Growing Flowers

Wake Up and Smell the Flowers

November 17, 2018 / Adrienne Cohen

Restaurant chefs and gourmet bakers have long been proponents of unusual herbs and flowers to enhance food flavor and add visual excitement. Most cooks have little experience with edible flowers, however, and growers have traditionally

Large Outside Sunflower and Pumpkin Display at recent farmers market

Marketing Your Sunflowers

July 22, 2018 / Lydia Fitzgerald

There are so many different ways to market and sell sunflowers. This past Fall we decided to grow them to sell by the stem or pick-your-own at our retail stand along with pumpkins, gourds, and Indian corn. One of the best things about these flowers is that they were visible from the main road near the stand and so it attracted more customers to our stand when they saw this pumpkin field with beautiful sunflowers in it. One of my good friends sells her flowers at the local farmers markets and has a lot of success.

Asparagus!

June 22, 2018 / Katherine Shaw

Asparagus is known for it’s rich, succulent flavor and has been seen as a delicacy since ancient times. This vegetable is packed with vitamins and antioxidants. Asparagus is best consumed during the spring months (April-May), when its stalk is nice and strong. Make sure you hurry and eat your asparagus- it has a short season and deteriorates quickly after picking!

Inside sunflower and pumpkin display, showing large and small sun flowers and unusual colored gourds.

Sunflower Variety Selection

May 22, 2018 / Lydia Fitzgerald

Sunflowers are a very popular cut flower and have potential to add diversity to any market grower’s product mix. We started growing a few last Fall for our seasonal retail stand to add diversity to our pumpkin patch. There are many different options when looking at selecting varieties to grow. There are differences in single stem or branching, pollen or pollenless, stem strength, blooms per plant, bloom size, days to bloom, color, day-neutral or not, and climate considerations.

Sunflower seeds are a healthy and tasty treat you can grow yourself.

Edible Sunflower Seeds – Another Opportunity!

April 22, 2018 / Lydia Fitzgerald

A snack at the ball park on a sunny day, as a topping on a fresh salad, or packed away in your lunchbox for an afternoon snack, sunflower seeds are versatile and tasty. You can find them at any grocery store, but there is something special about being able to grow and roast your own sunflower seeds!

Edible Day Lily adds variety, color, insect attractant and wonderful smells to you market garden and farm stand.

Edible Flower: Varieties to Expand Both Food & Flower Operations

March 8, 2018 / Jessica Kolifrath

Eating flowers rather than just admiring them in a garden or vase sounds like a modern fad, but there's evidence that humans have been munching on colorful blossoms since the Stone Age. The trend of using flowers as food has come and gone over the ages and it's returning right now in full force. There are thousands of edible flowers, yet not all of them taste good enough to entice farmer's market shoppers to want to spend hard-earned money on them.