As usual, I become pretty silent in April. It is THE busiest month of the year. Well, maybe that busy-ness morphs into May… and then June…. Well, April SEEMS like the busiest! So many seeds to start and then seedlings to plant out. Then all of the tulips pop up en masse. Before you know it, it is crazy around here. To say I am in the thick of it is an understatement!

Here is some of what has happened: 1,700 Lisianthus were planted, along with 1,200 snapdragons. About 1,200 carnations are in the ground and several hundred Freesia are growing in crates of potting soil. 3,000 tulips have been pulled out of the ground and zinnias are about to be started. Tansies, dills, Queen Anne’s Lace, Corn cockle, pin cushion flower, several varieties of coleus (new for me) and so many more seedlings have sprouted and are planted. More holes have been burned in landscape fabric to allow for planting and growing with the fabric over the rows and the weeds underneath (for the most part). The Early Spring CSA Flower Share has started as have sales to my wonderful retail “partners.” New this year — very exciting- the Connecticut Flower Farmers have set up a Connecticut Grown Flowers Collective and we are together offering product to the wholesale market of designers and florists. There is definitely strength in numbers and our numbers are definitely growing! In January, as a matter of fact, I gave a full day workshop on the topic of Growing Cut Flowers to Connecticut farmers. We had 95 attendees! That is so, so, so, so very exciting. Slow Flowers. Field to Vase. What a nice direction. Today I was disbudding peonies. What does this mean? It means I was pinching off the little side buds so the stems I cut will have (for the most part) only one flower at the tip of the stem rather than several smaller flowers and one larger one. Also what it means is this — Peony season is coming soon! Can’t wait!

Butternut Gardens