As come to the end of yet another year of flower farming, I want to take a minute to look back on all we accomplished in 2024. Won't you join me?...
January
January was all about planning for the 2024 year. Not only was I planning out the flower types, how many, and when for the flower field, but I was also planning for a new vegetable garden situation. After a lot of research, I settled on 2 new raised beds right beside my house. They are easy to access, get plenty of sunlight, and located near the water source for watering plants.
During this month, I was also pouring everything I knew about cutting gardens into my first ever e-book, The Busy Mom's Guide to Cutting Gardens. My goal with this workbook was to break it down into super easy to follow steps, while also giving you the knowledge you'd need to level up as you get more and more comfortable.
So many of you purchased the e-book and I've gotten a ton of great feedback. Thank you!!
February
February was unseasonably warm which was good for this spring-loving flower farmer. I was able to get the raised beds built and filled thanks to some tractor help from Layne. I transplanted pre-sprouted ranunculus out into the flower beds... anddd the rabbits ate them down to the nub. So, I also built some rabbit fencing in February. lol Hoping I've got the rabbits beat this year - fingers crossed!
The tulips and peonies popped up in February and for the first time in my life, or as far as I can remember, the earliest daffodils bloomed on February 27th!
March
March was a continuation of the warm Spring weather. I transplanted hundreds.... actually thousands of seedlings into the flower field. The peonies grew like wildfire!
And I added hundreds of new woody perennial shrubs to the farm in March - lilacs, ninebark, forsythia, to name a few. They thrived in the warm, wet weather that followed. Thankful for that.
April
April saw the ABSOLUTE earliest peony I've every harvested. She bloomed on April 16th. Previous record was April 27. Almost 10 days earlier - that's insane, seriously. My coral varieties all bloomed and were harvest prior to May!
We planted out the first half of the dahlias in late April. When the rains were forecasted to stack up for days and weeks, we tarped the dahlias and waited a few weeks to plant the other half. Dahlias are susceptible to rotting in wet soil, so it was worth it to wait on the portion that couldn't be tarped.
May
May, oh May. It was a busy one - though, it always it. It's a crossover of harvesting Spring flowers while also planting summer flowers, plus add in one of THE BIGGEST flower holidays of the year and wooofff!
But it was a GREAT one, dare I say "the BEST one"?! I can't even count how many bouquets, arrangements, and buckets of flowers left the farm in May. Between Spring and Summer subscriptions overlapping, Mother's Day arrangements, and wholesale orders - all while harvesting hundreds of peonies EACH day - it may go down as my most proud month in this business to date. Wouldn't be possible without you flower friends, and I am so grateful!
June
June was notable follow-up to May. I had the first blooms from some new-to-me varieties of flowers and I loved them even more than I expected. I mean, sure, I knew I like them... but I REALLY LIKED THEM. Forget-me-nots is the one that comes to mind. And you can expect to see them again in 2025 - and this time I am hoping to extend their blooming period because there is nothing like their incredible blue to pop in your arrangements!
July
Consider July the transition month. The Spring flowers are done by now and the warm season ones are just hitting their stride. July brought the celosia, zinnias, and everyone's favorite: dahlias.
July was also a busy month in our own lives. We went straight from 4th of July into the the county fair week. Ridley's country cured ham one Reserve Grand Champion and her other projects earned blue ribbons. Greta also did well with her projects, earning the green clover kids ribbon.
Later in the month we headed up to Indiana to visit my mom's side of the family in Valparaiso. We went up to Lake Michigan, hiked the dunes, and spent lots of time with my cousins. A good break before back to school and all the madness of August and September.
August
End of summer, whomp whomp. We spent lots of time at the lake and river before summer ended. The flower harvests continued - primarily filling the subscription bouquet orders along with farmstand flowers. The wholesale flower orders picked up again too as the weddings and events ramped up again as we headed into September.
September
September, a very close second to May as far as the best month to be on the flower farm. If May is the Queen for her peonies, we'll consider September the Princess for her dahlias. Each week dozens of dahlia-filled bouquets went out to our subscribers - the proverbial cherry on top as it marked the end of the subscription season.
Wholesale orders went out to central Missouri floral designers crafting their art for dozens of Fall weddings. It's a proud "flower mom" moment seeing my little flower babies incorporated into some of the most stunning bridal bouquets and floral arches. swoon
October
October was a bit of rollercoaster. Nothing bad! Just kind of all over the place in terms of flower activities - very diverse you could say. I launched Wreath Season 2024, delivered hundreds of flower stems to the wholesale market, designed my one and only wedding of 2024, and dug up 600 dahlia tubers. See what I mean? A mixed bag, for sure!
November
No flowers were harvested in November, sadly. Oh wait, scratch that. I did harvest a dozen stems of heirloom chrysanthemums I had grown purely as an experiment. I'm not sure I'll expand the mum production, but I did love having fresh flowers when everything else was dead and gone - so I'll probably keep growing them for my own enjoyment.
November's big headline, though, is WREATH SEASON. This year I consolidated wreath workshop into one big blowout weekend. 5 workshops in 3 days and it was AWESOME. Held at the stunning Kleffner Valley event center, it was a great way to kick off the holiday season. Wreath kits went out and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the Girls Night In pictures from those ladies.
December
And alas, December. Boy it went by in a hurry, didn't it? It seemed like we went directly from Thanksgiving to Christmas and now we're on the doorstep of 2025. Truthfully, not a lot of flower things happened in December. Sure, I did a little putsing around, but I really spent December focusing on the family.
We picked out our tree from the Christmas tree lot. We decorated, baked cookies, went to family holidays and school Christmas concerts. Of course we had the big holiday, and it was a great day with the kids and family. I'm writing this review with the glow of the Christmas tree beaming over my laptop.
Perhaps by the time you read this, I'll already have the decorations packed up until next year. It's always bittersweet - the end of the chapter. But there is joy in planning for what's to come.
As Audrey Hepburn once said, "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow". Cheers to 2025!
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