Category: Flowers - Page 3

Broccoli flowers (flashback!)

5 Jun 20267 Dec 2007 by Mike (tfb)

No real farming action today, but here’s an alternate entry from 2-Oct-2007—never let a perfectly serviceable post go to waste!: On my way to seed saving, I tend to let things go to seed! Here, the secondary shoots in a bed of Early Dividend broccoli have exploded, the tiny green beads turning into a gently rolling sea of miniature flowers on long thin stems. Unfortunately, the eventual seed from this hybrid variety wouldn’t be reliable…but it’s a step in the right direction! Also going to seed around the field: lettuce, radish, cauliflower… There’s some cleaning up to do. :)

Update: As mentioned in the comments below, these little guys are delicious as edible flowers, slightly sweet, tasting mildly of broccoli. We take them to market to offer as a free garnish for salad mix.

Zinnia vs calendula

3 Mar 200930 Oct 2007 by Mike (tfb)

A vibrant slash of orange and yellow—the half-row of calendula seemed to be fairly unfazed by the recent blast of sub-zero cold, where the zinnias didn’t do so well. Another bit of first-hand frost experience to file away. Elsewhere in the flower test plot, the very few centaurea and asters seem to be kinda OK, still holding color. Otherwise, it’s all terminal shades of brown.

Flower garden

21 Oct 20078 Oct 2007 by Mike (tfb)

With all of the recent rain and warm weather, the trial flower patch has bounced back, well, as best it could, half of it having been overrun by pigweed, and the rest starved by three months of near drought. It’s the most striking part of the entire market garden right now, elsewhere it’s mostly duller shades of green under the lately mainly cloudy skies… The lavatera (pink) came along recently, to join the fine showing of zinnias, calendula and cosmos (a couple are poking into the pic at the top left). I’ve also found a few asters, centaurea, and the gypsophilia that came out in August is still around. And there are a few strange scabiosa (Ping Pong variety) as well. (This pic is about 10′ x 10′ at the end of a 50′ x 15′ bed.) I’m quite liking this, although I dunno how much I learned: to successfully grow cutting flowers, remember to weed and water…?!

Jerusalem artichoke flowers

2 Sep 20087 Oct 2007 by Mike (tfb)

Sometime over the last few days, the Jerusalem artichoke have started to produce pretty yellow flowers. That’s interesting. Without all this warm, way-past-normal- frost-date weather, what would they have done? They did go in a little late… And why do they look so…familiar? A couple of minutes online and it’s apparent that flowering is optional, largely dependant on location and conditions. And, no wonder, they—Helianthus tuberosus, aka sunchoke, sunroot, topinambour—are close relatives of the majestic sunflower (Helianthus annuus). Small world…

Cup of flowers

26 Sep 20073 Sep 2007 by Mike (tfb)

Zinnias, calendula and cosmos, randomly selected, snipped short and stuck in a coffee mug… Who can resist? There’s more time in September days to…contemplate, begin going over what worked out and what didn’t during the year. Like, flowers. I dunno why I’ve put them second to veggies. Maybe it was my annoying experience with gladiolas in Year 1, three or four hundred, all flowering at once, with no time to cut ’em all and nowhere for them to go (the farmers’ market is full of flowers!). And then, digging up and separating and storing the corms… It seemed like a total distraction from the veggies. No further flower action until the tiny, largely ignored cut flower trial this year, when I finally tried more variety and the obvious was revealed to me: cut flowers are a bona fide part of any self-respecting market garden (at least, of this one!). Harvesting even a ragged fistful of flowers is another simple, profound pleasure I shouldn’t be missing. Here’s to next year…!

Sunflowers, cut flowers…

27 Sep 200725 Aug 2007 by Mike (tfb)

From flowers on my my mind back in the planning days of April, the results have been no better than middling. Germination was fine for all the many varieties, and we’ve had a sprinkling of gypsophilia, calendula, zinnias, cosmos and more over the last month, with a strong showing by all of the sunflowers. Overall, though, the cut flower bed was at the bottom of the watering and weeding list and, of course, pigweed reigned. So there’s been no real cutting involved, the flowers are simply taking their course, a good trial run for next year, and a splash of color every once in a while in the corner of my eye. The Claret sunflowers (pictured) are particularly striking, even as they age and decline…

Sunflowers show up!

7 Mar 201621 Jul 2007 by Mike (tfb)

The first few sunflowers are unfolding, this one’s from the Go Bananas! mix (there are also burgundy Claret and familiar orange Sunrich). It’s a little bitten and tattered—the rough and ready look!—but a welcome sight nonetheless. The cutflower garden‘s received very little attention since seeding, and only maybe half have flourished in spite of lack of water and a fairly weeded-over state. The flower test plan included minimal care (which is what they got), so I’m not disappointed, although it’s always nice when crops take care of themselves (this doesn’t happen often enough :)! Anyhow, we should have at least a couple of hundred fair sized sunflowers, and some others, all headed for the CSA shares. I hope the zinnias do well!