Every spring, in early March, we announce the impending start of the CSA flower season in the Beet. My mom or I share our thoughts about growing flowers and encourage you to bring some of the beauty into your homes. I could have probably tracked down what I’ve written in a past year and tweaked it slightly to fit the themes of 2026, which, to be quite honest in my sleep deprived state sounded quite appealing.
But, I thought I’d write something slightly different as this spring looks a little different for me. You see, I’ll be coming back to work the same week as the CSA flowers start again, after two months off to celebrate the arrival of my own little flower- Miss Georgia Kate, born January 26, 2026.
I wish I could say it was all just good timing on my part as a farmer, to have a baby at the same time as the flower fields lay mostly dormant for the winter. But just like the flowers, who’s seed and sow dates are chosen intentionally as we try to meticulously time them for Mother’s Day, or Valentine’s Day, or the first CSA flower week… Inevitably, we have learned, they will begin to bloom when they are good and ready- planning be damned. Georgia came three weeks early- much like the spring flowers this year it seems. Maybe she too was an omen that it’s going to be a dry hot spring.
After 11 years as a farmer and florist, you’d think I’d have some things figured out. And to some credit of mine, I do. I have learned a bit more about which tulip varieties will bloom at three inches tall year after year, despite them being advertised as an 18-inch stem. I have learned that you should always plant the sunflowers earlier than you think- in the hopes that they will make it through the hard frosts and bloom the week of Mother’s Day just like you hoped. And I have learned that ten 600-foot beds of snapdragons is quite enough, yet we will plant the 11th and 12th beds just the same.
But, there are plenty of things I am still as green to as the day I began. Like how something as magnificent as a ranunculus can come from such an ugly corm, how despite every my every effort, we can never seem to grow enough lilacs to satiate the Marin farmers market crowd, and how the HECK my mom managed to raise four babies while farming.
As I begin the journey of motherhood while farming, I am in awe of the fact that not only did all of us kids survive the trials of farm life, but we all decided, at one time or another, to come back to the farm. I certainly don’t know what farming with my own little one will look like. Will it be much like my own childhood? Maybe it will- napping in flower boxes or in the back of a backpack as my mom harvested flowers for the first CSA customers, or lulled to sleep with the sound of a diesel truck. Perhaps!
But surely it may be different too- after all, the fact that I was able to take two months off with the help of now seven full time floral crew members to cover for me while I was away, and two amazing farm managers-in-training to help keep the fields running smoothly was not something my mother could have even dreamed of when starting off on this journey at Full Belly Farm. Most of all, there’s my mother herself- to lend a helping and knowledgeable hand with both motherhood and farming. A difference that may just save me from days of near insanity in the heat of the summer and new motherhood.
All I know for certain for the future is that there will be flowers in abundance- as long as we keep planting them! Which we will! This year there are 15 acres planned and planted, waiting to find their new homes and grace the lives of our many customers. I hope you will consider joining our flower CSA to receive these precious gifts of joy and beauty throughout the year! They are a true pleasure to help grow and nurture.
Hannah Muller
