Things have been both busy and slow around farm this week. We’ve been busy planting stuff, moving and hanging baskets, staking clematis, and running dirt. In the office we are making sales calls, interviewing and hiring. I’ve been working on our mum cutting order for this fall. We have to order the mums in March for late May delivery. What we have not been doing much of is shipping out product. I am pretty sure that the lack of orders is due to the cold weather we have had (it snowed here Saturday). However, the weather guru is calling for highs near 80 F on Friday. I think that there will be quite a few garden centers caught with their pants down with no product in the stores for this weekend. That will mean a late Friday scramble for product.
Right now we have a lot of product that is on the edge of perfection. By Monday we will have a lot of primo product ready to be shipped out such as #4 Impatiens and Begonia, J6 Impatiens, Marigolds, Petunias, Dianthus and Salvia, #10 Wave Petunia baskets, #6 Waves, #6 Inca Marigolds,#8 Petunia/Osteo combo planters and #12 Trailing Petunia Combo Decos.
At lunch yesterday, I spoke to Rick who owns Rick’s Rib House. Rick told me that while his business was more sporadic than usual in that some days were super slow while others were super busy, but overall his business is up over last year.
How does your early spring traffic compare to last year? What’s selling for you now? We would love to hear from you.