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July 3, 2018

“Just living is not enough….one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” – Hans Christian Anderson

I thought this was a good quote as we celebrate our freedom on July 4^th, and we certainly have been experiencing a lot of sunshine! The flowers in the field are enjoying the heat and sunshine.  It is so wonderful to walk out into the field and be greeted with splashes of color where it was just green a few weeks ago. 

 One flower in particular has been a real worker for me…….yarrow. This lovely perennial continues to produce beautiful, airy blossoms and it releases a delicate herbal perfume.  The plant is also an amazing medicinal herb with great healing properties. As you know from previous letters, in the Language of Flowers yarrow represents Healing and Everlasting Love.  According to folklore, if one places yarrow under your pillow and recites the following poem, you will have a vision of your future partner!

‘Thou pretty herb of Venus’ tree,

Thy true name it is Yarrow;

Now who my bosom friend must be,

Pray tell thou me to-morrow’. –Halliwell’s Popular Rhymes

Following are the meanings for this week’s flowers. Once again, your bouquet will contain some but not all of the flowers in the list. To extend the vase life of your flowers, change the water every day or two and trim the stems by ¼” every 2 to three days. 

Bachelor Buttons – Single blessedness

Bells of Ireland – Good luck

Celosia – Affection, foppery

Cerinthe (Borage family) – Courage, bluntness

Cosmos – Joy in love or life

Hydrangea – Heartlessness, a boaster

Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan) – Justice

Snapdragons – Presumption

Sunflowers – Admiration, gratitude

Yarrow – Healing/Everlasting love

Zinnias – Thoughts of absent friends

Enjoy the sunshine, your freedom and your flowers!

Gratefully,

Betsy

June 26th Flowers

“I must have flowers, always and always.” – Claude Monet

Summertime! I think it is finally here. We have been blessed with some beautiful days and the palette at the farm is becoming more diverse. The snapdragons and cosmos are coloring the fields with beautiful pastels, and the sunflowers are starting to show their beaming faces. Slowly, but steadily the flower farm “painting” is being created.

The bouquets this week will contain cut flowers as well as some wildflowers. Once again, no two bouquets will be the same. Your bouquet will contain a combination of some, but not all of the flowers listed below. Your bouquet will be labeled with your name. Hopefully this will alleviate some confusion that has occurred at a few sites. Please be sure to check for your name on the paper sleeve, and remember to check off your name in the notebook near the bouquets. For those of you who pick up your flowers at TMC Wellness through Movement, if your bouquets are not on the porch, they will be inside the building.

Here are the meanings of this week’s flowers:

Bachelor Buttons – Single blessedness
Bells of Ireland – Good luck
Rudbeckia – Justice
Celosia – Affectation, foppery
Cosmos – Joy in love or life
Snapdragons – Presumption
Sunflowers – Admiration, gratitude
Yarrow – Healing/Everlasting love
Zinnias – Thoughts of absent friends

In the Victorian Era flower arrangements were used to send a message or to express feelings that could not be said out loud. Thus, the “Language of Flowers” came to be. Feel free to take your bouquets and arrange them into your own arrangement or several smaller ones – create your own messages. Have fun with your flowers!

There is a language, little known,
Lovers claim it as their own.
Its symbols smile upon the land,
Wrought by nature’s wondrous hand;
And in their silent beauty speak,
Of life and joy, to those who seek
For Love Divine and sunny hours
In the language of the flowers.

–The Language of Flowers, London, 1875

June 19, 2018

“One person’s weed is another person’s wildflower.” – Susan Wittig Albert

This week heralds in the summer season.  The temperature has finally risen, the sun is shining and my flowers are starting to take off!  Thank goodness! I can feel the change in energy as I walk around my flower beds. Even as an adult, there is that feeling of “school’s out for summer”!  Rules are softened, evenings are longer and we reconnect with our neighbors who are now out and about. We just experienced a very long winter and we are ready to celebrate the longer days of summer.

