Kestrel Country Podcast
Kestrel Country Podcast
Local Cutting Garden Bulwark Blooms with Megan Haney
Discover tips on cultivating zinnias and celosia, perfect for those working with less fertile soil. Join us as we chat with Megan Haney, owner of Bulwark Blooms, who made the leap from Seattle to Moscow, Idaho. Megan discusses her big move in 2020 to taking the Florette online course in 2023, and how she expanded her garden from a modest five rows to a potential ten. She shares the joys and challenges of growing a diverse array of flowers, with a special focus on her favorite, the dahlia, known for its symbolism of motherhood and productivity.
Megan also discusses the opening of her cutting garden, a unique opportunity for visitors to pick and purchase their own flowers. We share insights on the best times to cut flowers, how to care for them afterward, and even touch on some safety tips for children in the garden. For additional inspiration, we recommend Sarah Raven's "Grow, Cook, Eat, Arrange" podcast.
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast, where we discuss the people, places and events all around Kestrel Country Podcast.
Speaker 2:Today is a special episode because I am here with Megan Haney, my mom, and we are on site at her flower cutting garden For Work Blooms. Welcome, mom, Hello. Okay, so I guess we just have a couple questions for people looking to garden in the area. Do you want to explain a little bit? You've been on the podcast before, but do you want to recap who are you?
Speaker 1:cast before. But do you want to recap? Who are you? I am Megan Haney, wife to Stefan, mother of seven great kids, including you. Uh, I've been gardening for a while, mostly after I didn't have little kids. Now my youngest is 10, so I have a lot more ability to garden.
Speaker 1:I started gardening in Seattle and my first love was dahlias and foliage, because there's so much greenery that grows year-round in Seattle. And then we moved to Moscow in 2020 and I planted a bigger garden and then I just haven't stopped. So we moved to a house of five acres and I said I saw the Florette online course and I jokingly asked Mr Haney if I should get some continuing education credits and he said go for it. So I did. I took the course in 2023 and then I started the farm that spring and dug everything up it was a little later because it was soggy, such a cold spring and then we had about five full rows of annuals and perennials that people came and cut last year and then this year we will have probably eight rows, maybe 10.
Speaker 1:And so we just have a U-Pick cutting garden so that people can come and, you know, make a beautiful bouquet, get enough flowers to perk up their house. You don't have to drive all the way to Pullman. I think Stratton's is lovely. My goal is to have year-round flowers, so I'm working I'm sorry, not year-round seasonal flowers from the spring all the way to the fall so I'm working on a lot of different things that will help get more flowers.
Speaker 2:Okay, and how many varieties do you have currently?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a great question. How would I just name some things off Cause I?
Speaker 2:don't have a spreadsheet in front of me.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, uh. We have all manner of perennials, of perennials. I'm just looking at my garden right now. So there's a lot of hyssop and yarrow. There's some beautiful silene, which is called blushing lanterns, there's penstemon and venusta lenaria artemisia. If you don't know what these are, don't don't be surprised. I'm hoping to label them all this year so people can learn a little while they pick. There is a bunch of delphiniums this year. We have calendula, we have celosia, we have peonies which will be ready in about three years, so I planted those in hope and they have to establish before they can be cut off of. So we have a row and a half, probably a total of two full rows of peonies that will be coming eventually this year.
Speaker 1:The Nigella is about to pop. It's something that people don't see very often. They know Nigella loss in the cook or a Nigella seed that you can cook with, but I'm going to have the nigella plant. We have a thistle, like a blue globe thistle. That's really pretty. I'll have chocolate dara, um, sweet amy. A bunch of snapdragons. That's a lot, ton of snapdragons. And zinnias. I'll have like six different varieties of zinnias and, of course, my. My favorite dahlia is hopefully at least 100 dahlias, probably more like 150. We had a frost kind of killed me. We'll see.
Speaker 2:Okay, so sorry, but your favorite is the dahlia right.
Speaker 1:My favorite is the dahlia. The dahlia is my favorite and I think I've said this before because the dahlia is a humble looking little tuber. It looks like an ugly potato. And you plant this little ugly potato in the dirt and you think okay, and then it just goes nuts. It's a Mexican flower. It likes heat, likes dry weather. It doesn't need too much, needs a little bit of soil amendment. But you put it in the ground and, um, usually you'll get at least anywhere from 10 to 40 blooms from one plant and at the end of the summer you think, surely, surely, this plant is spent, there will be nothing. When I dig up the tuber, it will be a shriveled mast of exhaustion. But no, no, what you find is this beautiful clump.
