Late June in the garden holds such a special place in my heart. After months of seed starting, transplanting, watering, weeding, and waiting, I finally get to see all that hard work beginning to pay off. There is something so satisfying about walking through the rows and seeing tiny seedlings transformed into full, healthy plants.
The statice are just beginning to send up their very first flower stems, which feels like a milestone every year. I recently pinched the strawflowers, and they are looking wonderful—short, sturdy, and strong, probably thanks to all the wind we've had this spring. They're beginning to branch now, which means more stems per plant at harvest time, even if those stems end up a little shorter than they would have been otherwise. I'll gladly take quantity over one tall leader.
I've also been harvesting wildflowers from around the farm, adding little bits of the landscape into this year's dried flower collection. Nature always has a way of surprising me, though, and this week I learned something new about drying flowers in the barn.
A robin has decided to build her nest in our barn this year. Every time I go inside, she circles overhead, chattering loudly and making it very clear that I'm the unwelcome visitor. Yesterday, when I went to check on the flowers hanging to dry, I noticed something strange. Several blooms had mysteriously disappeared, and bits of string were torn from places where bunches had once been hanging.
My best guess? The robin has been helping herself to both flowers and twine for nesting material.
I suppose that's farm life.
This season has reminded me once again that growing flowers requires endless patience with nature. Bunnies happily chew off fresh statice stems, insects and slugs feast on strawflower leaves, and every year feels like one big experiment. Just when I think I've figured something out, nature humbly reminds me that I haven't.
For now, I've moved much of my drying operation indoors and transformed our basement into a temporary drying room, complete with closet racks and hanging flowers everywhere. It may not be the picturesque barn setup I imagined, but honestly, it might improve drying conditions in the long run. The basement offers more consistent temperatures, lower humidity, and complete darkness—all things dried flowers appreciate.
Flower farming is rarely perfect, but perhaps that's part of why I love it so much. Every season teaches me something new.
