Where's the sun? Where's the rain? Where's the heat? Where's the time to plant all these? A season of questions - questioning the weather, questioning decisions, questioning abilities to finish - well, anything (if you're keeping track like my own mother - this newsletter is, in fact, late). 2023 was strangely disruptive to recent patterns. Plans deteriorated and were remade, only to shift and be remade again. Monitoring our processes against a shifting landscape and a changing seasonal ecosystem is part of agriculture. It is the very nature of the work to expect that all that we see to look differently perhaps even hour by hour. Finding the patterns within these changes allows us to be better land stewards and better flower farmers. And yet, this year still felt like chasing squirrels with a fly swatter attached to an anchor. I don't recommend this practice. Where's the snow? (Six or seven inches fell the weekend before Halloween, timely as can be). Now, with daylight hours dwindling away and soil temperatures crashing from the recent cold snap, we look at our unplanted rhizomes staying toasty in the barn awaiting their upcoming nests to be furrowed and cozied up for the winter. It is risky planting this late - we regularly encourage our customers to get their plants watered in and established before the cold sets in - but we have advantages this season that we don't always have the benefit of reaping. Water - and lots of it. The US Drought Monitor has Boulder County still in a no drought designation and even with an incredibly dry late summer/early fall, soil moisture maps have us right around 20% soil moisture content. This level is just barely tipped below ideal conditions for growing bearded iris. Our local conditions on the farm are almost certainly a bit elevated from these broad strokes because we have been pouring the water on. Blessed by a late turn-off date for the Silver Lake Ditch, we've been able to stay plenty moist through the drying summer and fall. Warmth - back to our regularly scheduling heating. As we thaw out from this deep freeze, we're headed back into a warmer, drier pattern. Will this be enough time for our plants to get rooted and established before the true cold season? Stay tuned as we're moving water and drinking the sun's decreasing rays about the landscape for as long as we possibly can. Will - Probably a bit of misnomer but I'm a sucker for alliteration - it's not like we give up every other year. However, staff has been willing to stay on longer into the season to make sure things are finished. (They certainly are a merry band of flower farmers.) As our winters arrive later and a warmer climate grants longer windows for establishment, perhaps we are reaping a micro-scale benefit for growing plants against the broader pattern of a generally heating planet. If the patterns of climate are tending warmer but still granting us little surprises of mayhem (10" of rain in two months), sixty-degree temperature swings over a couple days, how do we as farmers take those questions from above and prepare our farm to buffer against the extremes? Join us next season (#119!) as we experiment with strategies to mitigate the effects of extreme weather while ensuring the most adaptable varieties of bearded iris and other perennials are here to provide the respite they always have in our urban oasis. -- Feel free to come up and ask about any of the plantings we've been adding to the farm if you run into me - I'll be the guy muttering questions under my breath... Where's my hoodie?
Where's my coffee mug? Where'd I leave my knife? Why can't I find a pair of comfortable work shoes that ACTUALLY last?
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