Monthly To-Do List

Continuing our month-by-month series, today’s post details all the major tasks on the to-do list for April. Even though winter is (technically) behind us, I always have to prepare myself for a few weather surprises in April, both on the (very) cold side–we’re talking sometimes down into the low teens–and also on the very warm side. April marks the official beginning of our flower farming season to the public since it’s when our first subscription bouquets go out with the first harvested blooms, which are usually daffodils, hyacinths, and early tulips. Out of all the months in our year, April and May seem to always be our very busiest since they combine intensive sowing and transplanting with actual harvesting.

Below is the list of all our expected chores for April.

Note: There may be affiliate links to any products, books, or services mentioned below.

Finish prepping all beds + top with high quality compost

If you’ve been able to get around to all the March to-do’s, you might be lucky enough to already have this one checked off your list, but just in case weather or compost issues have prevented you from checking this one off completely, it will need to be the top priority for April.

Plant bare root roses and lily bulbs

‘Tis the season to plant summer and fall flowering perennials/bulbs, which include bare root roses and lilies. Other examples of plants in this category would be gladioli, crocosmia, astilbe, iris, perennial phlox, etc. Basically most summer flowering blooms grown from bulb or tuber can be planted outside now with the exception of the most frost-sensitive, such as dahlias. A general rule of thumb is if you can leave it safely in the ground over winter in your zone, you’re fine to plant it out in April.

Make sure to prepare the planting area by adding in some high quality compost and removing all weeds, and water the bulbs or bare roots in well after planting at the proper depth.

Note: If you’re planting something that’s NOT dormant (aka, a potted rose instead of a bare root rose), I would personally wait until May to do that.

Plant bare root trees and flowering shrubs

This is also the time to be planting your bare root trees and shrubs, since they’re already dormant and so will appreciate a more gradual acclimation to the warming weather. Many fruit trees make lovely cutting material (I personally love using apple and plum blossoms, and I’m hoping to put in a crabapple tree this year for the foliage, blossoms, and fruit), and some good shrubs to consider for cutting are lilacs, ninebark, viburnum, spirea (this saves me every year), hydrangeas, and quince.

Sow final successions of hardy annuals inside and outside

The window is about to close on actually planting hardy annuals (inside or outside), so make sure you’ve direct sown any you want in the garden by the end of the month and that you’ve started any inside that need growing under cover closer to the first half of the month. Ideally all hardy annuals should be transplanted out or growing no later than early to mid May so that you can try and take some advantage of the cooler temperatures that class of flowers prefers.

Some flower varieties (such as certain kinds of snapdragons) have been bred to handle more heat and longer days and can still be planted out in successions until later May or June, but other hardy annuals such as stock will not bloom at all (or will bloom much, much later in the season) if they’re planted out when the temperatures are too warm. You can always research the issue individually by variety or do an experiment, but your safest bet is usually to have them all planted out no later than about 4 weeks before your last frost date.

Harden off and transplant all previous successions of hardy annuals outside

Along with the above note, you should start transplanting the hardy annual seedlings you started earlier in the season outside to their final locations once you’ve grown them on for the minimum amount of time inside (usually 4-8 weeks). Make sure you harden them off gradually before and that you water them DAILY after transplanting until you start to notice obvious new growth, at which point you can cut down the watering to once every few days (or as needed).

Since I live in a place where our last frost isn’t until early to mid June, I’ve found that April 15 to April 30 is usually my sweet spot to plant out my hardy annuals, but you’ll want to adjust yours accordingly.

Note: If you’re growing in a high tunnel or under frost cloth or some other cover, you’re usually okay to transplant things out a few weeks earlier than the dates mentioned above. I would still advise waiting to do so until you get a stretch when the temperatures aren’t too cold at first (nothing below 28 degrees Fahrenheit or so), and you should still harden the seedlings off before planting them out under cover.

Sow second succession of slow-growing tender annuals (inside)

You should have already started your first succession of some of your slower growing tender annuals (such as china asters, gomphrena, celosia, mahogany splendor hibiscus, etc.), and now it’s time to start your second. Also, if you’re behind the game and haven’t started any of these yet but are planning on growing them, now is the time.

You could still direct sow a few of these outside once the soil warms up (like celosia), but some of the others (like china asters or mahogany splendor), your window is now and likely only now to get these going if you haven’t already.

Sow first succession of quick-growing tender annuals (inside)

Mid to late April is the time to get a head start on all those fast growing tender annuals such as zinnias, cosmos, and marigolds so that you can get blooms from this first succession about a month earlier than any you’d direct sow outside after your last frost. Since these do tend to grow quickly, I recommend starting with a larger size seedling tray (I like using either this size or this size).