Speaker 1:While doing all of that, giving away, a treasure was created under the earth and I think it's the flower of motherhood. That's what it represents to me, because mothers are typically creating beauty, giving it away, giving themselves away for their families, wives, you know. And then you think, oh, that's just, they're worn out. But when you, when you give away, you gain, and I, and it's a real clear picture to me of how the lord loves to bless sacrifice and how he multiplies all of that effort and usually I can get at least four to ten tubers off of one plant so that I will have a bunch more to plant the next year. So they're incredibly productive and very um fruitful and that's why I love them. Also there there's nine forms and they're just gorgeous for reference.
Speaker 2:She is currently in her garden just digging away. I am digging holes to put dahlias. Yes, do you want to move your hair from the microphone just so it doesn't mess with the sound. But okay, so you did a lot of work to prep your soil and prep your ground. So what would you say to somebody who's wanting to do something kind of like this, but a lot smaller, so maybe two or three plants or different varieties, and you know they're trying to figure out. What do I need to do that?
Speaker 1:Sure, I think the biggest thing you need to know is that our soil in this northern Idaho is a lot of clay, it's heavy and it's dense, and so in order to make it happy, you need to add organic material. So what I do is I buy compost and I amend all my soil. The first time I build a bed, I have to put in about a third of compost to two thirds of the native soil. I also amend my soil with a granular that just needs dried organic all purpose fertilizer. I shake that in, I till it in.
Speaker 1:People really love the no till method or have heard about the no till method and want to make that work here, and I think it's possible. But I think the first time you uh break ground, you must till. You must uh break up the concrete clay, as I call it. You can't just put some cardboard and compost over it and expect plants to break through to the uh soil. It's like concrete.
Speaker 1:So I really have been advising hey, if you starting, go look up the double dig method on YouTube. I think it's a way better way. After you do a double dig, you should be able to do a no-till and just add compost every spring or at the end of the year and your soil will be happy. So soil prep is the biggest thing for happy plants and most people see all the pretty plants and buy them and forget that if their soil is not healthy, their plants will not be healthy. I'm currently in the process of learning about Bokashi composting and cake composting, so you can look those things up. Another way to cheaply amend your soil a cubic yard of compost is about 30 bucks from mbs and if you expect to put about three inches thick on a bed, you know you can. You can get a good 10 by 10 bed with a cubic yard. I think I don't know. Math isn't my strong suit.
Speaker 2:I'm a gardener um, and this year we had a couple new additions to the garden, so do you want to explain the big structure over there, as well as your tractor?
Speaker 1:oh, yeah, so this year, um, to make things a lot faster, and building beds, we got a tractor and, uh, it's been really great to help move mulch, ie compost and um dirt and wood chips. And then the greenhouse. It's a hoop house. Technically, a greenhouse is a heated structure. This one won't be heated, so we call it a hoop house. And the hoop house will be planted with heirloom chrysanthemums in a week or two. Those love to flower September, october, november. So the ones that prefer blooming in october, november, will be in the hoop house to eke out some more warmth, um, and that will mean the growing season will be extended, lord willing all the way. Then we'll see how we do.
Speaker 1:It's my first year with mums. They're really, um, easy to propagate and easy to grow. They don't, they're not fussy, they don't need a ton. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how they do and seeing what works best for them. Here I have about 30 varieties, yeah, so we'll see, we'll see. And then the greenhouse sorry, I'm sorry. The hoop house will be filled with ranunculus and possibly some lisianthus in the spring, depending on plug availability, so that we can start having spring flowers. I had a lot of requests for spring flowers and, sadly, the voles.
Speaker 1:I prepared a table in the presence of my enemies underground and I think out of 800 bulbs I got maybe 50 that grew. So we will be putting a whole none tulips outdoors until I figure out a better system for that. And, uh, we'll be planting some daffies for the spring. They don't like daffodil bulbs as much or alliums. They don't eat those. Okay as yeah, vociferously um.
Speaker 2:So for, like spring flowers and looking at weather and prepping for you know you've done a lot from seed to um. Do you want to explain a little bit of that process? And yeah, I like.
Speaker 1:I start seeds and I have have a Costco metal baker's rack and I have two lights each on each shelf and I have a big heating pad, so I start seeds. You know, anywhere from February. There's a lot of seeds that are cooly. They prefer a little bit of cold. Snapdragons can actually take cold down to zero degrees. So waiting to put snapdragons in until it's this warm is a big waste of time. They prefer to be planted early. So things like the Silene Lenaria snapdragons what else? Oh, calendula loves to be planted early. Blue Purim I bought plugs. I don't know if you can start the blue Purim from seed. I'll give you an award.
