Farm Update: Closing the Cutting Season Early

We’re wrapping up our flower season earlier than usual this year. As you know, I tweaked my back several weeks ago and haven’t been able to work in the field the way I normally would, and that came before the torrential rains we had in mid-August. The universe has impeccable comic timing and seems vastly amused by my plans.

Anyway, we had been dry and certainly needed rain, but we got far too much, far too quickly. By the time things dried out enough to really assess the field, there was plenty that needed attention, but my back made it difficult for me to catch up. I can water, cut a few flowers and arrange for a little while, but too much standing sends my back into spasms, so a lot of the work I would normally be doing simply hasn’t gotten done.

We also didn’t sow another succession after June. Normally I would have several more rows of zinnias and sunflowers coming into bloom about now and carrying us well into fall, but this year those beds will be cover cropped and allowed to rest. There are still plenty of flowers blooming, but without those later successions and with my limited ability to work in the field, it makes more sense to wind down our regular cutting season.

We did have a wedding and bouquet building workshop on the calendar for this past weekend, and thankfully our flowers were just stunning. We supplemented what we grew here at BloomSky with flowers from our friends at Sunny Meadows Flower Farm in Columbus, which gave us everything we needed to create the arrangements we had planned. One of the things I love about being part of Ohio’s local flower community is knowing other growers who can help fill the gaps when a particular variety, color or quantity isn’t available in our own field.

Now that the wedding is behind us, I’m becoming very stingy with what remains because I have a particularly special elopement coming up, and I am jealously guarding everything I think has even a remote chance of making it into those flowers.

That makes winding down a little different this year. I’m no longer walking the field thinking about what we can harvest for bouquets or what might be available the following week. Instead, I’m looking at every dahlia bud and wondering how long I can keep it going, watching the weather a little more closely than usual and hoping the first frost holds off long enough for the field to give me plenty to work with.

I have no idea exactly what will be blooming when I need it, which is part of the gamble of using locally grown flowers for a special event late in our Ohio growing season. I know what I hope will still be here, but the weather gets the final say. Whatever the field gives me, I’m going to have a lot of fun making something very special with it.

In the meantime, we’re starting to put the rest of the farm to bed. There are beds to clear and cover crops to sow, dahlias to deal with before winter and plenty of notes to make about what worked this year and what I want to change next year. Some of that will happen more slowly while my back heals, and I’m sure some of it won’t happen at all.

Our Hocking Hills flower season normally runs into October, so stopping our regular cutting in early September feels strange when there are still flowers blooming throughout the field. This year, though, I’m ready to let most of them stay where they are, partly for the bees and goldfinches, partly because my back needs the break and, if I’m being completely truthful, mostly because I have a very special elopement to hoard flowers for.