Year two has come and gone, and I feel like I learned just as much as I did in year one.
Lesson 1 – It’s Okay to Ask for Help
Midway through year two, I had meniscus root repair surgery on my right knee. I was non-weight bearing for 6 full weeks, starting smack in the middle of June. Our house has stairs, our front porch has stairs…I was not going to risk falling down those stairs so I spent the first few weeks after surgery feeling like a prisoner trapped inside my own home. It was miserable.
Prior to surgery, I gave Troy a crash course in when and how to harvest flowers – I asked him to do this on top of everything else he was doing. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the dogs, taking care of the chickens, taking care of the ducks, cutting the grass, taking care of the house, picking produce for the market, the list goes on.
He harvested buckets of flowers and brought them indoors on Thursday evenings. On Friday mornings, I would slide down the stairs on my butt to sit at the dining room table and make bouquets. Saturday morning, he took everything to the market.
This was hard. You may not know this about me, but I’m a perfectionist control freak about certain things – my flowers being one of them. I had to completely relinquish control of harvesting my flowers to someone else. What else was I going to do? Let all those gorgeous flowers go to waste – nope. I asked for his help and he delivered. There was no way I could have made bouquets without his help. I survived giving up control, and he did an amazing job!
Lesson 2 – How to Grow Your Snapdragons, Part II
Remember that bed of snaps that I left in the ground over the entire first season? I left it in the ground over the winter too – I wanted to see if it would survive the winter and come back in the spring. I figured I might as well see how far I could push them, and the bed was going to sit empty over the winter if I pulled them so I let them do their thing. I also started a new crop of replacement snapdragon seedlings, just in case the overwintered plans didn’t come back.
I did lose a few plants over the winter, but I was able to fill in the gaps with the new snapdragon seedlings. The stems on the OG surviving snaps were so sturdy and tall! The blooms were amazing! I wasn’t expecting the OG snaps to be so magnificent…which meant that I now had nowhere to plant the rest of he new snapdragon seedlings because the bed they were supposed to go in was already full of OG snap dragons…which meant that I had to scramble and find a place for the new seedlings because I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away…which meant that I couldn’t follow my carefully crafted planting diagram…which brings me to lesson 3.
Lesson 3 – Plans Change, Deal With It
I thought I was so smart. I sat down at my computer and drew a diagram of my raised beds. I carefully planned where I was going to plant everything for the entire season. I had good intentions but for a variety of reasons (some of which I list below) I didn’t follow my plan whatsoever.
I had too many extra snapdragons.
I missed a spot when pulling up dahlia tubers the previous year so I had a surprise dahlia that I wasn’t expecting.
Some of my “neighbors” thought it was okay to let their dogs use two of my flower beds as a toilet. Even though I desperately needed the space, I am not THAT desperate, so I had no choice but to remove those beds. I have also watched people help themselves to flowers growing in my yard – WTF. All remaining bed are inside a fence now.
I could keep going, but you get the point. Just roll with the changes and move on.
Lesson 4 – Voles Still Suck
Enough said.
Lesson 5 – I Still Like Being a Flower Farmer
It’s not always easy, but I still enjoy growing flowers. Flowers make people happy, and the world needs more happiness. So if I can help tip the happiness scales by growing flowers (and my knee continues to let me) then I’m gonna keep at it!
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