December at the Farm: Preparing for a New Flower Year

Even though the days are short, there’s a surprising amount happening on the farm right now. We’ve direct-sown a lot of seed for our Early Spring Subscriptions, and everything is tucked under frost cloth to protect it during those below-freezing nights. This includes cool-season favorites like nigella, larkspur, anemone, and orlaya.

Direct Seeded Beds

Cress waiting to be thinned

This week we checked germination (thank you, rain—you delivered!) and raised the covers with hoops so the wet cloth isn’t resting on the seedlings during freezes. If the cloth touches the plants, they lose their insulation and can freeze—one of those small winter details that makes all the difference.

Inside the Hoophouse

Poppies (lower part of the bed, not blooming) and pansies (mostly blooming) in the hoop house

Inside the hoop house, things look especially cheerful: ranunculus, canterbury bells, delphinium, snapdragons, poppies, and pansies. Everything is covered except the poppies and pansies, and I appreciate both of these crops in winter because I can see them without lifting fabric.

Poppies hail from Iceland, so a brush with freezing temperatures doesn’t bother them. We grow them in the hoop house so that once the blooms begin, the petals stay pristine. As temperatures rise in late winter, we switch to shade cloth to help keep them cool.

And then there are the pansies and violas—my absolute favorite winter crop. They bloom quickly, keep blooming all winter long, and bring so much joy to the hoop house during the quieter months. We deadhead them regularly so they don’t go to seed. They stay fairly short until the days reach 12 hours of light; then they gradually elongate, and by May they’re long enough to use in bouquets.

We start some pansies from seed and also buy some as small plants called plugs. Not all pansy varieties stretch tall enough for cutting—most breeding has focused on short bedding plants. There are seed varieties that elongate well, and hopefully in time we’ll see those available as plugs from local nurseries. If you’d like to dig deeper, I highly recommend Pansies by flower farmer and author Brenna Estrada; her variety trials are incredibly helpful for anyone wanting to grow pansies for floral design.

More Winter Work

Weeding e.g. removing the henbit (red x) so that the larkspur can grow.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be weeding and preparing additional beds for early spring planting. Winter is also when we handle the repairs that get pushed aside during the busy season—mending raised beds, fixing infrastructure, and taking care of the small-but-important tasks that keep the farm running smoothly.

We’ll also be digging and dividing our dahlias and getting them ready for next season. We’ll have some available for sale in the spring, and they’re always a popular choice for gardeners eager to grow their own blooms.

Holiday Blooms

If you still need a last-minute amaryllis or some paperwhites, please check the website. We have a few left, along with bundles of greens to help “deck the halls.” Thank you to everyone who has purchased bulbs this year—your support helps us keep our team on payroll through the winter months, when so much of the behind-the-scenes work is happening quietly and won’t really show itself until spring.

We are there on Thursday this week and Monday and Thursday of next week for pick up . We can deliver on Friday this week and Tuesday next week. After that we will be doing our own holiday preparations!