Happy FriYAY East Mountains neighbors and all of our friends far and near. We wish you a fabulous day filled with laughter. I'm SOW loving these tiny baby Rudbeckias. I affectionately call them Rude Beckies 🤣.

This is my first year growing Rudbeckia (Rudbeckia hirta - also known as Black Eyed Susans) flowers and of course I decided to grow THREE different varieties. I mean, why on earth would I stop at just one variety?!? I selected: Prairie Sun, Cherry Brandy, and Sahara. I spent some time yesterday pricking out the Cherry Brandy (sprouts pictured) placing them in their plug tray cells. Later this afternoon I will prick out Sahara and Prairie Sun.

"Pricking out" is simply a method to very carefully lift tiny sprouted seedlings and place them into their own individual cells or pots. I do this to save space and potting soil as I only want to plant (dedicate space and soil to) seeds that actually sprout.

Have you grown any of these varieties of Rudbeckia? What was your experience with them?

We are "ON" for popping up in Edgewood tomorrow, 2/17/2024.  If you love fresh, locally grown, synthetic chemical free lettuce and microgreens, be sure to come see us tomorrow, Saturday 2/17/2024, in Edgewood and say hello! Time and location details in flyer image attached.

***WEATHER NOTE: If we have a terrible freak storm (snow or otherwise) and the roads are dangerous, please know it will be cancelled automatically. We love our community and we want everyone to be safe.***

Blue Disc African Daisies are my favorite daisies to grow. They are not perennial here in Edgewood, New Mexico, USA, but they often drop seeds and self sow for me. I also collect their seeds to pot up each year. I love their joyful, bright energy and electric blue-purple centers.

These heat-loving daisies are easy to grow and thrive for a long season. Plants and stems grow up to 24+ inches tall and they make a lovely cut flower. Blue Disc African Daisies are quite striking and bloom beautifully all summer long. Regular dead heading promotes new growth and more blooms.

Oh it's January and like many growers, I'm starting to feel the itch to plant. It's a bit too early to do that so I thought I'd start a new series of posts and share a bit more about some of the things we grow on our micro-farm.

I absolutely love growing flowers. They attract pollinators and make everything so pretty. These pictures are of cactus-flowered dahlias I grew from seed a couple years ago. Their bright twisty petals are so unusual and remind me of beautiful neon colored sea anemones. There were single and double blooms and many exceeded 5" in diameter. We will definitely be growing them again this year -- and selling potted starts in the spring, of course.

Dahlias are generally NOT perennial in New Mexico. That said, I have heard that some growers have been able to create protected micro-climates that allow dahlias to grow perennially. I'm doing some experimenting with this right now and I'm excited to see if it will work. Yet another reason I'm super excited for the 2024 summer growing season.

All that said, dahlias started from seed absolutely do produce tubers that may be lifted from the ground after the first frost in fall and stored for planting the following spring--if you want to ensure the cold and frost doesn't kill off your plants and/or you wish to grow bigger plants and blooms the following year. Alternatively, you may wish to simply treat dahlias as annuals and either purchase starts or start them from seed yourself each year.