from the top left: cosmos, nasturtium, parsnip, chicory, shungiku, cilantro, zinnia, calendula and chard
I’ve been writing the CSA newsletters for the farm this year, and it’s been an interesting challenge. Every Monday, early in the morning, I sit down with the pictures from the week and click around the internet looking for some inspiration. What to write about? What will members find interesting? Are there any good farmy quotes out there? Do they even read this thing?
proto-flowers and the first squash bloom
before the fruit, the flower: pepper, eggplant, and tomato
This week I wrote about all of the flowers that are on the farm right now. Not the big, showy types that you cut for bouquets, but the subtle and accidental ones you find in June: the summer fruits that are flowering now, preparing for their big debut at the table. The random overwintered things that have run fully toward making seed, and the spring plantings that are headed that way because of our unusually warm and dry spring.
I find these accidental flowers fascinating: who knew that a single parsnip, such a humble root vegetable, would push up a flower stalk that towers over my head, maybe 8 feet tall? Cilantro offers up delicate little umbrels dusted with pink that the bees and flies just love. And the chicories are now glorious, swirling clouds of periwinkle blossoms.
looking up at the parsnip flowers
cilantro flowers with their ever-present bee friends
a chicory cloud
We did plant (very late) some flowers for cutting, which I am very excited about. I’ve been toying with the idea of flowers for a year or so now, and have read a fair amount about flower farming. (How awesome does that sound? Imagine being surrounded by fields of flowers, all there for the sole purpose of beauty. Shivers.) I have low expectations but high hopes for our few little rows of cutting flowers. Just for fun!
first zinnia, just opening
Be well,
B
beth / rest 