Playing In the Dirt  

June 2022

Little Blessings

 

Farming with a baby in tow has been an interesting experience that I wasn’t expecting. Good, bad, or ugly, I never seem to have enough hands. A typical day starts with us going outside bright & early for our scouting mission. With a baby on my hip, I walk thru every planted row looking for new buds, blooms, potential problems and things to harvest. We take our morning stroll at an easy pace, stopping to ‘pet’ which ever blooms strike his fancy, sometimes stopping to play with some rocks, & swinging by the chicken coop as we recite, “The chicken says cluck cluck!" & “The rooster says cock-a-doodle-dooooo!” Anything after that is fair game. He may be content to sit playing in the dirt beside me, watching me from his stroller, or be strapped to my chest as we plant & harvest - or not. I’ve lost a few transplants and blooms from him wanting to help by plucking baby transplants out of the ground, sitting on small plants, or grabbing blooms by the handful. Prime field time is also often interrupted because of lunch time, nap time, snack time, or just plain I’m-not-happy-anymore time. No matter the challenges of farming with a little one, the blessings are huge and I would not change a thing. I had fun teaching him to smell the flowers (verses eating them, ha) and for days afterwards he would bunch up his little nose constantly practicing his sniff which made me laugh. He gets crazy excited every time we head for the door to go outside, it’s always fun to take with me when we are delivering flowers and my heart is happy knowing this child is growing up immersed in nature & all the beauty it holds.

Did Someone Say Flowers???

All of that seed starting has paid off! There are flowers everywhere (YAY!) and I find myself saying “This one is my favorite,” a lot. They all seem to be. Each one is so beautiful & unique in it’s own way. The prairie sun rudbeckia is my favorite because it has green eyes instead of brown ones. The strawflowers are my favorite because they shimmer. The mauve dara is my favorite because the blooms are h-u-g-e & fluffy. The yarrow is my favorite because the pastel colors are just so pretty. The wheat celosia is my favorite because it is so dainty. I'm especially in love with our white daisies with the blue eyes - they just started blooming this week! 

 

Blooming Now

~Bachelor Button (4 colors) ~Basil (2 varieties) ~Celosia (lost count) ~Coreopsis (yellow) ~Cosmo (lots of colors) ~Dara (2 colors) ~Echinacea (2 colors) ~Gomphrena (white) ~Gypsophila (white) ~Hollyhock (lots of colors) ~Hydrangea (an awesome pink/green) ~Larkspur (purple) ~Mint (2 varieties) ~Nigella (blue) ~Rudbeckia (5 varieties blooming so far) ~Snapdragon (lots of colors) ~Statice (purple) ~Strawflower (white) ~Veronica (purple) ~Yarrow (pastel colors) ~Zinnia (lost count)

 

How to Order Flowers

We offer 2 sizes of mixed bouquets, weekly subscriptions & DIY buckets. We post our weekly flower availability on Rooted Farmer’s. Anyone can purchase our flowers through Rooted, however we have noticed some glitches (such as our inventory is not showing sometimes, yikes!) so we added a quick order form to our website. Pre-orders are available for delivery to the Amelia Court House Village Area on Tuesday's & Thursday's. Don’t forget to check out our Instagram page for pics!

 

Thank you Thank you Thank you

We appreciate all of the wonderful gushing feedback we have gotten on our flowers so far. We are thrilled you find them as beautiful we do. Thank you for all of your support as we ‘grow’!

 

Non-flower wins this month

  • We scored with our new asparagus pickle recipe! We nailed it & we might like them even better than our Dilly Beans!
  • We had a great field visit with our local conservation agent to discuss forest buffer programs and plantings to help protect our (& your!) waterways. Good things are coming!
  • We are working with a talented team of people at Virginia Tech on a cool new research project we hope to tell you about soon!

Red Handle Farm ~ Growing Faith Hope & Love 

Matthew 19:14 “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

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Amelia Court House, VA, USA

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