First Day of Autumn
Today is the first day of Autumn, wow, where as the year gone. It seems that we were just planting seeds for this season and now the harvest is slowing down. Light levels are shortening and the shadows from the occasional sun are lengthening. The rain is falling and the fields are turning back to green. Very soon the leaves will start turning golden and brown and the flower season will be over. But the work will not be done yet....
A box of anemone and ranunculus corms have arrived and the anemones are already in the pre-sprout stage with the ranunculus up next. We rinse them in a slow drip bucket of water till they puff up, hang them to dry a bit and then pack them up for a pre-sprout. By the first of October they will go into a hoop house for the winter. Hoping for anemones by Valentine's Day and ranunculus in March.
We have been busy bumping up seedlings of perennials and biennials to go into the hoop houses and low tunnels for early flowers next season.
We have been cover cropping and amending the soil as flowers decline and rows of flowers are removed. Mineralizing the soil is going to be very important this fall and next year to increase productivity of our flowers. Demand for flowers is really requiring us to step up and produce more.
Tony is working on another project to help improve our soil. Not all the parts are here yet, but when he has it up and running, we will talk all about the gizmo.
For now it is all about harvesting and selling at the market and to designers.
That old September feeling... of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air.... Another Fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes and failures had been wiped clean by summer. ~Wallace Stegner
I love that zinnia arrangment. How exciting more flowers!
ReplyDeleteHi Denise,
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of work. That's why your flowers are so beautiful.
Christa