Spring is Near!

Early morning and another wet day on the farm

It is time to germinate seeds here on Mary’s Creek Farm. The past week weeks we planted flowers. This weekend we focused on sweet pepper seeds. Next weekend we will begin placing tomato seeds in the germination trays. In the past, we had difficulties with the storage of potted plants before placing them in the earth. We have four large growing racks, but the little plants quickly need repotting in larger pots and soon the germination room is too crowded. This year we are constructing a greenhouse to store the plants until the danger of frost has passed.

The framing for our new greenhouse

Mary’s Creek Farm will continue to grow peppers and tomatoes this year. The sweet peppers were our biggest sellers last year. Therefore, we chose 29 varieties of the best tasting hybrid and heirloom sweet peppers available.  These include both cooking and fresh eating types. Today, we began germination of the sweet pepper seeds and hope to see tiny plants emerging in a little over one week.

50-cell germination trays with sweet pepper seeds being planted

Next week we will begin germination of our favorite tomato varieties. Again, the selection was based on our best sellers and also the tomato varieties that performed best on our farm last year.

New to the soils of Mary’s Creek Farm will be long-stem flowers. We spect a year researching flower farming and are excited about our new adventure.  We hope to have success in growing a wide variety of flowers for market.

Two of the grow racks set up with flowers

Baby Snapdragon flowers emerging from the growing media.

We expanded our blueberry fields last summer and our existing bushes almost doubled in size this past year. Around the middle of June, we should have fresh blueberries at the farmer’s market. In addition, we establish a blackberry patch. We picked the best tasting of the University of Arkansas blackberry varieties. One row of berries is entirely “Navaho,” the sweetest of them all. 

We look forward to seeing you at the farmers market this summer. We hope to provide you with lots of flowers and fresh produce, all grown without manufactured herbicides or insecticides.

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