Sow first successions of sunflowers inside for an early harvest

My first year of flower farming, I did a big experiment with sunflowers to see how early I could get away with planting them outside and still get blooms since I’d noticed that many self seeded outside much earlier than traditional wisdom tells you to plant them outside. While I did technically get blooms from some of the very earliest sunflowers that I started inside in late March and planted out two weeks later in early April, the blooms were extremely stunted and basically unusable in anything but a boutonniere or flower crown. I’ve had the most success starting them in very early April inside and transplanting them out about 2-3 weeks later. The plants do tend to still be smaller than usual (only about 2-3 feet tall or so), but the blooms are plenty big enough to use in bouquets, and doing this has saved me many a time from the dreaded June gap.

For the record, I only start my ProCut sunflowers this early. For the one branching sunflower variety I favor (“Soraya”), I wait to sow it inside in early May and then transplant it out a couple weeks later.

Also, once I start sowing sunflowers, I basically sow them every week for as long as I can (so, until mid July or so) throughout the season.

Pot up any seedlings that need it

If you have seedlings that have been growing inside for at least 3-4 weeks that already have at least one set of true leaves and that are clearly starting to “fill out” the container they’re in, pot them up into larger containers with fresh potting soil that has ample nutrients and organic fertilizers built in so the plant can continue to grow without stress. (One good budget-friendly option is this organic potting mix, which comes in a more “bulk” size of 1.5 cubic feet. Often organic potting mixes can run you as much as $0.08 an ounce if you buy in smaller quantities, but this brand is rated almost five stars and only costs $0.02 an ounce if you buy this bigger size).

I’ll admit I can be lazy about this one if I know I’m planting out the seedlings within the next week or so, but if I know I still have a few weeks left to go, I’m always glad that I take this extra step, especially since some plants never fully bounce back after being root bound.

Harvest the first of the blooms

April is when you finally start to see the payout from your labors (at least if you put in spring-flowering bulbs the autumn before). April marks the official start of our season, and the blooms we expect this month are hyacinths, daffodils, muscari, and tulips, with overwintered ranunculus and anemones thrown in from the high tunnel. Greenery and filler is hard to come by in April, so like most flower farmers I harvest the tulips by the bulb (for both the stem length and for the foliage) and use their leaves as my main greenery in arrangements. When the trees and shrubs start to blossom by the end of April, those are also used as well.

Stay on top of weeding

Spring is by far the best time to be weeding since the weeds aren’t huge yet and they usually come up pretty easily both because of their smaller size and because the ground is often wet from spring rains or snow. Trust me, your future self will thank you greatly if you don’t put this off until it’s later in the season.

Anything I missed? What are your gardening/flower farming plans for the month?

Continuing our month-by-month series, today’s post details all the major tasks on the to-do list for March. As March is unpredictable and still considered winter, the month is full of all sorts of crazy weather ups and downs. On the sunny, milder days, we’re pretty much always outside taking advantage and doing some kind of work out on the farm. On the days when winter is reluctant to release her grip and snow is falling (or just refusing to melt), there are still plenty of indoor chores to be working on as well.

Below is the list of all our expected chores for March.

Note: There may be affiliate links to any products, books, or services mentioned below.

Order tulips for the fall

As a flower farmer, you always need to be thinking about six months ahead with your planning so you don’t get behind. Even though it might seem crazy to the typical home gardener, most flower farmers put in their big fall bulb orders in late February or early to mid March, which is actually before your spring bulbs even bloom for the year. In other words, I’m ordering tulips for varieties that I maybe haven’t even seen yet in person, although they might be planted in my farm right now. Of course, most large distributors will still have tulips available later in the season, but if you’re wanting to get in on some of the most coveted, you definitely don’t want to put it off too much.

I’ve already put in two large bulb orders to be delivered in October, one of which I paid for upfront right now and the other which I’ll get billed for when it ships. All in all, I’m ordering 3,600 tulips, 300 ranunculus corms, and about 150 daffodils to add to our collection.

Prune roses

Once the snow starts melting in earnest (we haven’t seen our grass and in-ground beds since November…literally), it’s time to prune the roses. I’m no master rose grower (in fact, I’ve killed pleeeenty in my time), but I have picked up on some good basic pruning techniques I employ. To sum up, I just go for the D’s — cut anything that’s diseased, dead, damaged, or growing diagonally (meaning it’s going to cross with other branches).

