Too Many Markets, Not Enough Flowers

So this is my first year doing more than one market, and I guess I picked a heck of a year to do it. It's still winter when you apply to the markets, so you have no idea what the weather will be later in the year. After applying to 3 markets, I'm now having what is probably my worst flower year ever. It started with the strange weather this spring when so much bloomed so early, meaning a lot of it was already past bloom when the farm market opened. The other side effect of the early bloom was that some things froze early on when the nice balmy weather turned icy-cold overnight. Compound that with 2 bouts of golf-ball sized hail, and you have flower beds with realtively few flowers. So right now, I'm just kind of scraping along with whatever I can get, and waiting for the flowers I planted later to catch up.

On the bright side, though, I picked my first sunflower Friday night and sunflowers are hardy little fellers, so hopefully with the upcoming hot spell, a patch of those will start popping and my tables at the markets with have many flowers once again. And I should definitely have some flowers blooming by the time the Cheshire market opens in July. So as my grandfather always said "next year..." I'll be planting on my new lot next year too, so I'll have more flowers to begin with. Then if some unforseeen atmospheric catastrophe such as hail, high wind, or an astroid falling from the the sky should occur, I'll have more flowers spread out a farther distance, raising the odds for more survival. Yup, next year will be better.