Pulling Up Spring, Making Room for Summer
Right now on the farm, it feels as though two seasons are sharing the same field.
One bed is overflowing with flowers while the next has already been turned over, the soil dark and empty from pulling plants. It isn't the prettiest time of year, but it might be the most interesting. Everywhere you look, one season is ending while another is quietly taking its place.
A week ago or so we started with the ranunculus. As the heat rolls in, the foliage begins to yellow and die back. It's time to pull them and make room for the crop replacing them.
We spent a day pulling corms from the beds that only a few weeks ago were filled with layer upon layer of blooms. The flowers are gone now, but I can still picture the vibrancy of the colors and the almost unbelievable perfection of them. Every year I'm surprised by how quickly it happens. One day the field is full and the next you're carrying buckets of corms instead of flowers.
A few rows over, the anemones have finished too. Their dark centers and crisp petals always make them feel almost illustrated compared to the softer flowers around them. They never stay long enough. This year ours did particularly well and so I'm eager to see how well they produce next spring.
The campanula were showstoppers this year—we had buckets and buckets—but they too were just cut down. I decided to sow sunflowers right between the rows of the once-tall pink and white bells. I'm curious to see if we get nice side blooms later in the season when it cools back down, but if not, that's fine too. Cutting them back will create a bit of cover for the emerging sunflower seedlings so that (fingers crossed) they don't all get eaten by critters.
The delphinium won't be far behind. Once the heat settles in, they'll take a break and go into a form of dormancy until the cooler fall weather returns. We'll miss that clear blue in the field but hope to see a nice flush again come September and October.
I'm saying "until next year" to our peonies, feverfew, veronica and so many more of our spring staples. But as spring quietly slips away, summer has begun to arrive.
The first dahlias have started opening, just one bloom here and there on plants that still have a lot of growing left to do. Seeing those first flowers feels like crossing an invisible line into a new season. Of course, the bunnies have decided dahlias are tasty, which really surprised me. We've protected them with hastily thrown together cages until they get tall enough to withstand occasional munching.
Snapdragons are replacing the ranunculus, and sunflowers are stepping in where the campanula once stood. The rest of the field is filled with zinnias, celosia, hydrangea and my personal favorite, lisianthus.
To anyone visiting now, the fields are very underwhelming. But soon they'll be filled with the vibrant colors of summer and flowers that will carry us through the heat of July and well into autumn.
One of the things flower farming has taught me is that it's a constant act of reimagining. You're always standing in one season while planting for the next, bridging what is with what you hope will be. Maybe that's why I love it so much. The field is never the same twice.
