It’s the end of the 2022 Flower CSA season, which goes from April 1 to September 30. During those six months, the flower team picked and bunched about 7,400 bouquets for our CSA members, in addition to all the other flowers they pick. They’ll be transitioning into dried flowers and wreaths soon (more about that in a future Beet) but in the meantime, here’s a recap of the season in words and photos from Hannah:
If you ask anyone around the farm, I bet you’d hear that I’m full of flowery phrases, but I truly do think that 2022 blossomed quite nicely. This year got a slow start in FBF Flowerland. It began with late tulips and hungry gophers that made us toss and turn in the middle the night and caused some tormented angst. There were also some germination issues and a couple late frosts that may have given me my first gray hairs. But by the time the CSA flowers started in April, our worries had mostly subsided as we harvested truckloads of snapdragons, armfuls of godetias and it turned out the gophers had eaten just the right amount of iris to keep them satisfied and for us to keep us on top of harvesting them. I even stopped to get married in the middle of the flowers in June. Just for a brief moment, then back to harvesting out of those same rows.
The summer flowers were beautiful; plenty of sunflowers, hardly any crop failures and an amaranth jungle that was easy to get lost in. While we harvested flowers for CSA customers, made mixed bouquets for markets, and filled orders for stores, we also made time to dry flowers in our Wreath Room for the fall and winter months. I lovingly call us field mice when we gather things for the fall and winter. The act of planning so far ahead feels a bit excessive at times, but I know, we will be thankful for these moments of preparation once the first frost has made all of our fresh flowers whither away.
Meanwhile, we also made flower arrangements for all of the weddings at Full Belly Farm this year as well. Some of the couples were long-time CSA customers who have gotten our flowers delivered to their homes each week. There is nothing quite like seeing our flowers enjoyed in these on-farm celebrations.
I made a joke on our social media on April Fools Day that Full Belly Farm was switching over to growing exclusively cut flowers. Which I thought would have been warmly received but it turns out folks still enjoy the occasional tomato or eggplant in their CSA box as well. And while that joke holds no truth- I do find my days filled to the brim (much like a vase of our flowers on your table) with blooms from our fields.
– Hannah Muller
