Trees Budding; Flower News; Rain, Rain, Glorious Rain

I am saying it along with everyone else in California, Thank God It is Raining!!!  Lots of glorious rain.  We had a lighting storm last night with lots of thunder.  Poor Bella, she gets so frightened when there is thunder, she comes up to you and wants to get into your lap and be cuddled.  But of course, she weighs 90+ lbs, kind of hard to have her in your lap to give her comfort.

I took the dogs for a ride in the Gator around the property to see what was happening with the fruit trees.  Most of the peaches, nectarines, apricots have bloomed so not sure how much fruit we will get as they bloomed during the last few weeks with the wind and rain storms.  The biggest surprise was seeing the pomegranate trees budding out.

The rain is a great time for us to fertilize our roses, hydrangeas, shrubs and fruit trees.  Luckily, I did it on Tuesday before the storm hit and then the rain helped dissipate it into the roots.  I use the systemic fertilizers for my roses which seems to me, the best to keep the roses healthy; no rust or aphids as long as I do it a couple times a spring/summer.  If I remember, I try and do it every 30 days.  The Cecile Brunner is starting to show signs of budding out, what a fabulous climber rose.  It is so huge, I really need to cut it back some it is taking over our garbage can area. Here is what it looked like last spring.

As I mentioned previously in my blog, our farm is being highlighted in the Edible Shasta-Tehama-Butte magazine.  The 3rd article should be out in a couple of weeks.

Also some good news.  The Farmgirl Flowers in San Francisco has asked us to write a quarterly blog about growing flowers on our farm.  They are a fabulous flower shop that promotes buying LOCAL flowers and they even deliver flowers by using bicycles.  Their arrangements are so beautiful and natural looking.  It is exciting to be asked and I can't wait to read the other bloggers that will be writing along with our Windmill Farm.  If you are a flower lover like I am, you just can't get enough information about growing them and the best source of information are to me, other growers.  Here is the link to the Facebook page of The Farmgirl Flowers.

If you want to read a terrific blog about a flower farm, check out The Floret Flower Farm.  They are featuring specific flowers lately and are showing how they grow them and their favorite seeds.  I look forward to their blogs very much and wish I lived closer to their Washington State Farm, I would be there every week.  They are scheduling a flower retreat, such a great idea where people stay at the farm for several days and learn about the growing of flowers and have flower arranging classes.  Maybe someday here at Windmill Farm!!!

Always dreaming about fruit, flowers, vegetables and getting my hands back into the soil.