This week has been pretty incredible on the farm. It’s one of those moments in time that you want to savor because you know what you’re experiencing is rare. We planted the first round of seedlings in our heated greenhouse, aka the FedEx House, and to make it even better, FedEx was by our side for this step in changing seasonal flower farming.

The plantings consisted of pre-sprouted ranunculus and anemone, which are two of my absolute favorite crops! We planted a mix of butterfly ranunculus (a new addition) and some beautiful shades of the more traditional variety. For the anemone, we chose a dark burgundy along with a few other colors.

We changed up our pre-planting method this year by doing a 24-hour soak in water and RootShield to wake up and protect the dormant bulbs. After that, we covered them lightly in a peat soil mix and kept them in the cooler for a couple of weeks. By this point, the growing tips and root hairs had notably formed and we began tucking them into amended beds.

In the past, we’ve used an aerated soak, but it was messy and of questionable worth. We decided to skip aeration this year and so far, so good! We would then plant them into 50-count trays, which tied up critical seedling space, and let them grow into hardy-sized plugs before the final planting. The extra weeks of work, materials, time, and risk of loss now seems unnecessary. It assured us we had healthy viable plants in every hole and it was easy to see with such robust growth in those first few weeks. However, after years of experience, I can spot viable plants much earlier with little more than a few threadlike roots and swelling eyes.

We also direct seeded a variety of crops in this house including bachelor buttons, larkspur, and nigella, and are trialing different planting methods in this new environment to figure out what works best. The crops are being staged within the two rooms of the house; the front section is closest to the heater and will be our warm room while the back section will be our cool room. This first round of anemone and ranunculus will be in the warm room. It’s such a delight to watch the nigella sprout in front of me and our first round of sweet peas climbing out of the ground behind me. The tunnel is already full of life!

To add icing to the cake, we welcomed our friends from FedEx to document our grant funds being used to *literally* grow the future of Harmony Harvest. The amazing crew came to the farm for three days to film and we were so excited to have them capture our first round of winter flowers. You can read more about the FedEx grant we won here.

As the film crew worked around the farm, our whole team got to play a part in sharing the story of Harmony Harvest and helping others discover a better life through flowers. It’s been a crazy, hectic, and very proud week. We got to showcase all the work The Trifecta has been putting in behind the scenes, the powerful rhythm of our fulfillment shop, the passion and skill our farmers possess, and even the dedication of our delivery drivers to getting the job done. It's amazing to think of all the potential this story has with each seed and plant that goes in the ground. 

- xoxo, Jess