Inaugural Spring
My insides are a swirl of butterflies.
I've got a pile of seed packets, seedlings sprouting on the shelves, and a mountain of ground work to get done in 5 to 6 weeks while holding down two other part time jobs. We moved our farm from borrowed land up north to this sweet little spot here in Centennial this past December.
Our new home's land (I affectionately call our house and her yard, "Pearl"), looks as if at one time it was thoughtfully landscaped. There are some mulch beds and shrub borders that show how a plan evolved over a couple of decades, probably with an ebb and flow of motivation and physical ability, with a dash of a rambunctious dog thrown in. The upkeep seems to have tapered off in recent years. The grass has mostly died, the shrubs are overgrown with old wood and the trees in the front and back of Pearl have suffered from the drought and unusually hard late frosts the front range has experienced the last few years.
In the next several weeks we need to remove and rearrange everything back here and in the front to make way for approximately thirty 50 foot long beds that will be the first season's home for Western Flora Co.'s Bloom Share (what we are calling our flower CSA). In the fall I hope to add perennial shrubs to the fence lines and perennials to our shrub borders. We will also attempt to build a flower cooler, storage shed, and an outdoor processing space. We are ambitious, hopeful and so excited.
I plan to turn the ground over this first season to facilitate shaping the beds a break up some perennial weed roots for the sake of brevity. We will grow with no-till practices here as that is such a great way to develop really healthy soil. I recently went down the rabbit hole of reading about Korean Natural Farming, so who knows, that might get worked into the toolbox of methods employed to grow these flowers too.
A few nights ago, Matt, the half of us who can fix and build literally anything, exclaimed that he has seven years of pent-up home-project-energy from living in a townhome (where I guess he forgot that he renovated the kitchen and installed new flooring by himself). He has already relocated our basement laundry room to our main floor to prepare for our other project of turning Pearl's basement into an in-law apartment. We have lived here a mere two months.
If that is any indication of things to come, Pearl is going to be sittin' pretty in about 12-18 more months - or who knows - 2-10 years. The mail just came with more seeds, so off I go!
Here's to our first season here! I think it will be beautiful.