Photo credit: Ella Galaty
At the turn of the month, us Full Belly flower farmers are transitioning our flower power from fresh to dried bouquets and arrangements. Therefore, these are our final days of fresh, cut flower sales, and we want to thank you for enjoying these buds and blossoms with us all season long.
This year, we grew approximately 15 acres of flowers partitioned across four fields. To inform new readers and remind our seasoned ones, we parade in and out of these fields with the change of the seasons, picking over 50 varieties of flowers from early February to late October. Some of my personal favorites from this year were our early spring Apricot Pride tulips, late spring rudbeckia and feverfew, shoulder crop of statice, and summer marigolds. Under good leadership and managed by skilled hands, these flower fields have adorned the heart of the farm.
Photos left to right: Early spring, late spring and summer flower fields
While these fields produced outwardly beautiful blooms, they are inwardly growing Full Belly’s young farmers-in-training, our farm interns. Occupying a smaller acreage on a larger farm, the flower fields serve as an excellent training ground. Within each field, interns have the opportunity to seed and transplant new flowers, move irrigation pipes, install drip irrigation, operate cultivators and other mechanical weeders, spread compost, prune perennials, tackle invasive weeds, and the list continues. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve educated eight interns in these fields. At Full Belly, we strive to pair productivity with education. Our flower fields are a testament to that.
Photos left to right: Intern alumni Cate spreading compost on young snapdragons, Current intern Mizu marking beds for transplanting.
Our flower fields have become a training ground for not just our interns, but other Full Belly women farmers interested in operating tractors and machinery. This summer, after some changes in our sunflower harvest team, we had an incredible woman farmer rise to the occasion and learn to operate a high crop harvest tractor to safely and swiftly carry sunflowers out of the field to the shop for processing and packing. We continue to extend learning opportunities like these because, despite our strong crew of women operators in place, women in agriculture are not afforded the same learning opportunities as men. I’ve been a recipient of those training opportunities thanks to our incredible team, including women leaders and role models like Dru and Jan, and now help teach and empower others.
Again, we want to thank you for supporting our fresh, cut flower program this year. Whether you enjoyed them at the farm, on your kitchen table, or in your bridal bouquet, we hope that their vibrant colors and aromas nourished you just as our fruits and veggies do. We are so grateful for a successful season and look forward to what the next year brings.
Kindly,
Rose Curley
