About this time of year each year in the dog days of Winter (which has apparently not gotten the memo here in Oklahoma, seeing as we were 86 degrees just last Saturday!) we flower farmers sit down and go over our pictures and notes from the last year's flower season. We do this to judge how much progress we made over the previous seasons, and to see what needs to improve as we rush headlong into the newest flower season.
This is now our fourth season as cut flower farmers. My hubby and I have come a long ways...and we have a long way's to go! We have big dreams and plan to really start laying the groundwork for those dreams this year.
Last year was a decent season: We had big heartbreaking losses due to weather, and we had several very happily successful crops. We learned what works and what doesn't in our climate, and we developed deep and lasting relationships with our customers on my long 190 mile delivery routes, twice a week. We made a lot of progress with landscaping the farm and getting infrastructure into place, and planted lots of beatufiul garden roses and shrubs which are thriving. We put in a fresh water well, which by the grace of God was NOT salty water -once drilled deep enough- and set up the site for our very large walk-in cooler.
We grew 80 varieties of specialty cut flowers, and also successfully overwintered a field full of 2,000 dahlias...not an easy thing to do.
And most of all, despite the heartache of losing our first most important crops, we had fun with the rest of the season. Each new flower variety that bloomed was treasured and thoroughly enjoyed...and for me, I got to stretch my wings a bit designing floral arrangements for friends and new customers.
So, without a further ado, let's take a look back through pictures shall we? We shall.
Spring Beauties!
