It is hard to beat October in Columbia. Especially this year, after the heat seemed to hang on much longer than usual. We’re especially happy that the humidity has dropped, the temperatures are so pleasant and we can work at a much better pace.

Dahlia Mr. Franz. The organza bags keep the bugs from damaging the blooms.

Fall is a busy time on the farm. We’re harvesting the dahlias (finally!), and we’re getting the first of the chrysanthemums blooming as well. These crops will make up the majority of what we have available between now and first frost, typically at the end of October or early November. We may have an abundance of blooms over the next few weeks, so keep an eye on our social media and newsletter for possible pop-up sales!

Our chrysanthemum house is on the verge of blooming

We’re also busy preparing all the beds for our spring crops—taking soil tests, applying needed amendments and making irrigation repairs. This year, that included replacing an irrigation controller damaged by lightning, along with several valves. We’ll be planting all our overwintering crops by mid-November so that we can provide beautiful flowers as early as possible next spring.

Rufus and I getting ready to pull the new plastic over the hoops.

In addition, we’re wrapping up our hoop house soil rejuvenation project (pun intended!). This past spring, we removed the plastic from our original hoop house and left the beds open to the weather. Instead of planting production crops, we planted cover crops to feed and improve the soil. The soil tests at the end of this process looked great. We’ve now put fresh plastic on the hoop house, and it is ready for fall planting.

It is hard to take that much growing space out of production on our small farm, but it is critical to the sustainability of the farm and the long-term health of our soil. We’ll continue rotating other beds out of production periodically to maintain healthy, productive growing areas.

For those of you who grow your own cutting garden, fall is an important season for you, too. Now is the time to prepare your beds and plant for spring.

We have anemone and ranunculus corms available in our online shop if you’d like to grow a few of these beauties at home next spring. These are the same varieties we grow for our Early Spring subscriptions and for our florist customers.

Grow one or grow both (like we do). But grow something for early spring blooms. Your future self will love you for it.

You’ll also find our dried flower confetti in the Fall Shop. It’s made from flowers grown, harvested and dried here on the farm—a pretty, natural option for weddings, celebrations and other special occasions.

Check Out our Fall Shop

And we still have one more seasonal offering coming this year: amaryllis. We were able to get the very largest bulbs again this year, in a beautiful selection of varieties. They’ll be available beginning in mid-November, just in time for holiday growing and gifting. More on those soon.

We’ll also be sharing details about our 2027 Early Spring bouquet subscriptions as we get closer to the new year. In the meantime, there is plenty happening on the farm this fall.

Thank you so much for your continued support and enthusiasm for our little flower farm. We love making locally grown flowers available to our community, and we hope they bring a little joy to your home, too.

Happy Fall Y’all,

Linda