Ready for Spring… by July

Winter has certainly kept us and our flower farm on our toes. While much of the landscape appears dormant, we’ve been busy tending to our over-wintering cold-hardy annuals and perennials — ranunculus, tulips, anemone, yarrow, ammi, and allium. These flowers are built for the cold and actually require it to thrive. What they don’t particularly appreciate are four-inch ice storms and the unusually low temperatures we’ve experienced this year.

So our winter routine has looked something like this: watch the forecast, roll out the frost cloth before the extreme cold hits, remove it when temperatures rise, then haul it back out again when the next cold snap arrives. Repeat as needed — sometimes more often than we’d like to admit. We finally thought we had solved the problem of frost cloth behaving like a sail in high winds, only to leave it on a few days too long when the weather unexpectedly warmed. At times, it felt like we were doing precisely the opposite of what the plants needed.

And yet, nature has a quiet way of working things out. Despite our imperfect timing and winter’s drama, we’re beginning to see beautiful young plants pushing their way toward the warmer air. Those first signs of green feel like forgiveness — and a reminder that resilience is built into the design.

There is still plenty to do before spring truly arrives. We need to lay drip lines and finish installing the fence before we transplant seedlings in April. If I’m being honest, in my estimation we’ll feel “ready for spring” sometime around July. Farming has a way of redefining what finished looks like.

I’m starting to understand the rhythm of half-finished projects. We often bring something just far enough along to meet the immediate need, then shift quickly to the next urgent task, promising ourselves we’ll circle back to complete the details later. In my day job, this tendency is my nemesis. I’ve never been fond of the phrase “minimal viable product.” I prefer tidy timelines and fully executed plans.

But farms don’t operate on tidy timelines. Weather shifts. Priorities pivot. The work demands flexibility. Here, progress often looks like forward motion rather than completion — and maybe that’s part of the lesson this season is teaching us.