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Harvest morning — the cart before it heads to the cooler.
A blight scare, the first Shock-o-lat sunflowers opening, and the least glamorous work of the whole year.
FROM THE FIELD
The zinnias and calendula finally turned the corner these two weeks — buds fattening, the first real color breaking open. We think we're about one more week from peak, when the beds go from "coming along" to that wall of bloom you plant all spring hoping for.
It hasn't all been easy. A few of the zinnias came down with a blight — that spotting and browning that spreads fast in warm, wet weather. Rather than reach for a harsh fungicide, we treated it with a beneficial bacteria that colonizes the leaf and outcompetes the fungus. Whether it fully turns things around is still to be determined — we'll report back honestly either way.
The weather has otherwise been just about ideal, with one exception: a storm last week dropped 4.5 inches of rain on us in a single stretch. That much water — and the long leaf-wetness after it — is exactly the opening blight waits for.
IN THE CART THIS WEEK
✽ Zinnias — white & salmon
✽ Cosmos — champagne mix
✽ Ammi — false Queen Anne's lace
✽ Feverfew
✽ Yellow coneflowers
✽ Sunflowers — Shock-o-lat
✽ Calendula
✽ Yarrow — Summer pastels. Aujan's favorite
✽ Goldenrod
🌱 Find us at three markets this weekend
We're loading the truck — this weekend you can find Hardy Hill bouquets at three farmers markets. Days, times, and locations are all on our markets page.
Groton MA • Newton MA • Putney VT
A little thank-you for reading: come find us, tell us you read Field Notes, and we'll send you home with a free stem or $2 off your purchase — your pick.
Bare ground in fall erodes, leaches, and grows weeds. Something should always be covering the soil.
🌱 Getting Ready for Fall
Early August is the quiet hinge of the season. The summer beds are peaking, but if you want anything to eat or cut in September and October, now is when it goes in the ground.
What we just planted
Two varieties of pumpkins — sized up through September, counted back from our ~Sept 26 Zone 5b frost.
Edible sunflowers — a late succession for seed heads and cutting into fall.
Changing a bed over from summer
Cut, don't rip. Chop spent plants at the base; leave nitrogen-fixing roots to break down in place.
Top-dress with compost. Lay it on the surface and let the worms till it in.
Never leave a bed bare. Something should always cover the soil.
Cover-cropping the second field
On next season's field we sowed mustard and crimson clover — not to harvest, but to feed the ground. Clover fixes nitrogen from the air; mustard smothers weeds and acts as a natural biofumigant that suppresses soil-borne disease (a welcome thing after a blight year). Come spring we'll turn them under as green manure.
A FEW FROM THIS WEEK
Shock-o-lat
Salmon zinnia
Calendula
White zinnia
One thing to do
Know someone who'd love following a first-season flower farm — the wins, the blights, and all? Share Field Notes. Refer 3 friends and we'll mail you a set of Hardy Hill stickers as a thank-you.
And come say hi on Instagram (@hardyhillfarms).
From the hill,
— the Hardy Hill Farms family
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