December and January on the Farm

December was a month filled with relatively little farm work, which was fine with me because it was a COLD and snowy month! Between holiday gatherings and illness in our house, it was more a month of hanging on than getting stuff done. I finally installed some windows in our chicken coop—a project I’ve been meaning to do for at least 2 years now. I’m sure the chickens were very thankful given the many nights of single-digit temps we had in both December and January.   

The one flower-related thing I did in December was place the first part of my seed order.  I’ll probably place multiple orders over the next few months, but this one was comprised of all the cool season flowers that I will start first. I also attempted some farm planning by plotting out where each flower variety will go in the field and how many successions of each I will do. I’ve taken notes in the past, but this year I’ve committed to extensively tracking each thing I grow. I have a massive spreadsheet to (hopefully) contain all of the chaos. Talk to me in May when it all has to go in the ground and we will see how well all the data tracking actually goes. But I’ll start the year with good intentions and fail from there.   

January kicks off a flurry of seed starting—one of my favorite parts of flower farming! In the midst of a long, cold winter, it feels like a breath of fresh air to coax small, green seedlings into the world. It’s like a tangible piece of hope that warmth and sunshine will return and good things will grow again.

Seed starting is also a very redemptive process for our basement—a place that I can’t imagine would serve many other purposes well, unless of course you need a very low-budget setting for a horror movie. I kid-- somewhat. When you live in a farmhouse that is 100 years old, basement aesthetics just are what they are. Thankfully it stays a very consistent 55-60° during the winter, which is perfect for starting cool season flowers. And with little competition for other purposes, I have pretty much taken it over to function as a greenhouse.

Ranunculus starts ready to head out to the field in February

Most of what I start in January are varieties that either take forever to germinate (like eucalyptus and lisianthus) or that will handle cold weather well and can be transplanted out early in March. Thus far I have some snapdragons, rudbeckia, stock, canterbury bells, foxglove, and sweet peas getting started, with a whole slew of other things to come in February. This year and last year I’ve really homed in on the cool flowers method that Lisa Mason Ziegler is known for. If you want flowers that bloom as early as possible, I’d recommend giving her books Cool Flowers and The Cut Flower Handbook a read. Midwestern weather is perhaps more volatile than her experience on the east coast, but she provides very helpful guidelines for pushing the boundaries for early blooms. This is also the reason I have several varieties that were planted in the fall and have been overwintering in the field. Shockingly most look fine after some significant time spent in negative temperatures! The snapdragons look a little rough, but hopefully warmer temps in the next few weeks will revive them.

I’m really looking forward to this growing season. It feels like every year that my kids get bigger I’m able to accomplish more and have bigger dreams for the farm. I’m also so excited for the announcement that a local farm mercantile will be opening down the road from us later this year! It feels like some big things are happening locally and I am glad that it will be easier than ever to support small farms and their products.