What's Fresh July 25

Bindweed is really producing and it is all RT, Carey and I can do to keep pace. The maestro is up and out of the house by 4:30 am cutting all the white flowers, he can see them in the pre-dawn light. Carey and I enter the barn at 6:00 am to find buckets of flowers ready for processing and lists of things to do on the board. But it is beautiful on the farm--flowers and foliage every where, bird song fills the air and the garden offers fresh strawberries, blueberries, peas, greens, beets and baby carrots. (If only I had time to cook!) After the heat wave earlier this week the weather has been mild, easier on the flowers and easier on us! It is good to be on the farm.

Cleome, I am totally undone by this flower! We have it in white, this fuchsia and a pink/coral.
Pink/coral Cleome

In addition to many of the flowers available this week we have some new arrivals. Our Annabelle hydrangea is gearing up and I am cutting heads as big as 8 in. across. The petals are a soft light green that mature to creamy white on stems 2-3 ft. long.

Freshly cut Annabelle hydrangea in our sunflower buckets.

A tight shot of the millions of tiny flowers that make up each hydrangea head.

Queen Anne's Lace, our second variety is later to bloom and quadruple the size. This huge head is 4 to 5 in. in diameter and sits atop lush ferny green stems.

The snap dragons continue to come on strong. We have good availability of every color--raspberry (fuchsia), burgundy (in the foreground on the right, it is much deeper in true color, very similar to a good burgundy wine), white, cherry and orange.

This close-up shows a little more difference between the raspberry and the burgundy and the orange peeking out from the back. It is a little more yellow toned than the snaps last week.

Again the red is not quite true in color, the cherry snaps are fire engine red with an orange/yellow throat. The white snaps are very white.

This has been a tricky year for sun flowers. In Italian they are called "gira sola" which translates to "around the sun" because they do follow the sun. The problem this year has been a lack there of, but they are finally starting to bloom. We have a good supply of Lemon Lime suns, named for their yellow/green faces.

Fresh bunches from the field.

Not all sunflowers are created equal.
At Bindweed we only use premium cut-flower seeds and plants. Our sunflowers especially are specifically bred for cutting, which means they have a good vase life, are pollen-less and do not make seed. We work very hard to make sure all our flowers are cut at the proper time and carefully conditioned to give you maximum beauty and longevity.

Verbena bonariensis: a beautiful long stemmed blue head comprised of multiple tiny flowers, the perfect accent.

In the foreground of this shot you can see Scabiosa Stellata, they are the geodesic looking heads. They produce a very typical looking scabiosa flower but it is almost iridescent in color and very short lived. It then produces this funky parchment like ball.

Another funky textural flower Nigella Transformer. The yellow flower drops off leaving this unusual jade green seed head.

We have a gorgeous crop of foxtail millet--long soft green miniature foxes tails on long grassy stems.