“Hurry up and wait” could be our new slogan this spring and not because of what you think. We want our plantings to hurry up and get ready, but we end up waiting on them most of the time. The cold back in December and January affected some of our plug production, and they were not ready to be planted on time. Now we are feeling some of the effects of that by having to go a week with out having a few items on our availability. Of course, some items are ready and with the rain forecasted for this weekend, we will hurry and wait for the orders to come in next week if it rains a lot.
We have pushed our crops as much as we dare to. If we push too hard for them to get ready it will start affecting the quality so we feel it is best to keep them warm and moist but let them mature at a mostly normal rate to maintain our quality.
I don’t know how you feel, but I feel like I have been a punching bag this year and it’s only mid-March. Every time I turn around it seems like we have something else happens. The weather has been a big slugger but a new problem seems to pop up daily. Over the last several years we have been pretty lucky so I guess we were due a year of bad luck. Even though I am about to pull my hair out, please be assured that despite a few problems that we have had to work through our crops are looking good.
Most of the problems have to do with delays due to the terrible winter we had. Our availability is improving each week and we are gaining ground with having more items in full color. You will still see quite a few items listed as Buds/Light Color and Light Color, but we felt that it would be better to go ahead and list them and let you decided if you wanted to go ahead and order them instead of waiting another week by leaving them off the list.
I hope your weekend is better than ours is forecasted to be. Now let’s look at some pictures.
This first batch is of our 1204’s, J6’s 1801(#4sq)’s and #6 annuals. I added in 1204 begonias and coleus. The second crop of dianthus has as much color as the first crop. I really missed the forecasted color on the zinnias this last week. I will do better next time. We will be into a new crop of #6 Marigolds and back to Buds with a little Light Color showing by mid-week.
The biggest “new” thing we added this spring are the 1 QT Proven Winners plants. We talked to quite a few folks about what we needed to be growing and picked out 18 items. The petunias are light on color still yet but we have had several people ask for them so I went ahead and put them on the list. The Bacopa, Lobularia and Nemesia have the most color while the other items either weren’t grown in the first planting or aren’t ready yet so be sure to watch the availability for them. I am not sure what you have been getting from any other suppliers regarding the size of the plants etc. so please give us your feedback on what your expectations are for your Proven Winner plants.
We have more #4.5 premiums ready this week but we are still short on having a lot of Good Color. A lot of them will have Buds/Light Color next week and were not picture worthy today. The geraniums are really nice except for the red that is about 7-10 days behind the other colors and just has Buds. We will be probably getting into a new crop of #6 Confetti Gardens sometime next week with some additional mixes to add to the mix. All of of 1801 accent plants are looking great too.
Our polemonium is ready and the quart perennials are getting more buds and blooms each week. I also saw a bloom in the clematis this week but I suspect that it’s an isolated bloom for now. I didn’t get a picture of it but the Ruby Tuesday Dianthus has some buds. I am anxious to see how red the blooms are. I plan on planting a few at the house.
We are getting more baskets ready, but will be temporarily out of Waves, New Guineas and a few other items we had this week. The double impatiens and geranium baskets have the most color.
These are 2 more colors of the new Potunia Petunia baskets we added.
I added in some numbers on our #12 baskets that are ready. Only a couple of colors are big enough. There will be a lot more in a week or so.
We have a lot of vegetable ready in a lot of sizes. The new additions this week here are our #1gal Bumper Crop Tomatoes and #4 Peppers. Be sure to check out the Suyo Long Heirloom Cucumbers and the Toma Verde Tomatillo both are new for us this year.
