Can the other spring flowers be far behind?

one year ago…”Claire’s Envirothon Team to Nationals Again!”

This is a photo that is only possible to take one day a year. After this frost, the flower turns brown!

We enjoyed the longest growing season ever recorded in Central Iowa – 212 frost-free days!

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #182″

This bunch of stunning celosia keeps up the flower’s image as the ultimate Dr. Suess flower.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #176″

There’s hardly a peony anywhere not  covered with ants.  The ants neither harm nor help the peonies, but can just be a pain for bringing them into the house.  You can cut peonies at the “soft marshmallow” stage before they open up and shake off the ants and then bring them in the house to open up – free of ants.

one year ago…no post

Many of the bulbs provide two new bulbs (corms) after cleaning.  Like garlic, once you buy some, each year you can increase your supply without having to buy more.

one year ago…”Late Lettuce”

The bench is in an old stall with the old feed bunk converted to a high table top for easy stand-up flower arranging.

one year ago…”Masanobu Fukuoka”

At a photo shoot like this, they leave very little to chance, including bringing their own potted sunflowers.

They also bring various hard good props (in case we don’t have enough junky old stuff lying around)!

On Friday, they started at sunrise. Martin was game.  His only complaint was the rare near-record July 31 cold – he’s in a short sleeve shirt and others are wearing jackets

Martin was accompanied by a female model who also came in to participate in the shoot.

On the farm, you never know when you’ll be surprised by some animal, in this case, an early-rising hen to the delight of the kids.

The photographers checking out the shots in the living room later in the day.

Next it was Emma’s turn.  Her job was to water the sunflowers!

The crew setting up for another shot.  The people who came were extremely good to work with.  They worked well with the children and took wandering dogs, chickens, and the like all in stride.  Martin and Emma made money as models and high hopes did get a site fee as well.  Kudos to the Midwest Living folks for making a good shoot.  So look for us in an issue of Midwest Living next summer.

one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #126″

I think the Moulin Rouge caught their eye.

Perhaps along with the Music Box Sunflower.

Or the Teddy Bear sunflower.

Heck, here’s a honeybee on a more standard variety.

So, they contacted us and we just kind of laughed when they asked how big our fields of sunflowers were.  Truth is, we have two or three 50-foot rows and quite a few volunteers between the rows of this year’s crops that Linda didn’t have the heart to weed out.  It’s some of those volunteers that caught the eyes of the editors.  They sent someone out to look at the farm and decided to go ahead with the photo shoot.  So, look for updates on Thursday and Friday about a magazine photo shoot.

one year ago…”Digging Potatoes and Garlic”

It looks much better than this in place – we’ll watch spring arrive a few weeks early as the catkins emerge.

one year ago…”San Jose Farmer’s Market and Poas Volcano”

Poor April doesn’t know she was caught unceremoniously squatting in this photo.

Emma shows off a couple of glad bulbs.  Many people just buy new each year, but we dig ours up as we increase our supply as the bulbs often multiply.  After a few days in the house, we’ll pull last year’s shriveled bulb off the bottom of these, wipe the dirt off, make sure they are dry, and put them in the basement for the winter.  If we were really ambitious, we could pull the little round bulbs off and grow those up too, but we’ll just let those go.

one year ago…”Making Money the Old Fashioned Way”.