the hands of 36 flower-loving urbanites for 10 weeks. And THANK YOU to each and every one of them. In addition, it was to my great delight that the good people of Tivoli became Pistil Farm fans. Building on decades of the flower-selling tradition of Alice and Pete Bulkeley, I sold a surprising number of bouquets by the roadside. It was a particular joy that I was able to serve my community in addition to city residents. Pistil Farm also donated flowers to Transportation Alternatives summer benefit and grew flowers for a special wedding ceremony. In all its crazy turns, this season was a wonderful adventure that helped me understand the very basics of running a business and growing flowers organically.

Next season will be better. Guaranteed. Growing on land as flat as the fabled “Plain City” and drained (much) better than the New York City Subway system, my fields will certainly produce healthy flowers of every shape and color.  For customers, this good land will translate into more variety, color and interest in the weekly share. I’ll still be growing annuals, but with smarter growing practices and improved land, Pistil Farm will be able to maintain varieties that either didn’t bloom or suffered disease this season because of intolerably wet conditions.

To begin planning for this season ahead, I’d be extremely grateful if this year’s shareholders could fill out a super-quick online survey here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=wbKWIq_2fty9EPia8W2TkDxw_3d_3d

Lastly, I would be very appreciative of any photos you might have of your Pistil Farm flowers at the CSA site, en route to your apartment or at your apartment. I began a flower photo contest a month ago and I’ve received very few entries. The winner will receive delicious homemade cookies. These photos will be a tremendous help as I try to sell more shares next season and make Pistil Farm a viable business.

Thank you again for your support in 2009 and I look forward to growing for you in 2010! Please feel free to email me anytime at pistilfarm@gmail.com.

-Lindsey

Back in the saddle

After a brief hiatus spurred by a very broken computer, torrential rain and {work, farm, work}, I’m back to tending the blog. I hope it gives you some comfort to know that I care much more about growing you beautiful flowers than writing my thoughts on growing those flowers!

And speaking of some beautiful flowers…the peonies bloomed!

I love blogging, I'm just busy starting a farm

More to come soon…3 posts in the works, flower share update + directions on special orders!

I love blogging, I’m just busy starting a farm

More to come soon…3 posts in the works, flower share update + directions on special orders!

A good start.

And they're off!

As my starts are coming in for the season, I thought to take a few minutes and tell you where they all started from!

Most of my seedlings were grown my friend Briana Davis at the Greene Bee greenhouse. Briana was the founder of Hearty Roots Community Farm, but has since moved on to focus on gardening. Briana has been the local garden expert at Phantom Gardener over the last few years and now grows many of the starts that are sold at Phantom Gardener. 

All of Briana’s plants are organically grown, well-loved and impeccably cared for. 

I will also order plants from Markristo Farm this year. Markristo is a family farm in the area and all their starts are organically grown. 

I’ve decided to order a bunch of interesting varieties from both Briana and Markristo. Updates soon!

It's a Dog and Sheep Show

Check out today’s farm visitor, Blackjack the Lamb! He was on special loan from Owen and KayCee from Awesome Farm. The poor guy wasn’t being fed by his mom and is now being bottle fed, tirelessly pampered and given lots of vacation time at Pistil Farm. 

It’s a Dog and Sheep Show

Check out today’s farm visitor, Blackjack the Lamb! He was on special loan from Owen and KayCee from Awesome Farm. The poor guy wasn’t being fed by his mom and is now being bottle fed, tirelessly pampered and given lots of vacation time at Pistil Farm. 

Farming is, like, hard work.

B.R. insists that I should not write this post, after all “no one is going to take you seriously if they think you’ve never farmed a day in your life!” But let’s be honest here, I haven’t. And this really isn’t a surprise, right?  I’ve sure helped a lot on Hearty Roots Community Farm for the past 4 years, and I have done a lot of community gardening, but the feeling of responsibility of running a farming operation–no matter how small–along with the exhaustion that naturally goes along with it,  is really more tiring than I had anticipated. 

Of course, I do realize that it’s spring and my 30 year old self needs some time to adjust.

Starts + Bandits + LL(S)

 

I promise you blog readers (my mother, and possibly some cousins), this is my last post to complain. But before it ends, I must divulge an amazingly stupid thing I did.

Today, I put in 3 beds with black plastic and drip tape. There are mixed feelings out in the organic world about black plastic, but it is really the most practical approach for me to deal with weed pressure. In any case, I put down drip tape (for irrigation) and then the plastic. The plastic was laid by hand–me holding it in place and BR hand digging dirt on top of it.  

After the plastic was laid, I went down the row, cut holes in the plastic with a weeding spade and dropped the seedlings in the ground.

After 300 plants were in their respective homes, BR helped me hook up the irrigation. When all was in place, we turned on the water and looked over at the beds and there were fountains of water spewing full blast up from the drip tape into the air! (The water is supposed to be dripping ever-so-slowly by the plants’ roots).

After closer inspection, we realized that when I was dropping the seedlings into their holes with my fancy-pants weeding spade, I cut giant holes in the drip tape. In all, I made about 20 holes in the tape, rendering the drip tape useless because it needs pressure to work.  

Pro-farmer, BR, went and grabbed some electrical tape and we spent another 30 minutes mending the poor, poor drip tape. Thank you, BR!

Wrapping up what I promise to be my last complaints of the season! (online).

To bed!

Peas are up! (whew).

Here they are.

Direct seeding flowers is a leap of faith; direct seeding and expecting something will come up and someone will pay for it, is crazy.

Because I don’t have a greenhouse and I am trying to direct seed anything I can, I’ve been finding myself in a low state of panic wondering when my seeds will and if my seeds will ever see the day of light. But just this week, my worries were somewhat put to rest as my first batch of sweet peas slowly peeked above the soil. 

Bandits loves sweet peas.

The sweet peas were planted about a two weeks ago and are in 3 varieties: Cupani, Knee High & Black Knight. They’ll need to be trellised in a month or so and will be ready in late June.

We have monks to thank for the modern sweet pea. Sweet peas originated in Sicily and Southern Italy and they were originally grown for their sweet fragrance. One of the varieties that I’m growing, the Cupani sweet pea, is said to be closest to the wild ancestor. This sweet pea is named for Francisco Cupani, who recorded the sweet pea in 1695.

Pistil Farm Flower Share 2009

Here’s a few of the flowers from Pistil Farm’s 2009 flower share:

Moulin Rouge Sunflower

Pro-cut Yellow-lite Sunflower

Rocket Mix Snapdragon

Blue Salvia

Sundance Kid Sunflower

Sweet Peas

Zebulon Sunflower

Zinnias

Belladonna Delphinium

Chinese Aster

Green Gold

Ocean PearlsTall blue planet Ageratum

Love-in-a-mist

Firecracker Sunflower

Rudbekia

Chantilly Snap Dragon

Tall blue planet Ageratum