The bouquets this week are a combination of cut flowers and wildflowers.  Once again, no two bouquets will be the same. Your bouquet will contain a combination of some, but not all of the flowers listed below.  Snapdragons are in bloom, so everyone will have a snapdragon in their bouquet. The two wildflowers this week are Yellow Toadflax, or Butter and Egg flower; and Fleabane, which looks like a daisy but is a member of the aster family.  I like to think of the Yellow Toadflax as the love child of a snapdragon and a cosmos!

This week your bouquet will be labeled with your name.  Hopefully this will alleviate some confusion that has occurred at a few sites.  Please be sure to check for your name on the paper sleeve, and remember to check off your name in the notebook near the bouquets.  For those of you who pick up your flowers at TMC Wellness through Movement, your bouquets will be available for pick up in the building rather than on the porch.

Here are the meanings of this week’s flowers:

Aster (Yellow Toadflax) – Symbol of love

Bachelor Buttons – Single blessedness

Cosmos – Joy in love or life

Delphinium – Flight of fancy

Pea Shoots – Thank you for a lovely time

Snapdragons – Presumption

White Dill – Lust

Yarrow – Healing

Yellow Toadflax – misunderstanding

In the Victorian Era flower arrangements were used to send a message or to express feelings that could not be said out loud. Thus, the “Language of Flowers” came to be.  Feel free to take your bouquets and arrange them into your own arrangement or several smaller ones – create your own messages.  Have fun with your flowers!

June 12, 2018

“We come from the Earth, we return to the Earth, and in between we garden.” – Alfred Austin

A Learning Experience.

Well, Week One did not go as smoothly as I hoped it would.  I did not anticipate a backup of traffic on Interstate 83. My sincere apologies to any of you who had to wait for your flowers.  This week I plan to leave the farm much earlier. I hope you enjoyed your bouquets.

Mother Nature continues to challenge my flowers and me! We had a few nice sunny days, but tonight I look at my weather app and see that the temperature will drop to 58 degrees tonight. Ahhhhh, the wonders of Nature!

This week’s bouquet is similar to last week’s bouquet with a few added feature flowers. The flowers in this week’s bouquet represent healing, affection, lust, purification, introspection, presumption, joy in love or life, flight of fancy and virtue.  All the bouquets will have the same base, but there will be different feature flowers in the mix.

Once again this week, my focus has been on introspection as represented by the beautiful perennial flower, Penstemon.  It can be challenging for a recovering perfectionist to be in a “Nature-Driven” occupation, but I am learning my lessons.  I strive to focus on peacefulness, healing and the joy of love and life that resides in all of us.  Nature is my healer and my teacher.

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach

Here are the flower meanings for today’s bouquet:

Bachelor Buttons – Single blessedness

Cosmos – Joy in love or life

Delphinium – Flight of fancy

Hyssop – Purification

Mint – Virtue

Penstemon – Introspection

Snapdragons – Presumption

Stock – Affection

White Dill – Lust

Yarrow – Healing

Enjoy your bouquets!

June 5, 2018

“Earth laughs in flowers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Week One.  Beginnings.

Mother Nature certainly is challenging my flowers and me! Today as I walked through my beds, I watched my flowers shivering in the wind.  I saw my raised-bed walkways flooded with a foot of water.  Welcome to the CSA Buy Local Flowers Experience!

This week’s bouquet is about innocence, healing, affection, lust, purification and introspection. As I think about my own thoughts today in the fields, I feel that I experienced all of those emotions.  The innocence of nature as she adapts to what is, the deep affection I feel for the earth and my beautiful flowers and the healing energy I always feel while in the fields, the lust for sunshine (!), the purification of nature’s cleansing systems, and my own introspection on how we really are not in control.  Let it be and it will be!

Because it is early in our CSA season, your bouquets will not be identical.  All the bouquets have the following flowers, just in different arrangements.

Here are the flower meanings for today’s bouquet:

Baby’s Breath – Innocence

Hyssop – Purification

Penstemon – Introspection

Stock – Affection

White Dill – Lust

Yarrow – Healing

Enjoy your bouquets!