Saying Goodbye To the Garden

If I'm going to make this flower farm work, I need every single square inch of property I can muster up off of this 3-acre parcel. It's a challenging piece of land filled with hills, wetlands, woods, and waterfront. I once had a gentleman stop in to talk to me - gosh, some 25 years ago. He was a licensed native plant specialist and was able to gather up wildflowers and such when a road expansion was on the books, or any other construction project threatening native species. He spoke with me about the uniqueness of our land. What I always thought was a negative could prove to be a positive. Three acres with a handful of different eco-systems (so to speak) all wrapped in one. It took me years to finally come to the conclusion that I needed to stop fighting the wetlands, plant plants that love it! Instead of clearing trees, plant woodland varieties. The hills though? Well that's where we have a problem.

My one flat spot, and it's really not flat, flat-ish(?), is our vegetable garden. We just put it in about two years ago. Having to move the vegetable garden from the backyard to the front yard really made me up my game in the design. It's lovely, and if anyone tells you a vegetable garden cannot be as pretty as a flower garden - I can prove them wrong. But I need the space. Flower farming on a small piece is indeed an orchestra of turn and burns (plants that are pulled after blooms and succession planted with another), perennials who need their place forever, and slow growing annuals that hold up a row for an entire season.

So wish me luck and watch for the change. Come on spring!