2017
The start of our FIRST season growing local, seasonal cut flowers!
Spring started with the completion of the outhouse and plans to start our gardens. We tilled 10 4’x20’ beds, a pumpkin patch and perennial garden. At the end of May the gardens were direct seeded. Then the War of the Weeds began! I started taking Wednesdays #farmwednesday off of work to spend at the farm and for the first few months EVERY Wednesday was spent WEEDING. Watering came in the form of a 5 gallon Home Depot Bucket from the pond into a watering can on repeat. Finally mid summer we got smart and filled a cube so that I could fill the watering can directly - game changer! We started planting the perennial bed and adding trees throughout the property.
In August we were finally able to start harvesting buckets of blooms. We were supported by our friends, family and colleagues and attended our first pop up shops and the White Barn Market. We purchased our first tractor and built our first greenhouse - which tragically was lost in a wind storm in October.
In September I started the Master Gardener Program at the University of Alberta Botanic Gardens and my 90 year old Oma was able to make it out to the farm and arrange flowers together. We hosted Sweet Jolie to shoot their Fall Clothing Collection and didn’t lose the flowers to frost until October 7th. We then began planting just over 1000 tulip and narcissus and hundreds of other fall bulbs. We carved our own pumpkins for Halloween (was not a successful season for pumpkins) and dried some flowers for winter projects.
It was a very successful first season. Our dreams were coming true!
