In February I introduced you to our Rudbeckia seedling starts (you can read that blog post here) when I spoke about "pricking them out" to their own soil cells. Today I'm following up with a check in on the Rudbeckia transplants to show you they are coming along quite nicely. In the last couple of days they have sized up noticeably! I'm getting very excited to see these flower during the summer growing season.

This is my first year starting/growing Rudbeckia. We are growing 3 varieties: Cherry Brandy, Sahara, and Prairie Sun. We will be offering some of these seedlings for sale (when the time is right for transplanting). If you would like to be notified by email when they are ready, send me an email request to [email protected]

Our grow room is filling up with trays of beautiful, happy, healthy baby plants and it truly is my most favorite time of the year. All plants are started by seed (also a few by cuttings) by me right here on our  Edgewood, NM micro-farm.

This year we are excited to be able to offer limited quantities of more than 30 heirloom & specialty varieties of Peppers (including several native chile pepper varieties). We will also have more than 40 varieties of heirloom & specialty Tomatoes (including cherry, paste, slicer & dwarf varieties) and lots of unique and fun flowers and herbs. Stay tuned for more information on specific varieties as we get closer to planting time.  If you'd like to be notified when we begin selling plant starts, please send an email to [email protected] and tell me what kind of plants (i.e., tomatoes, peppers, flowers, herbs, cucumbers, summer squash, winter squash, rhubarb, artichokes, etc.) you want to know about when they become available for sale.

As the saying goes: Know your farmer. So (if you're curious or interested) this will help you get to know me a little better. 

This is my Grams, Myra M. Holloway Moffett, in the picture with me. The picture was taken on my high school graduation day in 1983. Grams was born on March 30, 1924 in Goshen Township, Ohio. She was born into a Quaker family and her mother passed away when she was only 3 years old. Grams was a practicing member of the Friends Church in Salem, Ohio until her passing. She was a gentle and kind yet strong woman with deep faith.

She wasn't a celebrity and she didn't have a "career" or a paying job outside the home. Her family was her priority and she showed that daily and in virtually every choice she made, even though she was often criticized and mocked for it. NOTE: NONE of what I have written should be construed to mean that I think women who work outside the home are not needed or valued. We are ALL NEEDED. We are ALL VALUED. Both she and my grandfather were so proud of my military service AND when I began working outside the home as a young wife and mother.

My grandmother's life was not easy and she endured many struggles--of which the people who mocked and criticized her knew nothing. Yet she didn't complain--at least not to her grandchildren or in any public way that I was aware of. She just did what needed to be done every day and she LOVED with grace, patience, kindness, forgiveness, commitment and the biggest kind of love I ever knew.

She was the single most important positive female role model in my life. If she were still alive, on Saturday, March 30, 2024, we would have celebrated her 100th birthday. How I wish she could have been here and I could have given her a grand birthday party celebration. I was her eldest grandchild, and in May this year I will turn the same age she was in this picture of her with me.

Oh, I miss her so.  Despite the loss of my Grams from this life, as the years have passed I feel certain I've grown much closer to her. Her words have brought comfort to me in my most difficult moments and they have helped me overcome other tragic losses. She taught me so many wonderful things: Baking, sewing, quilting, how to love and forgive; and how to do my best & keep going no matter how hard life feels. She was a quilter and made a quilt for each of her children and grandchildren. I still have mine though it is tattered from years of loving use--a source of comfort always.

She was also famous in our family for making the most delicious rolls from scratch for every family gathering/holiday meal. Even to this day, my cousins in Ohio still lament her big family holiday meals and her most wonderful rolls. Ohhhh, yes. I absolutely did make some homemade rolls on her birthday in honor of her legacy of kindness, goodness, patience, creativity and love. This I do each year, but  this year was especially special to me: Her 100th Birthday.

The best I can do is share her love, her example, and the goodness she shared with me. I celebrate the LOVE that is and was the essence of Myra M. Holloway Moffett, my grandmother. 

One more little tid-bit related to my grandmother. Her father was a farmer in Ohio--so it literally *is* in my blood.