I don’t use anything fancy to do the pruning — just my favorite snips that I use for all my harvesting (which I like because they can cut through woody stems as well). I make sure to wash them with hot water and soap before every use, and if I’m dealing with anything diseased, I wash them in between those plants as well.

Get load of compost

Since we’re planting on a larger scale than most home growers, it makes more sense for us to order our compost in bulk and get enough to last for the entire season. By this point, I will have done my research and decided on which compost to go for (and how much of it), so in March it’s just a matter of making the phone call and scheduling the delivery or the pickup time.

This year we’re going with the same mushroom compost we had a lot of success with last year, even if it is one of the pricier options for sure.

Prep beds

If I did everything at the ideal time, bed prepping is something I’d always do in the fall to give myself a headstart in the spring AND to give the compost time to really sink into the soil. However, I’m so burned out and done by the time all the tulip bulbs are in and the dahlia tubers are pulled out in the late autumn that I pretty much always prep my garden beds in the spring.

For me, prepping means ripping out all the dead annuals, pulling up any weeds, and adding a fresh layer of compost on everything.

Sow second succession of hardy annuals inside

Seed sowing continues, and the grow room is definitely starting to fill out. We’ve already sowed the first succession of most of our hardy annuals, so now we’re doing later successions of things like stock and snapdragons, and we’re also starting to sow the hardy annuals that are a little more quick growing.

As a quick reference, here are the seed starting supplies we use:

• shop lights (I’ve tried the fancier, more expensive growing lights, but these shop lights work just as well for a fraction of the price)
• heat mats for germinating
• cell trays with germination domes and bottom trays
• perlite, vermiculite, and coco coir for making our own seed starting mix

Direct sow hardy annuals outside

Pretty much as soon as the snow has fully melted and we’re starting to see rain in the forecast instead of only snow, it’s time to direct sow the hardy annuals that prefer to be put directly into the soil from the get go rather than transplanted. (Remember to note: many hardy annuals require cold stratification first, which means you need to pop them into your freezer for 1-2 weeks before planting them out, so plan accordingly.)

This includes varieties like nigella, bachelor’s buttons, ammi, bells of Ireland, poppies, and more. Your best resource on hardy annuals and all of their preferences is the book Cool Flowers by Lisa Mason Ziegler. I consider it a must own for any flower farmer.

Sow first succession of slow tender annuals (end of month)

We have a last frost date of around late May to early June, which means that I need to start any slower growing tender annuals that require 8+ weeks of indoor growing at the end of March. Many tender annuals are much faster than this, but there are some I always start this early, including amaranth, celosia, gomphrena, and china asters.

Continue to fertilize seedlings weekly

A huge mistake I made my first year was only fertilizing my seedlings sporadically, and it meant that many were still weak and spindly when it came time to harden them off and plant out. Once I started applying fish emulsion fertilizer every single week without fail, my seedlings took off and looked just like the ones I had always been jealously eyeing before from all the other flower farmers.

In case you’re wondering, the type of fish emulsion I use is this one.

Pot up or move seedlings around as necessary

I frequently sow 2-3 seeds per cell just to make sure I’m going to have the number of seedlings I’ve planned on (which I plan on using a full tray of 40 cells, in our case). Frequently I’ll have some cells that produce nothing and others where all two or three seeds germinate, which necessitates that I shuffle things around after a couple of weeks.

Once the seedlings start to get some true leaves, I carefully pop out the whole cell and gently break apart the separate seedlings, then pot them into their own cells with a little more potting soil. I usually try and do this right before I’m about to fertilize anyway so that they get an extra boost of “food” while they’re recovering from the shock.

Take dahlia tubers out of winter storage + divide

The last major task for March is to pull the dahlia tubers out of winter storage and start assessing the damage (if there is any). I chuck any tubers that are clearly diseased or rotten or mushy (some mold is usually okay), and then I start the process of dividing them.

One of the best resources available currently on all things dahlias is Erin Benzakein’s latest book, Discovering Dahlias.

If you’ve found that you’ve unexpectedly lost many of your dahlia tubers in storage (as happened to us this year), don’t panic — while fall is often the *ideal* time to order dahlia tubers, there are still many smaller growers who don’t divide theirs until February and March, and that’s also when they offer to sell theirs to the public. Your selection might not be quite as good as in the fall, but it should still give you a decent selection of the most popular types to choose from.

As always, let me know if you have any questions, and let’s all keep our heads up because spring is really and truly right around the corner now!

Continuing our monthly series, today’s post is all about some of the expected farm chores for February. While February in our part of the world (Central Utah) is still very much winter, the increasing daylight and closer proximity to the arrival of spring means that flower farming tasks definitely pick up a bit compared to January. There are seeds in our basement, plants in the beds that look like they might have successfully overwintered, and weeds already taking advantage in the high tunnel.

