It was brought to my attention that I stated I finished a 9 inch row in my last blog – which to some may have seemed odd – 9 inches is a rather short row after all, what is there to celebrate!?

When I say a 9 inch row, or a 12 inch row, it is referring to the spacing grid of the flowers, not the length of the row. There are certain flowers that do best at 9 inches, this makes it so they are closer together, and forces them to rise up higher to reach the light, making their stems longer, making them more desirable to put into market bouquets, sell to florists and put in arrangements. Some flowers really like this spacing-Zinnias often times reaching 4 feet tall, Strawflowers mine were five feet tall last year, and Goditias, which were two feet tall last year!

The reason for the 12 inch spacing is the fact that many of those are branching flowers/plants and need a bit more room to grow their branches. Bells of Ireland-mine were very full last year, as well as the Amaretto Basil that is very popular due to it’s burgundy coloring, purple flowers and amazing smell!

My rows are 4 feet wide, and 25 feet long, this gives me room for 163 flowers in a 9 inch grid, and 100 in a 12 inch grid. It’s helpful that it’s 4 feet wide-because that is exactly how wide the weed blocking fabric is and it works great to harvest from both sides of the row. I thought I would only do 7 rows this year….but it might be 9!? We’ll see as time marches on!

We had a great rain yesterday, it was much needed to help those little guys get established! I’m hoping to get out in the field today and pop in the Lisianthus and Strawflowers, but alas, I’m also trying to work from home, and deal with mom’s health stuff….so I need to focus on that first, then….play!

Hope your week is coming to a gentle close, until next time, stay happy and healthy, hugs to you and yours.