Farm Blog

Thank you again for braving the blizzard to celebrate, connect with great food, and 'planting an orchard'! Just imagine all those future cherry trees (don't forget to squat:-).
I am so uplifted from all the good vibes, intentions, laughter and seeds shared and planted.

We were able to raise $850.00 in funds! This will go a long way, thank you! Additionally, with all the seeds donated today and from what I've gleaned from others, The women growers in the Sine-Saloum region will be able to plant out a couple hundred row feet/farm. In the past we've planted shared 'demonstration beds' ie since many of the farmers share space/land to grow on we've constructed seeds beds to trial different varieties, plant insectory herbs and flowers and share techniques. From there seeds are harvested and shared forward amongst the individual farmers. So in essence your generosity helped plant teaching/learning/eating/

sharing beds of veggie, herb, and flower goodness!
 

I will honor my commitment and extend the immense gratitude, generosity that was shared during the workshop with the women farmers in the following ways:

Work with NCBA CLUSA Farmer to Farmer Program to transfer funds and mail seeds.
I'll also email and share highlights, photos forward later this week in celebration of our workshop success.

I am tentatively set to travel there Nov/Dec. or January in 2016.

I also finally remembered the name of third grower group, JUBO (means widespread). If you're interested in learning more about how they got started, here's a link to an interview I did as part of my last Farmer to Farmer adventure in Senegal.

I Will keep you in the loop as the project evolves and thanks again for sharing your generous spirit!

For the chocolate lovers:
Becky Otte, who made the amazing truffles, has more of her chocolate goodness to share and is selling some of her creations just in time for Valentines. if you're interested send her an email: raonine@gmail.com

Also Here is a link to Roots Chocolate website.

For the Fruit Lovers:

I've enclosed a handout of some of the different fruits we grow at our farm as well as a flyer highlighting this season's events at the farm! We'd love to have you venture out and tour the orchard, come visit us (though not nearly as cool as the orchard poses we did during the workshop).

Thank you again for helping me transition from being a butterfly weed seed (ie wind pollinated, not knowing where or how my intentions, projects might stick) to more of an oak or cashew seeds - wherein I can deepen my awareness, provide support in the same place(s) in Senegal for the growers and in my backyard in Wisconsin:-). Here's to planting the seeds of the as yet to be imagined on and off the yoga mat! Wishing you all much abundance.

Happy Mid-winter!

Yours in hardy kiwi,
Erin


PS If you are into exploring the planting side as well as enjoying more local fruit creations, we'll be hosting a Local Fruit Tasting May 16, details on our website.

 

Flowers as Self-Care and Nourishment

A Guest Blog Post I contributed to the Leek and the Carrot

Every once in a while, I get a nudge of encouragement and invitation to creative play in a flower farming industry that provides endless challenges through all the beauty. A huge thank you to Lauren Rudersdorf, the talented writer, farmer, and soil sister behind the Leek and the Carrot and Raleigh's Hillside Farm. It is an honor to be a guest blogger and share acts of beauty and flower mojo with you. And if you haven't already, her blog one to follow in all it's culinary ingenuity and farm-her authenticity. Thank you Lauren!

It must have started with plucking a daisy’s petals, in my mom’s garden.  Mindlessly chanting, “He loves, me, he loves me not,” as I plucked petals daydreaming of a crush I was too awkward to approach in my gangly teenage years. It’s interesting to note that the daisy, along with several thousand species of aster family members, usually have an uneven number of petals, so if you start with ‘(s)he loves me,” that’s probably where you will end up! Maybe the flowers seduced me, as I plucked the petal love. Regardless, the theme of love and trust has stuck with me as I love flowers and continue to learn what it means to trust in their wisdom as a flower farmer.

I have always grown flowers – in my mother’s garden, as part of my own landscapes, apartment balconies, and kitchen windowsills as I worked my way around one mountain peak to the next in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska Interior as an outdoor educator and native plant restorationist, and later returning to my Midwest roots, wherein among other adventures, I fell in love with a farmer and well, a Farmer Florist was born. When I started farming with my husband Rob at Hilltop Community Farm in 2009 flowers were always part of the field mix, work/life balance, experimentation, and soul nourishment. The last 7 years, however, I have been consciously shifting from vegetable production to fruit and flowers and this is my fourth season with a ‘formal’ flower csa program and 11th season with wedding flower work. I enjoy how flowers balance and compliment other areas and market channels for our farm including our fruit and vegetable share program.

June 6 Bridal Bouquet created for our wedding clients. Photo by Rob McClure

June 6 Bridal Bouquet created for our wedding clients. Photo by Rob McClure

Flowers provide more than beauty on the farm. Flowers and herbs paint our landscape, servicing a variety of ecological functions—working in tandem with the microbes as soil builders, adding structure and fertility to the rhizosphere, offering up their influorescence and nectar spurs as food for our honeybees and native pollinator friends, manipulating the olfactory airwaves as pest managers, networking with our fruits and vegetables above and below ground as companion plants, adorning the landscape with color in their peak evolutionary expression, and to provide for a diversity of culinary and medicinal uses on our farm.