Here’s what’s on the docket for the month:

Note: There are affiliate links to products and books mentioned below.

File Taxes

Late winter and early spring is an expensive time of the year; indeed, it’s when we seem to pay out well over half of the expenses that we expect to have for that growing year. There are seed starting supplies to replace, compost to buy in bulk, and warm-season bulbs and tubers to pre-order. There are also supplies to replenish, annual fees to renew, and so much more. Because of all that, we don’t want to leave taxes until the last minute, especially if we’re expecting a refund. If we expect money back, we’ll need that money for farming expenses, and if we owe money, we need to make sure to pay that upfront before we’re starting to put in major seed and bulb orders.

Look Into Ordering Compost

One major yearly expense is good quality compost so that we can put a fresh layer on all the beds and help the soil regenerate after an intense season the year before. It is far more cost effective at the scale we’re growing on to order compost in bulk rather than buying it in individual bags, but the process can take awhile. You first need to locate a good company or seller who has the kind of compost you want (manure-based or plant-based), then you need to figure out how many yards you need and if you need it delivered or not (if that’s even an option).

We’ve gotten burned too many times in the past with getting bad batches of compost that cost us far more in the long run than the cheaper price we were able to get for them, so I’m now (finally) willing to shell out more money for higher quality compost that’s actually been tested. Because we need the compost delivered by early March — when the snow usually starts melting enough that we can start working it into the beds — I need to have that order finalized by this month.

Open CSA Subscriptions

The biggest holiday of the year for flowers is Valentine’s Day, but since we don’t have anything growing in February, we open up our CSA bouquet subscriptions in early February instead so that people have that as an option for the holiday. This involves lots of scheduling out of social media content — both before they open to drum up interest and after — as well as constant monitoring of our inboxes and texts to make sure we’ve responded to all inquiries and messages.

I also create a spreadsheet for subscription members that includes their name, address, the type of subscription they ordered, if they paid for delivery or opted for pickup, and highlighted boxes corresponding to the number of bouquets in the subscription that I can then enter the dates of when those bouquets are delivered. I also order special gift certificates in January just for subscriptions so that people have something to actually give in case the subscription is a gift for someone, which I mail out within a day or two of the subscription being purchased.

Related Post: How Soon Should Your Flower Farm Offer a CSA Subscription?

Sow Hardy Annuals Inside

While I start a few things in January, the majority of the intensive seed starting starts in February and then goes through April. In February, I sow the first successions of all of my hardy annuals, of which I grow a lot (think snapdragons, sweet william, stock, strawflower, scabiosa, statice, etc.). Hardy annuals should be planted out 6-8 weeks BEFORE your last frost, which means that they need to be started well before that target transplant date (usually 4-10 weeks before). Once the seedlings have germinated, we fertilize ours weekly using fish emulsion (diluted in water).

Because people are always asking me, here are the seed starting supplies we use:

• shop lights (I’ve tried the fancier, more expensive growing lights, but these shop lights work just as well for a fraction of the price)
• heat mats for germinating
• cell trays with germination domes and bottom trays
• perlite, vermiculite, and coco coir for making our own seed starting mix

Soak/Presprout/Plant Ranunculus and Anemones

The ideal window for planting ranunculus and anemones in Zone 6 is in the fall if you’re planting into a high tunnel, as we do. However, there are two more windows of planting that also work — for us, we can do a second flush into our high tunnel now (in February), and then we can also do a planting out into open beds (so, not under cover) in late March. These later flushes don’t produce the stem length or have the productivity of the fall-planted corms, but they can still provide us with blooms during the busy spring season, especially for shorter arrangements.

Anemone and ranunculus corms must be soaked for 3-4 hours before planting, and pre-sprouting is usually recommended too, which just means that you plant them into seed starting mix for a few weeks until you see growth, at which point you plant them out after hardening them off. For this February flush, I’m just planting them straight into the ground of the high tunnel without presprouting them, but if I were to do the latest succession in March, I would want to be sure to pre-sprout them first so that they had any chance at all of blooming before it got too hot.

And that wraps up the major items on our to-do list for the month! Drop a comment below if you have any questions 🙂

You might think that flower farming is only seasonal — that it only lasts from the last frost until the first frost.

FALSE.

The fact is, flower farming is a year-round profession (regardless of climate or hardiness zone), just simply because there’s so much work to do even in the “off” season. With two full seasons under my belt, I can confidently say that the only “real” break I have happens in December, when I (usually) don’t have much to do with the farm. But the rest of the year, I keep pleeenty busy.

