Hello friends. Thanks so much for all your kind words and support last week. We're making some plans and really, it's all business as usual around here. We have more and more and more flowers, and some are already planted in plastic-covered ground. Tonight's low is 26, but then it's supposed to warm up, so we're hoping for the best. We have four varieties of specialty tulips coming up in the caterpillar tunnel in time, we hope, to make some mamas very happy. The caterpillar tunnel is a relatively inexpensive, easy to construct, small hoop house made of PVC bows, rope, ground stakes and screws, and rope. It looks like a caterpillar. Farmer Mike is a pro with them. We've used it every year, but not to its potential. This year we're doing better. The tulips are rocking, and last year's lilies are on their way with the warmth last week, and Earl and I planted snapdragons and some filler flowers as well. I'm soooo excited for the tulips. They are heartbreakingly beautiful. Double flowers that look kind of like peonies in a sweet orange and red, and silver parrots, a fluttery pinky silver, and a pointy lily tulip in a dark maroon.

This is an earth anchor that screws into the ground about a foot and holds the ropes that secure the plastic on the caterpillar.

Healthy tilled ground getting ready for some flowers! That's our little house, and the happy chickens in the front yard in the distance.

Last fall Mike planted barley as an over winter cover crop. It adds and holds nutrients and water in the soil. Last week he tilled it in and we hope to plant early next week. 

It's still springish despite the bitter cold wind and yesterday's flurries.

And in the new hoophouse Emily and I planted 900 snapdragons, 200 delphinium and 90 icelandic poppies. It's so exciting to rent hoophouse space from GOE this year. This is a new level for us, and key to our future success. Bring the learning, we say!

AND, there are all these to be planted! 2100 sunnies are str-etching their stems trying to find the sun that has made itself scarce this week.

Healthy happy celosia and friends!

Here's Earl's college education, or the lisianthus. We've had great germination in most of our seedings so far this year. (Yay, that means we're learning!) We expect to have lots of lisianthus in fall.

Be well this week!

J,M+E

The road of life has twists and turns. Some you can see coming, some just come up really fast as you're tooling along. We had a surprise sharp turn this week. The Wedge Co-op has put Gardens of Eagan Certified Organic Farm on the market for sale this week. For us this means that in nine months, our home and livelihood are uncertain. An investor could buy the place and keep everything as is. Or we will need to move, find a new home and new land for our farm, and new employment and health insurance to sustain our family. It's a big deal. We're processing the surprise, feeling the layers of grief of loss, and getting ready to make a new plan. We knew that this wasn't a forever gig, we just weren't quite ready to move on yet. 

Five years ago, Linda, our farm manager and friend, asked us to drive by this place. "It's where Eveleth Avenue Ts with 290th Street." She had been talking with the current owner because the land lease with the Diffley's was coming due for decision to purchase. "Just check it out," she said. We drove by and I said, 

"I wouldn't want to live on that dusty, dumpy corner." 

Famous last words.

Today this dusty corner houses state of the art produce farm buildings with planting and harvesting equipment, 116+ acres of Certified Organic land, solar panels for electricity, 12 bays of functional greenhouse space, many with rehabbed soil for season extension planting. It also houses our little home and Humble Pie Farm. The farm crew has spent countless hours rehabbing the greenhouses, fixing the furnaces, hustling propane, planting cover crops, redefining farm fields, not to mention seeding, planting and harvesting thousands of pounds of delicious produce to feed our community. My Mike leads this crew in many ways, and picks up pieces all around every day to ensure smooth functioning. He's spent countless overnights slipping out of our warm bed when the sensaphone called to let him know that the temperature in the greenhouse has dropped to go find the problem and fix it. Earl and I have spent countless hours watching Papa on the tractor working these increasingly healthier fields. We've  planted countless red dogwood, cedar, plum, apple, willow and cherry trees. We have a pergola with bittersweet and grapevines climbing it. We have a sandbox. And a chicken coop with 15 happy chickens in our front yard.  It's beautiful. The certified organic farmland across the road is beautiful. Now it looks loved because it is.   

While I was birthing Earl and navigating the wonderful, terrifying first weeks of new motherhood, Bob(12 years with GOE), Susan(8 years with GOE) and Mike(This is his 10th year with GOE!) worked so hard to finish our house so we could move in.  Our church friends painted the walls and refinished the wood floors in the house for cost of materials. Earl's room is "celery", a light happy spring green. We moved here when he was three weeks old. He loves this place. It's his home. He loves the greenhouses and the machine shed and his shovel and the outgoing spinach and the incoming radishes. He loves the farm crew. They're like his family. He sees them every day, they hug and kiss him and let him "help" them. 

Friends, I'm so sad. We will be fine. We have a wonderful community and many resources and skills. We'll figure it out. But oh I'm so sad. This is our home. This is our first farm. We love this dusty corner. We've worked so hard. We aren't ready to let go.

Note: Mike and I are only grateful for and empathetic to the Wedge Co-op management and Board of Directors for their work in making decisions for and financing the farm in shifting and often difficult circumstances.  We hope they understand how hard we've worked to make this place successful in shifting and often difficult circumstances. We love this place. We hope they know that.

AND, everything will go as planned this season. Same TONS of flowers for sale and exciting new markets and events. And we will work like the dickens to make everything the same and better next year. Stay tuned for the next installment in HPF's exciting story.

xoxo
J,M+E

Greetings, friends! We're on day three and a half of a big old nasty stomach bug for the littlest of us but a sure sign that things are looking up was an exuberant request for the "Earl and his weed-whacker" bedtime story. Seriously, he really wants a weed-whacker and loves to talk about them. Never did I envision my special bedtime snuggle stories with my toddler involving small machinery. Like so many parenting lessons: "oh you thought that, well here's reality. Bahahaha!"

I really love it, actually. My little beam of sunshine teaches me so much.

Well folks, it's rocking here. I know I say that every week, but seriously this time, it's ROCKIN'! Whew. We have plants coming out of our ears. This week we're set to begin seeding the sunnies. Wee-hoo, sunnies in the house! About 2000 every two weeks for the next 7 weeks.  That means real actual flowers in bouquets are right around the corner. Thank goodness we have many friends just showing up to volunteer their greenhouse transplanting and seeding skills. Sometimes we feed them dinner. We always promise flowers in the future. We always always feel so grateful for such a wonderful community. 

Thanks especially Amanda, Susan, Molly, Kari, Lucia, and everyone else who supports us in so many ways!

Farmer Mike put the plastic on the caterpillar tunnel today because we have tulips peeking their pretty little heads out of the soil. Fingers-crossed they'll be available for sale for Mother's Day. Stay tuned for photos and updates!

We hired an employee. I'll introduce her in the next post as she begins on Monday. We're so glad to have her on our team. 

Our friend Daphne makes beautiful eco-friendly clothes for her line EcoPetites and proposed some cross-marketing using a certain flower farmer as a real person model for her clothes. I usually don't pick spinach in a skirt and scarf, but maybe I should and really up the style bar around here. She came down and took some photos, and we're going to do some more of her fall line and our flowers this summer with a professional photographer. I am shy, but it was fun to wear such nice, beautifully-made clothes and see the greenhouses through new eyes. And, we're in dire need of some professional photos of our farm and flowers.

It's almost time for some pack shed work area spring cleaning. I need to clear the space for some new floral design creative energy. I'm getting there. I'm almost there. Just as soon as I finish transplanting the giant celosia in the greenhouse. Oh the flowers we will have in a few short weeks!   

Peace out, friends. We wish you a stomach bug-free week!

J,M+E