Flower farming starts with walking the land and reading the landscape. My farmer florist workday begins early morning, and I wander the fields, coffee and camera in tote (the morning light on the fields is just magic—whatever the season), taking notes for what to prioritize for the day. Whether it is prepping beds for a succession of zinnias, gomphrena, or celosia, setting up irrigation for watering, dividing dahlias, weeding the flush of purslane in the delphiniums, or taming the hardy kiwi vines, I run a mental inventory of what to do, what to pick, and when. After breakfast and just as the morning dew lifts, it’s back to the fields to harvest flowers for bouquets to design later in the day for tomorrow’s CSA delivery (flowers need some ‘chilling out’ time (don’t we all) in the shade or cooler before making bouquets).

Sweet pea sunsets at the farm. Photo by Erin Schneider

Sweet pea sunsets at the farm. Photo by Erin Schneider

As a local flower farmer, I not only grow flowers that have quality stems and blooms and are long lasting, but I can also grow flowers that don’t hold up well in shipping and longer term storage. By marketing directly to clients, I can add value through education – telling the stories behind the flowers, the various roles flowers have played in different cultures and ceremony as well as their various roles on the landscape. I think people are also attracted to (or at least I like to think so:-), our commitment to sustainable production and an emphasis on growing native plants suitable as cut flowers and a diversity of perennials is also unique. I can offer both the dinnerplate dahlia plumage and contrast this with aronia berries and baptisia with a gesture of hop vines, there are endless stories to tell in the design.

Bench pressing bouquets as part of a floral installation for a wedding celebration. Photo by Mary Jo Borchardt, Five Green Acres

Bench pressing bouquets as part of a floral installation for a wedding celebration. Photo by Mary Jo Borchardt, Five Green Acres

If you want to geek out on numbers: Of the 122 different species (not counting the number of different varieties of the same species), that we intentionally cultivated and wildcrafted for bouquets, 47 were perennial cut flowers, 23 represented woody perennial fruit, shrubs, and vines, 44 were annuals, and 8 were vegetables. If you want to geek out on ecology – From an energy and conservation perspective, growing a diversity of flowers and perennials in particular means a minimal footprint on the land, including: less time needed for site preparation; less soil disturbance and microbial disruption that comes with tillage; reduced need for investment in infrastructure such as hoop houses and greenhouses that use energy for heating and materials (plastics); increased soil and water holding capacity; increased diversity of pollen for our honeybees and native insects, birds, and bats that feast on flower ‘power’; and (hopefully) increased intrigue and appreciation of what can be grown locally and withstand Wisconsin’s fluctuating weather and growing season length.

yarrow has been used to stanch war wounds, break fevers, relieve stings, and support detox from the physical to the emotional pains of the times. I never tire of discovering new perspectives on this old plant. Photo by Erin Schneider

yarrow has been used to stanch war wounds, break fevers, relieve stings, and support detox from the physical to the emotional pains of the times. I never tire of discovering new perspectives on this old plant. Photo by Erin Schneider

I’ve also learned over the years that flowers and their tree and herb friends can heal the body. Many cultures have known this, and science continues to prove them right. Plants, and I believe flowers in particular, have properties that can support our emotional well-being.

I think of flowers as distillations of nature’s music, with the resulting resonance supporting our well-being.  There is a body of wisdom on flower essences (or elixirs) that captures the energetic essence of flowers by floating freshly picked blooms in bowls of spring water and leaving them in the sun or moonlight. These were used as remedies to support emotional health, self-discovery and growth—for thousands of years. This was long forgotten in the West until (re) discovered in the late 1920’s by Dr. Edward Bach.

One of my favorite flowers for distilling nature’s musical mojo is Peony. A renowned healing herb native to China and loved throughout the world, Peony’s layered flounced petals are symbolic of self-expression and honesty. Its seeds give off a faint red phosphorescent glow, the perfect invitation for a lunar stroll in the garden. You can find a recipe for peony petal tea below.

Peony petal infusion

Peony petal infusion

PEONY PETAL TEA
Developed by Erin Schneider of Hilltop Community Farm

As peony petals rain on your table, you can drink in its ardent love through this simple infusion:

  1. Let peony petals rain on your tablecloth, blanketing the base of your vase
  2. Collect these petals
  3. Bring water to a boil
  4. Pour over peony petals in your favorite mug
  5. Steep for 5 – 10 minutes
  6. Drink in ardent love any time of day and for a layer of extra sweetness add a dollop of honey

Variation: Collect petals, put in a clear glass bowl with water. Set out in the sun (or moonlight) for 12 – 24 hrs. Add your petal distillation to your bathwater or pour over face for a peony love bath.

In all cases, there is a simplicity that comes when we spend time with flowers and their energy is available to everyone. Now go ahead, let your honeysuckle heart skip a bit, make arrangements and be inspired, delighted, confounded, wowed, and curious by the changing menu of nature’s blossom bliss. These growing acts of beauty are for you!

-Erin