OUR DEEPEST CONGRATULATIONS TO ELISE AND TUCKER FROM CEDAR ROCK GARDENS – CELEBRATING 10 YEARS!!!
Elise writes the seasonal update for Cedar Rock, opening April 12th, and if you read further, she shares the history of the past ten years, beginning with the farm’s earliest days.
We Love You Cedar Rock Gardens! Thank you for ten years of beautiful flowers, veggies, native plants, and herbs (and a joyous farm at which to visit and to shop).
IT’S THAT TIME:
Welcome to the 2023 Season!
~We will be open April 12th for the season. We have some really wonderful perennials starting up this year including a big native plant selection and many that are enticing to pollinators of all kinds.
~ We have a new nursery manger this year, Maarit, who is coming to us from Rockport. She is quickly becoming well versed in all things Cedar Rock and will be a great addition to our team this year. She has a background in cheesemaking and is looking forward to learning about soil health and growing bangin’ brassicas and cut flowers.
~As always we will have many cold tolerant veggies, herbs and flowers to plant early in the season, so make sure to plan some space in the garden to get some early successions going.
~We will also have a larger medicinal herb selection this year, we have had success trialing some new varieties from seed that will be available and we are partnering with our friend Emma at MilkyWay Apothecary to provide varieties she has grown and divided.
~Tomato and pepper release day – along with all the other delicious warm weather veggies and plants – will be May 17th. That is when you will be able to shop all the plants that can be planted outside without a danger of frost hurting them.
~Check out our website for a list of plants we will be carrying this year – if you do not see something you want just send an email.
~We are finally at a point where we can satisfactorily host classes at our farm. Look forward to an announcement in March about what you can expect to learn about in some of our class offerings. Along with that we will be utilizing our social media platforms much more with tidbits and tips on planting, soil health, garden planning, variety differences and general dirt nerd kinds of stuff – so follow us on Instagram or Facebook for those goodies if you don’t already.
~ We have a fantastic program starting at Cedar Rock this spring called farm friends. An amazing mama and teacher, Alyssa Pitman, will be hosting parent/child time at the farm on Fridays with a nature school type curriculum. Stay tuned to our Instagram this week for a way to sign up as space is limited.
~ We are still in the planning process of some pretty cool events and opportunities to celebrate being in business for a decade now.
~If you are growing any of your own seeds, now is the time to start your perennial herbs, flowering sweet peas and parsley!
VISIT CEDAR ROCK GARDENS HERE
Okay now that all that good stuff is out of the way I can dwell for a minute on the fact that we are celebrating 10 years in business this year with a trip down memory lane for anyone that wonders how it all began.
I was just recently speaking to a dear friend of mine who has started a farm in New Mexico. They had an intense year of natural catastrophes between fire and floods on their farm. We were lamenting on the past season and I relayed some advice I didn’t even know I had stored.
‘You have to figure out a way to put the prior season’s emotions and climate induced trauma behind you in order to continue successfully into a new season of growing.”
After the words came out of my mouth I thought more about the statement and realized how often I have done this without realizing it. We definitely keep notes and knowledge on what worked well and didn’t, and why we will continue planting certain varieties over others and what we need to do to successfully grow arugula among a large population of flea beetles. All these things are in our control, and mistakes we make simply because we are human and can forgive ourselves for it and move on. But each year there are things completely out of our control that happen that reduce our ability to grow which in turn has steep effects on our business and naturally effects us emotionally. We need to figure out a way to mitigate the effects of climate and economic changes and then let the emotions and trauma of those things fall off us so we can clearly see forward into doing it all again. Farmers are a crazy sort, but growing food and plants is our life and we have to push forward somehow.
