Important dates:
April 1, 2026: Monthly giveaway winner drawing. Here is a picture of our February prize that we mailed to a subscriber in Texas!
April 25th, 2026: Third Annual Earth Day Celebration at Loving Farm! Mark your calendars. We will be having a day filled with fun and music, food and makers!
May 17th 2026: The Wildwood Faire at Talon Winery and Vineyards in Lexington, Kentucky. We will be there hosting flower crown workshops.
September 3, 2026: OAK Field Day at Loving Farm where we will be talking about the development of a filter strip along the railroad track. More info to come!
Dear Flowerers,
It has been a lovely week at the farm fussing over transplants and continuing our planning for the season. We made it to a snapdragon webinar during which we got some tips and learned a little about the different types you can grow depending on the time of year (long vs short days mostly and flower shape). Notes were taken on what we can try next, having started a pack of mixed seeds this year, but they look happy. The pearly everlasting is germinating beautifully, still teeny tiny like the lisianthus was. At the risk of sounding ungrateful for this years coming abundance, next year is going to be awesome with all of our new perennial additions (dianthus, mountain mint, sea holly, pearly everlasting and some shrubs and trees that could potentially make a showing next spring).
The OAK Crop Planning Tool is addictive having led us to seed a tray of kale and a tray of beets to try to transplant this year, in addition to a tray of lupine seed that has been hanging around the farm for a few years. As of Sunday, all have germinated, the kale being the most vigourous!
We bought a lot of bags of flower seed from American Meadows when we moved here but just did not have the prepared space for them all. Over the years, we have learned so much about how to prepare a bed without tilling and without ordering in compost. Out of about a quarter pound of lupine seed we successfully grew about three or four plants from direct seeding and have not seen evidence of a comeback of one any of them so far this year.
It was clear that it was a little much to expect from them to smash some seeds out in our half-prepped beds at the time. This year we are going to try to plant them in the bed across from the deck. Just this week, we mowed about 3 rows worth and covered it with our old hoop-house plastic for a few days to solarize the remaining grass. Then we will fork and weed the beds and hope to have a few days to let some weeds pop up, clear them out, then plant after adding some nice amendments.
We made a really nice shelf in the new dried-flower room with some stuff we had laying around (FREE99) and moved all of the existing dried flower stock in there. Perriee also hung up some wire so we are ready to make our own little “Wreath Room” (check it out, it is amazing). Walking into the Flower Studio is so easy on the eyes now being greeted by the nice seedling shelf knowing all of the dried product is in sun protected room off to the side.
A dear friend gifted us a nice split from a flowering quince which is now nestled into one our hazelnut holes with another little one down in our woody patch! We will name them, Quincy and QJ.
Pride Update: Gray did ok over the week, then started feeling bad again over the weekend, so we will be off to the vet first thing Monday morning. I will post an update here when we get one. We are remaining optimistic, giving her Delectables as long as she wants them.
Loving Farm 