During these dog days of summer, spring feels like a lifetime ago, and next spring feels even further off.
While it would be easy to coast through the rest of the summer, soaking in all the beauty, I know I need to be thinking and planning ahead for spring now. That means making sure I have all the seeds on hand that I’ll need to sow this fall to ensure a full flush of blooms during mid-late spring.
Ammi
Ammi visagna ‘Green Mist,’ Ammi majus ‘Casablanca’ and Ammi majus ‘Graceland’ have been huge producers for us and are the backbone of our early season bouquets. If you love the look of Queen Anne’s Lace, you’ll love the lacy flower heads, great vase life and clean green/white color provided by these flowers.
I direct seed them into the garden and then build a low caterpillar type tunnel over them before winter arrives. This added layer of protection from the elements is all they need to winter over and be flowering in abundance by late May. Great in early season mixed bouquets, these versatile flowers can also be dried for later use.
With giant green spires ringed with cone-shaped flowers, Bells of Ireland add drama and fragrance to bouquets.
Late spring market bouquets would be impossible to create without this fantastic filler. The airy flower heads and the limey, citrusy hues of Bupleurum combine beautifully with almost everything. These guys are finicky to start indoors, direct seeding in the fall is a great way to ensure you have plentiful fillers to pick come springtime.
In addition to the above, which we might term as health benefits indirectly associated with organic food, the practices used in developing organic produce do make it healthier in direct terms too.
With this in mind, organic shops provide a shopping environment in which shoppers are less prone to temptation and bad choices.
The added benefits of visiting organic food outlets is that their junk food quota will be infinitely lower than on offer in large supermarkets (where occasionally such foods might even be featured in a promotional offer).
This because we’ve got our hands firmly on the sugar and oil dispensers during the cooking process. So where buying organic means buying fresh (and it often does) it is healthier.