April Showers
Greetings!
It’s been a fairly dreary week, with daytime temperatures hovering in the 40s and plenty of precipitation. We had a couple of frosts this week and had a small amount of crop damage as a result. At this point in the season, we’ve removed row cover from most of our overwintered flowers, and we expect them to be hardy enough to withstand a few frosts after a long winter. We covered our tulips and some recently planted blooms but let everything else go through the cold nights unprotected. We didn’t lose any plants to the frost, but a few are certainly looking a little roughed up. I expect they’ll make a full recovery, but I’m sad to say we’ll be bringing a few less poppies to market this week than if we’d given them some extra warmth.
Our crew is back to work, and it’s been a delight to have other people to talk to on the farm again. We have two new employees this year, Carlie and Claire. I’m excited to get to know them, and plan to share more about our crew members in coming newsletters.
Carlie, Claire, and some of the hellebore harvest.
Plant Sale
Our online seedling sale closes next Tuesday, April 15th!
Get your orders in soon for the best selection!
We keep selling out of strawberry plants, so we added more to the shop on Thursday. Other hot sellers this year include flamingo feather celosia, yarrow, pineapple mint, and black krim tomatoes.
If you’d prefer to do your seedling shopping in person, worry not. We’ll start bringing seedlings to market with us this weekend, and we’ll of course have a massive selection of seedlings available at Flower Mart and Cylburn Market Day in early May.
We’re looking forward to getting these seedlings into your hands! It’s a joy to know that we can help you nourish your families.
USDA Frozen Funds Update
We’ve been given the green light to proceed with the solar installation, and hope that the remainder of the process will go on without issues! This is a positive development for us, but we are devastated by the freezing and cancellation of funds for farmers and so many others doing important work to care for our communities.
Our friends at Moon Valley Farm are just one of the many farms experiencing financial harm from the cuts to USDA funding for schools and food banks. These programs are massively beneficial to both the farmers growing the food and those on the receiving end of the produce, who might not otherwise have access to healthy, locally grown food.
We’re thankful for everyone who has advocated on our behalf as we’ve navigated the funding debacle, and we ask that you all continue to stand up and speak out about these funding cuts that threaten our community’s health and well-being.
A trunk full of blooms destined for a UMBC campus event. We soaked in every bit of sunshine we could get this week.
2025 Markets
Come to the market this weekend and your car could look like our delivery van!
The Baltimore Farmers’ Market starts this Sunday, April 13th, from 7:00-12:00.
We’re truly thrilled to be back to market, and can’t wait to share our blooms with you for another year.
Despite what you may have seen on the farmers’ market Instagram page, it’s unlikely anyone will have juicy tomatoes at the market this time of year (who wrote that post?!), but we’ll certainly have some goodies to make your trip downtown worth it!
This week we’re planning to bring bouquets, hellebore bunches, flowering branches, pussy willow, ranunculus bunches, herb seedlings, and shiitake mushrooms.
Thanks for reading, and, as always, we appreciate your steadfast support.
Wishing you all the best,
Amelia, Elisa, and the Two Boots Crew
I can’t get enough of hellebores this year.