When the flowers die back after the first frost, our work is far from over on the farm. Between tending to what remains of this year’s crops and preparing for the spring ahead — we are busy!

“A farmer needs to be an optimist, otherwise [s]he wouldn’t still be a farmer.” - Will Rodgers

As we are often questioned about what we do when the flower fields go quiet and the temperatures grow colder, we’ve pulled together this list of seven essential tasks that must take place before we can relax around here. You can follow these steps for your own cutting garden.

1. Play the “Rose, Thorn & Bud” Game

Throughout the growing season I often walk about the flower fields making notes and to-do lists, but it’s during this time of year, Fall, that I take a long and slow walk in the fields, I review my notes and really ponder about what worked well (the “Roses”), what didn’t (the “Thorns”) and what I want to add or do differently next season (the “Buds”). Now, I didn’t come up with the “Rose, Thorn & Bud” name, but I’ve done this exercise every year for the last 10 years, starting with my first cutting garden and continuing as it grew into a flower farm. It’s important to celebrate the wins, learn from what was challenging and plan for the new and improved. We are forever-students in the garden.

2. Cut Back Annuals

Annuals are the flowers we must plant every year, that require a reseeding in the spring (for the most part) for us in USDA Zone 6b. Examples for us include: zinnias, cosmos, amaranthus, and celosia.

When the killing frost comes and we lose what’s left of the flowers, the first inclination might be to pull them out, roots and all — but we have a better idea:

Leave the roots, cut stems at ground level, and compost the remains!

From a soil science perspective this is a helpful move in a handful of ways. First, it allows the roots to decompose in the soil so they’ll act as “compost” for the next few months. Second, by leaving the roots, we help to maintain the soil structure, in an effort to reduce compaction over the winter and disturbance of the soil biology. Lastly, by leaving the soil intact, we also reduce the chance of disturbing weed seeds, which could germinate now, providing us with a bigger weed problem than we’d like next year.

3. Direct Seed & Transplant Cool Flowers Seedlings

Direct seed? Transplant? Cool flowers? That’s a garden vocab heavy headline, so let us break it down for you:

If you haven’t yet read our blog post “Cool Flowers” You Can Plant In the Fall for Spring Bounty, that’s a great place to start, but the long and short of it is that there are some varieties of spring flowering annuals which will produce earlier, more robust spring harvests if planted in the fall.

These flowers are either direct seeded (with seeds sown directly into prepared beds), or transplanted (with seedlings begun in starter trays in a greenhouse, then planted into prepared beds).

Each season we test our soil, add the needed amendments, then start our cool flowers planting. Whether larkspur or stock, poppies or sweet peas, they’re tucked into the ground in the fall for a head-start on next season. Then we heavily protect them from the elements.

4. Protect The Seedlings

As previously mentioned, once the seedlings have been planted into their beds, it’s imperative that we protect them from everything a New York winter can throw at them. Our method includes adding a nice layer of fall leaves to insulate the seedlings in the beds, and installing row covers.

We use thin, flexible PVC for our hoops, placed every 5’ down the length of the beds. Then we cover each with heavy agribon row cover material (aka frost cloth), pinned into place at the base of each hoop. This keeps the leaves in place, and protects our young plants from the elements.

5. Tulips Get Planted

While our daffodil, allium, and eremurus varieties come back year after year, unfortunately that is not the case for tulips. Each fall, we prep our beds for these early spring beauties. They love a nice cold winter’s nap before they grace us with their presence in May.

We used to plant them in long trenches, but besides being a lot of hard work, we also learned that trenching disturbed the soil structure and biology. So, last fall we began employing a No-Till method of planting our tulips. This method basically entails constructing a temporary raised bed in which we plant each bulb, pointy side up 1-2” apart, and cover them with compost. More details on this no-till method coming soon.

Tulips should be watered in at the time of planting, and covered with a good 2-4” of mulch (we use leaves). We do not cover the tulips for the winter with frost cloth like we do our seedlings, as they need a cold period to begin their growing process.

6. Dig, Divide, & Store Dahlia Tubers

Dahlias are the stars of our late summer garden, and for great reason. If you’ve yet to read our Flower Focus: Dahlias post, you might want to start there for some background on these stunners.

Here at the farm, we grew hundreds of dahlia plants and over thirty varieties of dahlias this season. Dahlias are grown from what we call tubers, planted in the spring for a fall harvest, and can actually double, triple, or quadruple their tubers each season!

Once frost has killed off the foliage, we cut back the stems of each dahlia, and allow the tubers to rest in the ground for a few days. Then, we carefully remove them from the ground, wash off the dirt, and divide each clump of tubers for winter storage. Of course, we make sure that they are all tagged with the variety name. We’ll be sharing the step-by-step process soon!

Now is also a good time to place your order for more of your favorite dahlia tubers or new varieties!

7. Plant or Transplant Shrubs & Perennials

Fall is the best time to add more flowering shrubs and new flowering perennials. The combination of warm soil and cool air stimulates root growth to help your trees, shrubs and perennials get established before the ground freezes. This fall we are adding new hydrangea varieties and native perennials such as penstemon and veronicastrum.

Fall is also the right time divide and transplant perennials and ornamental grasses. We will be dividing some of our mature peony plants this fall so that we can expand our stock.

We hope you’ve gained some insight into what fall looks like on the flower farm. These fall chores also apply to any cutting garden. As with everything we share here at Sweet Earth Co., we’d love to answer any questions you might have. We are happy to share our expertise! Contact us.