Garden Secrets - April
While it is currently snowing outside, it is--in fact--officially spring! Exciting things are underway to Petals. Last week we received some amazing news but first let me fill you in on what is coming up this month!
As I'm fond of saying, April shower's bring May flowers, but only if you plant them! I have at least a hundred seedlings going currently and start more every day. Now is the perfect time to get those plants started for your garden so you don't have to buy all of them from garden centers for so much more money in May and June! This weekend I'm super excited for our Seed Starting Happy Hour Workshop, not only is it the perfect time to start seedlings, for BVSD its a 4 day weekend (what?!?!) so happy hour is a perfect way to get a break from all the kiddos that are home for the long weekend! If you are lucky enough to have childcare, why not make a date night of it? Or start girls night out with wine and playing in the dirt? We'll even clean up the mess! We have just a few spots left so if you want to join us please sign up ASAP!
Easter is right around the corner (seriously, its the weekend after this one!) and we are here for all of your flower needs! I am offering a $25 (plus $7 delivery) wrapped tulip bouquet only for my blog readers so if you need to bring flowers to your friends, family, in-laws, etc. please consider using us! We do deliver on Easter Sunday so we've got you covered in a pinch!
Okay, now for the really exciting news! Last week we received an amazing offer to use a friend's fallow 4,000 sq ft. vegetable garden to expand our growing capacity! This is a BIG step up for this small-scale operation! We called in our friend and fellow flower enthusiast Regina to help us out on this incredible opportunity and will be spending the rest of the month prepping for the new space.
The first step was to get the soil tilled to work in the 2 inches of horse manure that has been sitting under some mulch curing for the last 6 months. The garden owner was able to borrow the 60 year old tiller from her 90 year old veteran neighbor in oder to accomplish this. Regina added some biosol to the soil and in a few weeks I'll treat it with a good soaking of compost tea. Over the next weeks we will map out the different growing areas with stakes and twine. In the meantime we are taking inventory of our available plants and starting as many seeds as we have grow light space for in preperation for the space. I currently have 80 dahlias growing in the greenhouse and at least 20 more coming, many of these will move over to the new growing space in mid-may.
Last but not least, we have added an adorable new member to the
Petal's Team: meet Mushu. At 8 weeks old and weighing in at like a half a pound, this furry guy will apprentice under our senior feline advisor Link (15 years old and at least as many pounds) until he's ready to jump into the floral design world (Mushu is currently convinced most plants want to eat him and if they are not a threat, he wants to eat them so we have some ramping up to do).
Happy gardening, see you in May!
Jennifer