Greetings, farm friends!

What an extraordinarily rainy May we’ve had so far! It’s been a bit stressful for us, with soggy fields and wet market days. We’ve been unable to get into the fields to work on bed prep and planting, so there’s a massive backlog of seedlings waiting to get tucked in. It’s unpleasant to work in the rain, but the real reason we don’t work our fields when they’re wet is because working the soil when it is wet leads to compaction. Compaction makes it more difficult for plant roots to travel through the soil and limiting the amount of oxygen in the soil, making nitrogen less available to the plants. We’ve done a lot to limit compaction on the farm, and we certainly don’t want to damage the soil profile by working in soaked beds.

In addition to keeping us from bed preparation, the wet fields are preventing us from mowing down our winter rye and clover cover crop, which is setting seed and ready to be killed! We’re also waiting on planting out dahlia tubers, as they can rot if planted when it’s too wet, a lesson we learned the hard way several years ago. I know that in a couple of months time I’ll probably be complaining about the drought, but isn’t half of a farmer’s job complaining about the weather?

Fortunately, most of the crops that are producing right now look quite good despite the rainy, cool weather. It’s been challenging to predict our florist availability, as we keep oscillating between heatwaves and rain weeks. We’re harvesting every possible stem and hoping for the best these days. Since we can’t do much in the way of planting right now, we’re taking care of weeding neglected spaces, tending to the high tunnels, and catching up on greenhouse work. Fingers crossed that next week’s sunny forecast comes to fruition and dries out our fields!

Thanks to everyone who came out to Flower Mart, Cylburn Market Day, and our Mother’s Day Market. These are the busiest weeks of the season for us, and it’s really special to know how much our work is appreciated!

*On the bright side, colorful flowers really pop on these gray days!*

We’re at the Baltimore Farmers Market this Sunday, May 19th, from 7:00- 12:00!

We’re planning to bring bouquets, poppies, peonies, ranunculus, seedlings, and new Two Boots merch!

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you at the market!

Amelia & The Two Boots crew

Rainy May