A Blush Wedding

We had quite the crazy weekend! It was my best friend Sara's wedding. Her and her husband Duncan got married at Crockett Barn on Whidbey Island. I had the role of both bridesmaid and florist. It was a fun ride! Brady and I left last Friday on the 5 AM ferry. Our first stop was another flower farm in Mt. Vernon called Jello Mold Farm. The owners, Diane and Dennis, are the absolute best. When I need additional flowers for weddings, they are the first people that I contact. This time around, we picked up 125 Cafe au Lait dahlias! Mine are just starting to bloom here at the farm, so having a resource for an earlier crop of dahlias was essential.

We brought a lot of other flowers from our farm to complete the centerpieces. Stock was in it's full glory, smelling so sweet and making the bouquets extra ruffly. 

Sara had a great vision for the wedding. She gave me the final run down when I showed up at the barn the day before the wedding, and we started assembling all of the centerpieces.

Sara and I have known each other since we were five. When you've known someone that long, and that well, it's easy to communicate what you want. It was the best feeling to make her flower vision come to life. She was able to be there when I made her wedding bouquet, and kindly added in a couple of tips that ended up making the end result just perfect for her. She was such a beautiful bride! 

Brady and I were running back and forth for two days, filling vases with water, making center pieces, replacing wilting flowers and wrapping bouquets. It was a fun adventure playing the role of florist and bridesmaid that day. I tried really hard not to freak out during pictures and pick out an blemished in the girls' bouquets. It took a lot of self control! 

I couldn't have pulled of this weekend without the help of Sara's mom Caron, her sister Katelyn, some bridesmaids and Brady. My absolute saving grace was seeing my own family show up to attend the wedding, and being able to quickly direct them to the site of the ceremony to. I think my words in the parking lot were, "Please, please, please, help Brady put out flowers, NOW!!!" It was so hot that we waited until the last minute to put the flowers in the arbor, and down the aisle. They didn't even hesitate to help, and they did a great job! 

I am so thankful that I have the friends and the family that I do. Without them, none of this would be possible. It's a wonderful thing sharing so many sweet moments with so many great people. 

(Photo from Ben Bear)

(Photo from Ben Bear)

Oh, and a real life, not so glamorous picture: Me passed out in the car after that weekend. I was toast! 

Transitioning Into Summer

We are still here at Ryan Farm, watching plants grow (a slow process, I'd say) and watching a new batch of sea water evaporate in the salt greenhouses!

The bees are bringing in new colors of pollen, and Brady is waiting anxiously to see the first drop of honey in the hives. The baby apple trees have baby apples, and Tina Tiny Home is still as cozy as ever. 

I planted hundreds of new flower starts this week. Zinnias, amaranth, sunflowers and statice were all tucked in to their new home. The new round of dahlia tubers are finally sending up their tender shoots too. The heavy rain we had last night was an answer to my little flower farm prayer. It was much needed after a bit of a dry spell.

Before that rain came, you can see in the following picture's background that Brady worked hard watering the plants by hand, while I took pictures of myself. I'm such a hard worker. 

We had a big week of flower deliveries to Seattle and our first Friday Harbor farmer's market! We also made salt deliveries to a new store in Seattle called The London Plane. Check them out if you haven't already!

There are some new kids in town. The white flower is my new love, "Orlaya." She should be a great bouquet filler this year. And we also have some butter lettuces that are getting all buttered up for the farmer's market. 

The evenings still deliver the most beautiful sunsets. We've still been enjoying evening walks, and running around with the farm dogs.

It's been a good June for us so far, we hope yours has been too. Come see us at the Farmer's Market in Friday Harbor this Saturday 10-1! 

In true, not-so-dreamy-romantic farm news, Lily drug out a whole deer carcass from who knows where the other day, and proceeded to drag it through a bed of flowers. She promised that she wouldn't do it again.

What's Happening at Ryan Farm

A thousand and one things are beginning to unfold here at Ryan Farm on San Juan Island. There are three businesses that need plenty of love and attention at this time of year! I (Leah, owner of Bloom San Juan) am planting, weeding, weeding some more, watering and fertilizing all of my plants so that they can grow strong roots and provide us with thousands of beautiful flowers this season. Well, let's just say I am doing all of this with a lot of help from others, like our friend Pat, who was the watering champ this past weekend.

There will be many new varieties of flowers this year, and I am already learning about what has worked and what definitely, has not worked so far this season. I have some plants that are already up to my hip (looking good!), and I have forget-me-not's and poppies that are flowering and aren't even above my ankle (not so good!). There is always so much to learn, and so many things to be curious about. I am enjoying the different characteristics of each plant, like the seemingly organized chaos of Ammi and the fuzziness of Dusty Miller. 

I get to harvest the first round of Stock this weekend for our first farmer's market, and make bouquets for our second flower subscription delivery to Seattle. Hint: You can still sign up for June-October deliveries, or you can even order a one-time delivery! Just email me to sign up and you could have some of these little guys in your house on June 10th. The smell of Stock is so sweet, it smells a bit like cloves. And hey, look at the little black bug that decided to pose front and center for this picture! I think he appreciates the fact that we don't spray him with chemicals, and that we just let him do his bug thing. But I do hope that he stays on the farm and out of your flowers. 

We have grand plans to throw some Salvia into our bouquets this week too! I picked a stem of it over a week ago and it still looks great in it's little vase.

I also scored a cute little tool shed that will be just perfect for keeping things like clippers, buckets and fertilizer. I wish that I had a picture of how we got the shed to Ryan Farm. It took five of us, and we basically just tipped it onto the back of our truck and hauled it three miles up the road. It was heavy! But look how cute it is in it's new home. 

We've all been enjoying taking walks out to the flower field in the evenings, the light hits all of the plants just right. The dogs, Lily and Daisy, always find their way down with us. Lily usually finds some kind of bone to chew on or takes a dip in the pond, and Daisy is the fearless bird chaser. I think she likes chasing things smaller than her...

Lily might even try to steal my wine...

In other great farm news, Brady Ryan, owner of San Juan Island Sea Salt AND San Juan Island Honey, has plans of harvesting his first batch of salt from the greenhouses this weekend. He has another sea water delivery scheduled to arrive this Monday. The sun is heating up those greenhouses quickly, which means more tasty salt for all of us!

He is also the incredible caretaker of thousands of honeybees! Look at all of their wonderful, colorful hives for the season. He has also been collecting pollen from their hives, and the colors that they bring in are incredible! 

When we aren't knee deep in flowers, salt and pollen, we've been enjoying adjusting to life in our recently finished tiny home, a project my Dad and I recently completed. We towed our home, "Tina" up to Ryan Farm a couple of weeks ago and she fits in just fine. 

Possibly the greatest news from Ryan Farm is that we picked a handful of these babies for our dessert tonight. Summer, I can taste you already! 

Stay tuned for more farm happenings. Or come visit us at the Friday Harbor Farmer's market this Saturday. We will have salt and flowers, but you'll have to wait until July for some sweet San Juan Island Honey!