Good morning and happy Friday. Today’s the second pop-up shop at West Coast Pops. I’m looking forward to seeing my subscribers today, my flowers are doing much better, lots of new things to add to the bouquets this week. Bells of Ireland, my very own snap dragons and some cute little purple flowers that came in the wild seed pack! I also picked Amaranth for the first time this season.

My Sweet Peas have me swimming in heavenly fragrance and beautiful color-so.many.sweet.peas!!!!! So much different than last year. You are probably getting so tired of hearing that phrase from me – but honestly, I had no idea it could be this much different!

I watched a YouTube speaker chat about why grow a garden – one of his reasons was to be more in tune with nature. I thought it was a ridiculous idea, I’m already in tune, but more specifically he chatted about weather & climate….I chatted about this a bit more last time I wrote about watching the weather so closely-but this gardening situation takes me even deeper into the weather and it’s mysteries of how it impacts my flowers. Putting things in the ground earlier, not having the proper nutrients in the soil, and the weather. How does one even plan for the weather, who knew that our weather would be so rainy and cold that it would slow the growth of so many things – and send out millions of slugs to kill my Zinnias? Speaking of which, I’ve barely mentioned, but indeed one of my entire row of 163 Zinnias has been stripped of their lower limbs, I have no idea if they will produce much or not, but I guess it will be a learning experience. And – believe it or not – against my better judgement of the situation – I actually broke down and seeded some Zinnia’s in the greenhouse….why you might ask….because I’m desperate to see color, but honestly, if summer never arrives, I won’t see that color from the Zinnia’s – they are heat lovers, not cool weather lovers, we aren’t supposed to get much above 70 all week….and the rain just keeps popping up on the weather forecast. One day this week we only got up to 56….at the end of June….56 is April/May weather.

Which could be the very exact reason that indeed – my cooler weather flowers are doing so well — Bells of Ireland, Sweet Peas, Snap Dragons, and Strawflowers, and my heat loving ones not so well – Basil, Zinnias and Salpiglossis. There is no way to plan for the weather, other than being sure to plant a good balance of each and not hang my hat on just one type of flower.

I can plan for the nutrients and the slug situation a bit better next year – every year is certainly a learning experience. And every year I’m sure there will be something that I feel is a failure, but in the end it will all work out just fine. My first summer at the farm was hot & smoky, wild fires all around, which put an interesting twist on growing much of anything, but I didn’t know much when I first arrived on the scene other than I knew I liked to garden and knew how to grow some things! My second year here-last year, was my first official cut flower garden. I’m just super thankful, that my first year as a cut flower farmer was such a success, and not as slow as this year.

I bought some lily’s, normally I wouldn’t buy them so late, and certainly not put them in so late, but the temperatures have been so mild I decided it would be a good investment for next year, and they certainly will give me some fun color this year to add to the subscriptions so it’s totally worth it. Even if I don’t do the flower fields next year, these lily’s will give me much joy for years to come – I’ve missed my lily’s from my previous life, so it was nice to replace them!

Have I mentioned the American Basket Flowers I found at a nursery a few weeks ago? They certainly are interesting, we will see how they progress with the weather, I’m hoping for an amazing show, but perhaps I better lower my expectations, going in with too high of expectations can lead to a very sad let down. They are an annual, but perhaps I can collect seeds if I don’t get too greedy when cutting them!

I decided to look back on my blog to see what was happening last year at this time, I was surprised to find that I didn’t post much my first year – it appears most likely because indeed I was super busy! I’ve blogged much more this year – often times not just about gardening….thanks for being tolerant of my wandering thoughts and for taking time to stop and read my blog! Have a fabulous, safe and happy Fourth of July weekend my friends.