The Iris

 The arrival of the Iris.

Early Season Flowers

It so early in the season when there really not much going on in the plant growers 

world. Tulips have got to be one of my favorite flowers that come in the early season.

 I have this love relationship with watching beautiful flowers grow.

 

Early Flowers

Sweet Peas

These climbing vines are a great flower for the cutting garden in the spring.
Learning to be a flower grower is always a challenge, but it is what gets me out
side early in the morning. 

This is a fairly new flower for me as I just started growing these last year.
Last year I grew a small amount of these, but my soil was not quite where it needed to be.
Working with the Kentucky soil has been a challenge but not nothing I can't handle.
 This year I am hoping for a larger amount of these stunning beauties.
 I have a couple of years working the soil. 
Some of the things that I have done to lighten up my soil is putting sand, peat moss,
manure, and straw consecutively for 3 years now.  
  Some of the books I have read about this cut flower is that it needs lots of organic matter and light soil is necessary.

When you get close to flower your first instinct is to smell the flower.
It is always a let down when the flowers are beautiful but have no scent.
 On this little piece of land we will strive to grow flowers that have a scent.

 These are supposed to be good choice of the early season cut flowers.  

The one thing that is going to give you a good root growth before
 you plant them outside is starting them inside weeks ahead of time.
You will want to soak the seeds overnight in a small amount of water.

 Of course don't forget to label the different kinds, you will not remember the next day.

Happy Growing!

January

In the beginning of the year you would think a gardener has nothing to do.  

Due to mild temperatures here in Kentucky it allowed me to continue working

outside off and on.
Plus, it allowed me to plant bulbs much later in the season than normal.

In the early part of fall I was digging up clumps of iris rhizomes and separated them

into new individual plants.  You just feel sorry for them when you find them all growing together.

Its like they are suffocating.  This was from an inspiring youtube British show on iris plants.

These are just a few of those jobs that are done in the fall.  Its actually just as a

busy time but just different than the normal growing season.

The other task was to combat the weeds that thought they were going to take over.
I have to tell you about a british gardener that I follow.

she put one up on getting rid of weeds.

Alys Fowler winter work

Love your Garden...in all seasons. 

Shasta Daisies

Shasta Daises 

These flowers I have always loved.

They are one of those white flowers you

just love, well I do anyway.

This is my first season for these plants.

I bought roots back in April and here we are in the
middle of summer and blooming. 

What kind of flowers are growing in your garden?

Flowers and more flowers

What are your favorite flowers in the summer?

Well I have a one I would like to mention.

Sunflowers

To me every garden should have just one of these stunning

yellow beauties.

Now you can direct seed them in your garden for a great burst

of color come this fall. 

There are so many types to choose from.  On our farm

we grow mostly branching types.  Which allows us to cut
from many different times during the blooming stages.

There are many different types

If you want to get to the flower before the birds do
cut them before the fully open.  This is the best time
to cut them for cut flowers.

For a continuous supply of flowers continue planting
throughout the summer.

Looking at the calender we have about 90 days left
in the growing season.

  More flowers to come.

Flowers on their way to market.

June

Rudebeckia Flowers

We are having some great color this summer.
This is the second season of these flowers, they seem
to get taller every year.
Nice and tall just what our customers like at the market.
 In early June we started taking fresh cut flower bouquets to Good Foods,
in Lexington. 

We get these as plugs in the spring and then in late summer
we will get the first flowers from that planting. The following
year we get plenty of seed that produces and more plants are produced.