Here’s what’s happening on the flower farm in January:

Note: There are affiliate links below to products and books mentioned.

Planning, Planning, Planning

One of the biggest tasks on any flower farmer’s January to-do list is to effectively plan out the coming season, including what will be planted (and how much), where it will be planted, and when it will be planted. You have to take into account if you’ll need to do multiple successions of certain crops, as well as making note if you’ll be overplanting any beds (aka, ripping out something that blooms earlier in the season to make room for a crop that will bloom later).

There are a lot of ways to approach this. You can go fancy with spreadsheets that will include quantities and dates, or you can go simple with a blank piece of paper and hand-drawn rectangles representing beds. Some people like visual boards, where they cut out pictures of the various flowers and crops and arrange them how they’ll go in the field. However you do it, planning is a crucial step in the process since it will help to ensure you don’t fall behind on your seed starting and also help you to know how many seeds you actually need to plant (or order, if you haven’t done so yet).

Three things I almost always have with me when I do my planning:

• Johnny’s Seed Catalog, to reference days to maturity, height, and other growing information
• Cut Flower Garden by Erin Benzakein for a season-by-season breakdown of different crops
• Cool Flowers by Lisa Mason Ziegler, to plan out when to start each of my hardy annuals

One thing that will help enormously with the planning process is if you have detailed notes from previous seasons. I keep notes from year to year on exactly when I start seeds, how long I keep them inside, how many I start, how many actually survive to transplant, and which crops I end up losing (if any). Looking carefully at the successes and failures of the season before helps to determine if I need to change what and how much to plant, or maybe when I need to plant something.

Good record keeping is a crucial part of the flower farming life.

Prepping for Tax Season

Speaking of keeping good records, you also need to keep excellent financial records of all your income and expenses, including a breakdown of what category each expense fell under. You also need to make sure you track any mileage you cover in your vehicle for your business.

Since spring is so busy on the farm, I try and prep all my tax documents and receipts in January so that we can file taxes in early February. This ensures that I’m not having to worry about it during the craziness of spring planting and harvesting, and it also means that if I’m due a return, I can have those funds before my season opens to the public, which is always super helpful.

Ordering Spring-Shipped Bare Root Plants and Bulbs

While I definitely order my fall-planted bulbs (such as my tulips) at least six months in advance, I’m a little less worried about getting my spring orders in super early, simply because they don’t usually tend to sell out as fast, unless you’re looking for a highly coveted dahlia tuber or something. I don’t wait too much beyond January, however, because some of the things I do want very specific varieties of (such as my roses) will often be sold out any later than that.

This year, I’m ordering bare root roses from David Austin (definitely one you don’t want to wait to put in your preorder), lilies, a few dahlia tubers, and some anemone corms (since I dropped the ball and didn’t order them in the fall like I should have). Lilies and roses are usually my biggest spring orders since dahlias, ranunculus, and anemones can also be shipped in the fall, but this year I was a bit behind.

Ordering Marketing and Office Materials

Often the end of the season is incredibly hectic and then I’m slammed immediately with the tasks of needing to dig up all the dahlia tubers AND plant all the tulips, which means I usually don’t get a chance to do a good inventory of what supplies I still have left and what I need to order more of. January is the perfect time to take stock of things like business cards and business stickers, brown kraft paper and rubber bands, and the flower food packets I include with each bouquet. I try and estimate what I’ll need throughout the whole season and order it all upfront so that I’m not leaving myself short of crucial things in the busiest part of the season. (I’ve included links to the exact products I order in case you’re curious.)

I also make sure I’m fully stocked on my seed starting materials, including liquid fish emulsion, the three components of my homemade seed starting mix (vermiculite, coco coir, and perlite), and my favorite size seed trays.

Seed Starting (The Slow Growers)

About halfway through January, I actually start the first of my seeds. Now, considering that I usually can’t transplant many things until mid to late May, mid-January is EARLY to start seeds, so I’m only starting the very slowest of the slow. The only seeds I personally start in January are my lisianthus, foxglove, delphiniums, and any perennials I’m trying to grow from seed (such as eryngium or columbine). In the future I’ll start my eucalyptus seeds at this time, although I haven’t been able to have any luck in scoring seeds for the kinds I want yet.

Although seed starting is fun and exciting at first, it can wear on you after many, many months of needing to constantly water and add weekly doses of fish emulsion, so anything I start this early has to have definitely earned its way into my flower farm in order to be worth the five months I’ll be tending to them.

And that’s the flower farming plan for January! Drop any comments or questions you have below.