Field News: The Seasonal Shift for Flowers

On the flower front, we are experiencing a little summer slumber before the hard work of fall sets on. After a final sowing of sunflowers in our fields, the planting of this season’s crops have come to a close and ever so so slowly the first blooms of our last field flowers are beginning to trickle in. You may have seen the party starters, our dahlias, showing up at markets last week. Soon they’ll be in the company of late season cosmos, marigolds, amaranth, and U-PICK SPECIALTY SUNFLOWERS …all here to stay until the first frost of. ..October??

Beyond the frost prone blossoms, we will have the joy of some seasonally extended flowers being grown in our high tunnels ready to keep our hearts light into the holiday season including some incredibly special heirloom mums which we have long awaited after months of taking cuttings, potting up and tending to!

While there is still much to look forward to in the world of blooms this season, our flower production manager is beginning to shift her thoughts to next season. Once seeding and planting come to and end and the weeds begin to slow, there is just slightly enough space to begin planning for the season beyond. With our indoor growing space expanded for next year, we are planning to start seeding some spectacular overwintered crops in the next few weeks. These seedlings will sprout and be planted out into our hoop houses late in the fall and cozy up for a sheltered winter – waiting to spring forth as soon as temperatures rise enough to get them back in action. Right now, there’s a lot of prep work going into making the right choices about how much of what flowers to grow, when the seed needs to get ordered, when to seed them and how to strategically transition our current growing spaces out of bloom production and back into freshly prepped beds: steamed and replenished, ready to support new thriving plants! Timing is absolutely everything.

On top of fall seeding, now is also the time we are planning and ordering for next seasons WIDELY expanded tulip operation – anticipating a potential hike in costs due to new international tariffs has us on alert! We have bulbs to order, compost to bring in for planting, and raised beds to erect – all in the short few weeks that come after dahlias end. With so much to coordinate, good planning and fore-site is essential!

This week the flower team is also dividing and inventorying the ranunculus corms we have dug, stored and cured for next season’s planting. Once we have a count on these, we’ll know what to order for the season ahead. These corms will get planted in the late fall or early spring and will be some of the first flowers we see next season!

That’s the short report from flower farming: beyond the blooms. We love pulling back the curtain and showing you all what it means to be a flower grower beyond the snipping, bunching and wrapping!

Farm Stand Teaser:

If you have visited the farm stand this season you may know this already – but our big white tent is on it’s way to an upgrade. Perhaps you have seen the renovations taking place in the farmhouse at the front of our property? It is our plan to have it up and ready as a four season farmstore later this fall and we could not be more excited. The beautifully renovated new space will be offering an expanded offering of our farm fresh and locally crafted goods alongside a coffee bar and grab and go delights prepared from our fields by our sister cafe Kitchen and Coffee. We hope to become a third space for farm friends to shop and stay, catch up and play! Right now our team is dreaming up the best ways to bring community together in this new location and the opportunities seem endless. We’ll share some pictures of the progress as things shape up, but please feel free to stop in the tent, ask questions and gives us your ideas about how we can build a space that gets you as excited as we are!

Farmer Spotlight: The Veg Crew

We are so excited to kick-off our farmer spotlight series this month and introduce y’all to the folks out here making the magic happen! This month we are highlighting our vegetable production crew. Vegetable farmers are a special breed – rare gems in the world of manual labor. They come to work knowing it is going to be a hard day full of tasks that will push them mentally and physically, they get the job done and find joy and levity hidden in parts of the day others would kick rocks at, they delight in refueling and getting to bed early so they can wake up tomorrow ready to do the same thing. They live to be in sync with the seasons, the sun and the land… giving everything they have all summer and taking a much cherished and deserved rest in the winter – just enough time to awaken in the spring with excitement to do it all again, inspired by ways they can improve systems, work faster and make the work easier.

This crew brings laughter and joy to the farm – they get on and get through in truly commendable ways – we are lucky to have them growing our food! Swipe through our slides to meet the whole lot!

I feel like this week’s dirt was full of eyeopeners and insight – with these little blogs it is our deepest hope that you feel closer to understanding who Titusville Farm is and what we’re trying to do! AND we know who you are too …so stop by and see us…at the farm stand or at the market and stay tuned for what might be happening next on the farm as the temperatures cool and it becomes the BEST season to be part of a Hudson Valley Farmily.

Love,

Your Farmers