Update on this season's flowers

Well, what with a long winter, tropical storm, ravenous deer and a dry July, our flowers are certainly blooming albeit slowly. Some of the plants are understandably a bit stressed or stunted and on the whole the harvest seems to be about 2 weeks behind our "usual" schedule.

However, Jamie has been at the Halifax Seaport Market every week and will be there until Thanks Giving (frost permitting). Many thanks to our regular customers who have been delighted to see us back.

For photos of our latest flowers, I usually post these to our Facebook page because it's easier and quicker so you can keep more up to date there.The flowers from now on will just keep coming, bigger and better and more abundantly. (Fingers crossed!).

Hope you are all enjoying the summer and hope to see our Nova Scotian customers at the market soon.

Hunt the Perennial

Crikey what a blinder it is this week, crazy HOT and HUMID and absolutely relentless black fly, mosquitos and horseflies biting any part of us they can sink their teeth into.
So aside from all that, is anyone else out there playing hunt the perennial?

Gorgeous bright zinnias just coming this week

What I mean is, we are surely not the only ones battling with some overly enthusiastic weeds that have just invaded everything?
Here at Oliver Farm it's more a case of Hello red clover, plantain, couch grass, thistle, hawkweed, chickweed, hogweed, pig weed and so forth and Where the Hell are you all our lovely Perennials? Obviously the Herbalist in me is pained to rip out these wonderful so called "weeds" with such high medicinal value for us, but I'm doing it very nicely asking them all to grow somewhere else (on the other 33 acres of farm that isn't for produce). And let's not even discuss the burdock issue....it's a crazy, crazy jungle out there.

So far I have located the lavender and Hyssop, can't say the same for Veronicas and our gorgeous white fluffy perennial achillea hummm. Due to our reluctant mower am having difficulty accessing lemon balm, verbenas, globe thistles, sea holly and catnip. Sadly due to crazy winter have lost my thyme bushes and a few other favourites.

There is hope... the peonies have done it again and are just about bursting and flouncing their gorgeous fluffy poofy blooms with all this heat. Hurrah!