Our Chewy order finally arrived! Because one of our neighbors happened to be at the end of our road when it was delivered, he loaded it up in his truck and had it at our doorstep before we could respond to the notification that it was left there. It was obvious that the food had taken a few round trips in our end of the world, as there were some pretty dented cans of friskies in that mix, but we have food for the cats and the ducks for the foreseeable future.

We went to a mushroom log inoculation class through our local extension office. Let me tell yas, the food was great and the information was outstanding. We came home with two logs newly inoculated with shiitake mushrooms. Bucket list item achieved. No lie, we have been wanting to do this forever. If you don’t already, make sure to make at least one trip to your local agricultural extension office to at least make sure you are signed up for notifications about upcoming classes. Our involvement in our office has been amazing. The Fleming County Extension office is where we got plugged into our farmers market when we moved here. Since then we have purchased strawberry, asparagus, and sweet potato starts at a reduced price.

You get notified about all of the cool classes too- cheese making, fruit tree grafting, mushroom inoculation, holiday wreath making, and craft classes to name a few. Some classes are a few dollars and some are free. Don’t miss out. If you are not sure how to get in touch with your office, let us know and we will help you figure it out.

A major goal for this year was to have some standard design prices ironed out and posted on the website (here) so we don’t feel like were starting from scratch every time we are asked to make arrangements for an event. We have done a few over the years and each one has turned out amazing. There was an inquiry this week for some arrangements for a cool Valentine’s Day dinner so it moved the issue to the top of the list. I used a lifeline to another farmer for some guidance and did some flower math. Now, we have a concrete list of pricing to refer customers to! I think I might mock-up an order form to post also, but for now this is an incredible tool for everyone involved.

It is mostly for vase rentals with our style of design, where you can choose the size arrangement you would like. We fill it with our styled flowers and collect the vases when your event is finished. We also listed prices for dried bouquets and boutonnieres and our amazing new to us floral ring (it is a chandelier, not yet hung up, but also beautiful upright and designed as a backdrop). We use what is in season and grown here on the farm. Each arrangement is definitely one-of-a-kind.

The Flower Studio project continues. If I am being honest, it might never end. Home improvement is right up there with flower farming as far as passions go, so why not just keep the momentum going? We have been painting walls and vacuuming carpet free flooring. We even picked up one of those flooring kits to borrow from the neighbors in order to cut some of the floor pieces we are going to try to install in the seed starting room. It is that Pergo brand tongue and groove stuff. We bought it years ago to use for an a-frame cabin we built in Indiana several months before moving here.

We got things in pretty good order just in time to host a person from Organic Association of Kentucky (OAK). Soooooo…we have big plans for our cultivated flower field after she left! We are about to remodel it all and are super stoked. The biggest recommendation from the rep was to change our horseshoe beds into rows. We will be constructing about 20, 30×2.5 foot beds at 2 foot spacing, which will more than double our production space. All without even expanding to a new growing area. It will all fit in to our existing cultivated bed space! Additionally, we picked up a couple of bags of Promix, a hose timer and a few more grow lights for seed starting this week so we can get that space into full-ish production for the coming season.

It is going to be a huge undertaking but I think we can do it. The parts of the rows (some rows might just end up being expanded, depending on where they lay today) that are going to be new this spring will be cover cropped immediately and left to rest until next season. We are brainstorming a volunteer day to help get a few of the new or expanded beds mapped out and prepped in time to be planed into this spring. Feel free to let us know if you are interested. You would not believe how one or two extra people can help move a project forward exponentially. Regardless, keep an eye out on your email as we will likely announce a date here for anyone who wants to help out. We can at least feed you if you choose to come help on one of those days and hopefully you leave feeling like you learned something.

Enjoy some pictures of what the farm looked like a few years ago. I just love a crazy transformation and am excited to see what it looks like this coming summer. Anyhow, it was a busy week in spite of the continued snow. Hope you are all well and dreaming of more sunshine. We are right there with you. Promise.