First Blooms & Fast Growth!

Old-fashioned cornflower - the very first bloom!

The Old Flower Patch is blooming!!

Well, I think as of this morning there were two blooms... But everyone has to start somewhere!

In addition to those two little blue cornflower blooms, other plants are starting to grow very quickly with the heat we've been having the past few days.

I can't wait to see more blooms as we get closer and closer to summer!



Zinnias

Hollyhocks

Cosmos

Work Day!

Well, every day is a work day, I guess, but yesterday was an especially big day, as Eric was able to help me finish laying drip tape in the second half of my flower patch. 


We layed 16 rows, with two lines of tape in each row spaced 18 inches apart, giving me 16 3-foot wide rows, each between 50 and 80 feet long. The emitters are spaced 9 inches apart, which works out well since 9 inches is usually a good spacing for most types of cut flowers.

 

Now the rest of the field is ready for planting!!

And once again, a big thank you to my dear Eric, the busy, hardworking Masters student, for taking a few hours away from his books to help me with my project!!

Benefits of Borage

Borage (Borago officinalis) is an ancient plant, grown as far back as the days of Dioscorides and Pliny (around 50 A.D.), and has seen many different uses over the centuries.  In Mediterranean countries, where it grows in abundance, the name borage is spelled with a double 'r,' indicating that the name probably comes from the Italian borra, and French bourra, meaning hair or wool, both of which are derived from the Latin burra, meaning a flock of wool, referring to the furry hairs that cover the plant.

 

Borage is an excellent companion plant for vegetable gardens, especially planted with tomatoes as it is supposed to repel tomato hornworm, and with strawberries and squash.  It reseeds quite freely, (which I think is great, but those who like more formal garden beds may find annoying) and was a common kitchen garden herb in the 1800's.  The flowers are edible and make lovely garnishes, plus they're just pretty! 


The little star-shaped blue flowers of borage bloom early in the season, and the plants continue on doggedly until frost, attracting bees and other pollinators to the garden, as well as predatory wasps that prey on harmful insects.  And when the plants give up at the end of the season, toss them in the compost pile! 

From antiquity to present, growing borage in your garden is a must!

Wildflowers!

Wildflowers are incredibly uplifting.

Growing under the toughest conditions - rocky crevices, bone-dry sand, bogs, alpine slopes - where none but the most daring gardener would ever dream of planting a flower garden, wildflowers seem to defy all odds, and everything every gardening book tells us about "moist, fertile, well-drained loamy soil."  And yet, each plant is perfectly suited to its environment.

 

When I get discouraged, squinting at the dirt to discern tiny flower seedlings from the ever-encroaching weeds and wondering how I am ever going to make them grow, I remind myself of wildflowers, growing on "less than a little," and thriving!  Most of our flowers are, after all, no more than weeds and wildflowers that someone took notice of one day, propagated and developed (some more than others) into garden plants. 

 

And so, I take heart: if the wildflowers can do it, surely with a little aide (mostly in the form of supplementary water and soil nutrients) my flower patch can too thrive and bloom, against the odds!

Hollyhocks

Althea (Alcea) rosea, or hollyhocks, are a favorite old-fashioned flower popular in garden cultivation for well over five hundred years! 

The year they were introduced to Europe is a bit of a mystery, but John Gardiner's Feate of Gardening, a manuscript copied in 1440 and probably written earlier, speaks of "holy-hocke."  The old Anglo-Saxon word Hoc meant mallow, as hollyhock flowers bear resemblance to those of the mallow (they're actually in the same family).  And in the wild, hollyhocks can be found growing in the Palestine, so many believe that that the "holy-hoc" was introduced to England sometime during the Crusades, between 1100 and 1300.

 Hollyhocks have had their place in garden history for hundreds of years, from monastery gardens, to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.  An old-fashioned garden wouldn't be complete without them!

Monarch Butterflies

One of Many Species that Benefit from Organic Farming!

 Butterflies are, in my opinion, probably the most beautiful group of insects.  They flit and flutter gracefully from flower to flower, the embodiment of a lazy summer afternoon.  And one of the most widely recognized butterfly is the monarch.

Unfortunately, across the country monarch butterfly numbers are dropping.  This decrease may be attributed to a combination of several factors, including drought, loss of habitat, and the use and overuse of pesticides.

Butterflies are not only excellent pollinators for all types of flowering plants, but they also play a vital role in the ecosystem.  Since the lifespan of a butterfly is lived out in the course of one year, they are especially sensitive to year-to-year changes in the ecosystem and climate.  This makes them good indicators of ecosystem health; large butterfly populations generally indicate a healthy ecosystem.

A combination of habitat loss due to the use of herbicides across expanding areas of farmland, and the use of pesticides, has had a direct and drastic effect on butterfly populations.  But by farming or gardening pieces of land organically, without the use of chemicals, and by growing a food source for monarch caterpillars, milkweed plants, we can help provide protected islands (or "waystations") for monarch and other butterfly species populations to recover.

 

Needless to say, I was quite excited to find this monarch (pictured) at the farm yesterday!  Hopefully that means The Old Flower Patch and McKinley Family Farm are doing some good in helping to provide a little piece of habitat for these gorgeous beneficial insects, to the betterment of the whole ecosystem!

 

Find out more (much, much more!) about monarchs at MonarchWatch.org