We were away two weeks and came home to the healthiest focals we have ever grown. Here is what we are doing with them.
FROM THE FIELD
Honest answer: not much happened in the field these two weeks. We were on holiday. The drip ran, the netting held, and nobody was here to write anything down.
We came home to a surprise. Because we planted late this year, later than we wanted to and later than anyone would advise, our focals are only now hitting their stride while a lot of the region is winding down. The zinnias have never looked better. Celosia is in full bloom. Cosmos are going. The dahlias are days from full bloom, and a fresh succession of sunflowers is about to pop.
So we are heading into the back half of September with the strongest field we have had all season. That is also why we are opening next year's Flower Share right now, while we can still show you what the flowers actually look like.
IN THE CART THIS WEEK
✽ Zinnias, full bloom, the best of our season
✽ Celosia, full bloom
✽ Cosmos, full bloom
✽ Dahlias, days from full bloom
✽ Sunflowers, a new succession about to open
🌱 The 2027 Flower Share is open
Back in August we told you that our 2027 CSA opens to the public in October, but that Field Notes readers would get first crack in September. This is that email. Shares are wide open, and nobody outside this list has seen them yet.
A share is simple. You reserve a spot now, and every week of your season you pick up a hand-tied bouquet at one of five locations across New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Cut the night before you collect it. Arranged with whatever is peaking that week.
Sixty shares for the whole year, split across four tiers. Everything, including the tier caps and pickup locations, is on the Flower Share page.
60 SHARES • 4 TIERS • 5 PICKUP LOCATIONS
A share reserves the row your flowers grow in. This is the row.
🌱 What a share actually gets you
Not a discount club, and not a box of whatever did not sell at market. A share is a standing weekly bouquet, grown on purpose, for you.
Eighteen premium stems every week. The kind you cannot find in a grocery store, because they do not ship well and so nobody ships them.
Cut the night before your pickup. Not held in a cooler for a week and trucked in. Seven to ten days of vase life is normal for a share bouquet.
No two bouquets alike. Ranunculus in spring, dahlias in August, celosia and zinnias through the middle. Every week is different because every week the field is different.
Grown to the same standard we hand our best market customers. Every stem planted, netted, harvested, and bunched by two people. Us.
THE FOUR WAYS IN
One thing to know before you pick a tier: there are no July bouquets. July is a real bloom gap here. The spring flowers are finished and the late-summer focals are not on yet, and we would rather skip a month than hand you something we are not proud of. Every tier is built around it.
Full Season
$200 now, $500 on Feb 1.
Twenty weeks of bouquets, mid-May through mid-October, skipping July. Capped at eighteen shares. Three extra premium stems over our classic market bouquet, at the same price. Plus a free hat and two extra bouquets.
Half Season
$150 now, $306 on Feb 1.
Eight weeks, August through mid-October. Fifteen shares. Peak dahlia, sunflower, zinnia, and celosia. Good if you spend the early summer somewhere else, or want to try a share without the full commitment.
Monthly
$190 at checkout.
One bouquet a week for four weeks. Pick June, August, or September. Eighteen shares. For travellers, and for anyone who wants a reminder of summer on the kitchen table.
Flex
$240 at checkout.
Six bouquets, redeemable any week the field is cutting between June 15 and October 1. Arrives as a physical punch card, so it is our best gift. Twelve cards only.
If you want the most value, Full Season is the one we would pick ourselves. It is the longest run of flowers, it is the only tier with the extra stems, and it comes with a hat and two extra bouquets on top — all priced at the same you would pay for a regular farmers market bouquet. Eighteen spots. Members also get first refusal on 2028 at the same price, before we open to the public.
Full Season and Half Season take a deposit now and auto-charge the balance on February 1. Monthly and Flex are paid in full, because they are smaller commitments and easier for us to plan around.
FLOWER SHARE DEEP DIVE
Why a first-generation farm asks you to pay in the winter
This part did not make it into the email. It is here for anyone who wants to understand what a share actually does for a farm this size, and why the money moves the way it does.
Flower money runs backward
Almost everything we spend, we spend between October and February: seed, dahlia tubers, ranunculus corms, bulbs, drip tape, netting, tunnel plastic. Almost everything we earn, we earn between June and October. There is a five month stretch every single year where the farm is nothing but outgoing.
A farm in its second or third generation absorbs that gap with equipment it already owns and land it already paid for. We are first generation. We do not have that cushion. We have a hillside in Roxbury, a used deli fridge, a tractor, and a high tunnel we hauled home in pieces.
So the winter gap gets financed one of two ways. Either we put it on a card and pay interest on our own seed order, or the people who will actually receive the flowers fund the flowers. A Flower Share is the second option.
What the deposit actually buys
Your deposit does not sit in an account waiting for spring. It goes straight into the October through February order: seed, bulbs, tubers, irrigation, and the tunnel. The February 1 balance charge is not an arbitrary date either. It lands the same week our seed order ships.
Which means when you reserve early, you literally choose what we plant. Sixty committed shares tells us exactly how many rows of dahlias to put in the ground. Guessing is expensive. A guarantee is not.
Why we cap it at sixty
We could sell more than sixty. We are not going to. Sixty is the number two people can harvest, condition, and hand-tie every week without the quality slipping, and quality is the only thing a farm our size actually has to sell. Sixty shares split across four tiers, and when a tier is gone it stays gone until someone cancels.
The fine print, plainly
Skipping a week. Give us 48 hours notice by email and we will credit you a bouquet at the end of the season, or double you up on a later week if you would rather. Zero-notice skips forfeit that week, because we have already cut the flowers. Two skips per season.
Changing your pickup. Email us seven days ahead of your next scheduled pickup and we will move you.
If a tier sells out. A waitlist form appears on the product page. Put your name in, and if a member cancels or we open more shares you are first in line. You get a back-in-stock email with a 24 hour window to buy.
Gifting. Order a Flex card, we mail you the physical punch card, you write a name on it and put it in an envelope. They redeem it at any pickup, any week, all season.
Weddings and events. Shareholders get 10% off bucket orders. Just mention you are a shareholder when you inquire.
One more thing
Members get first refusal on 2028 shares at the same price, before we open to the public, on October 1, 2027. The people who take a chance on our first CSA year should not have to compete for their spot later.
End of the deep dive. Back to the field.
A FEW FROM THIS WEEK
Our most popular color palette this season
The calendula patch in peak bloom
Our Golden Hour bouquets from early August
The sunset yarrow supported by Hortonova
Sixty shares, four ways in, and the Full Season capped at eighteen. If you have been reading Field Notes all summer wondering how to actually get these flowers on your table, this is how.
Questions about a tier or a pickup location? Just reply to this email. It comes straight to us.
And come say hi on Instagram (@hardyhillfarms).
Warmly,
the Hardy Hill Farms family