Speaker 1:Feverfew is one that loves to be grown cold. So Lisa Mason Ziegler she has a book, the Cut Flower Handbook. She goes into a lot of detail on that. I think it's a great book and she also has a lot of podcasts. So I learned all about that and I really think people need to know more about getting things going. They don't have to wait. Our springs are soggy and cold, but some evenings love that and can work with it, and so I've done that. And then I have my warm season annuals like zinnias and celosia that, uh, an amaranth that I start a little bit later, closer to the end of frosted for sure.
Speaker 2:What resources would you suggest people look at? Are there? Do you have some favorite books, podcasts, instagram handles of people that you like to follow?
Speaker 1:I really like the gardeners workshop with Lisa Mason Ziegler and seed talk. Uh, I love the let's grow girls podcast out of England. They're gals who started cut flower gardens a few years ago, in 2020. And they're really fun to listen to. I find I learn a lot listening to podcasts. I don't know if it's because I was homeschooled. I just feel like, hey, I know how to learn things, so I just go and learn as much as I can about any subject and pretty good at researching and figuring out good resources. So those are two podcasts Sarah um. Raven has her grow, cook, eat, arrange podcast. That, um, the most recent ones are really short, but if you go back she's got a lot of really detailed knowledge on growing different flowers. And the thing about her is, um, she is in the zone seven, so england is not the united states. We have a lot colder weather so you have to adjust. They don't have zones in England, so you kind of have to figure out if something will grow in your area or not that they're talking about.
Speaker 2:What is a good flower for people to grow around here?
Speaker 1:Things like zinnias. Zinnias love to grow here. Zinnias do not like super rich dirt, so if your soil is not amended, no problem. They prefer things to be a little lean, and so I think azinia is a really great uh thing to start with. Also celosia. And if you just start you know some in a, in a cake pan, um, and then pot them up into little bigger pots as they're getting no room, or after they have their second set of leaves, you can get a little jump start and it'll be easier than directly sowing them into the ground. See the plant that you have and you can put it where you want and know you're not going to have any holes there's that.
Speaker 2:When does your um garden open officially?
Speaker 1:pretty soon. Um, I'm waiting for some focal flowers to bloom so that everyone can have some big, um showy blooms for their bouquets. We'll have buckets this year. Um, you can. Basically the system will be uh, you get a bucket with your first purchase and then you can bring that home and bring it back, and then it's a discount on your next purchase and then the cutting gardens open from 9 to 9.
Speaker 1:I might open it a little earlier, because the cooler the day is, the better time to cut. So you don't really want to come to my garden at noon on a July day. You want to come at dusk or you want to come in the morning, before it gets too warm. The flowers will be happier if they're cut then, and you should just let them rest overnight somewhere cool and then arrange them the next day. That would be my advice. Let them get a good drink and a little rest and then, um, move on from there. So, yeah it, it, it'll be opening, and then I'll also have, for people who don't want to have as big of a bucket, I'll have some stadium cups that it'll be smaller bouquets.
Speaker 2:So, and what's the price for bucket versus stadium cup?
Speaker 1:Uh, the price for bucket will be $25 for a bucket. That should get you two generous bouquets worth of flowers and, um, you know, Costco probably has the best running bouquet price around and that's about for 20 bucks and it's probably about twice as many flowers is what you could get at Costco for that much money. But these ones are local.
Speaker 1:They are local, they are grown with love. They're going to last longer because they haven't been kept in a cooler for a week, and longer because they haven't been kept in a cooler for a week. And uh, they are gonna be unusual. We'll have some blush zinnias, uh, some floret zinnias, and, um, sapaglossus, which is painted tongue. It's very not a flower that you're gonna see anywhere what's a good way to stay up to date with?
Speaker 1:um all of the garden openings, closings, you bet Uh right now my um, we're working on a little website, but the best place is to follow me on Instagram, and my handle is bulwark, underscore blooms, uh, and that's where I put most updates. I also have a Facebook page, um, but I don't don't tweak that one as often as I do the Instagram. So, yeah, come on out. We will have some gnomes hidden around for kids to look for. So the kids can keep busy. Little children are welcome.
Speaker 1:I just wouldn't advise letting them eat anything, because I cannot promise you it's not poison. So as long as they are cutting and not nibbling, everything should be fine. If you have a nibbler, keep them close. That would be my hot tip. But we'll have some sweet peas and all kinds of just goodies are going in here. So, uh, parked by the shed, grab your bucket, remember to put water in it before you buy flowers and uh, yeah, take them home to rest. And then I would just love to tell anybody who's listening, who's playing. I come and cut deeply. Please, like, don't just take six inches of a pretty bloom, try to get a nice long stem and don't be afraid to cut down into the plants. I'll do some instructional videos on Instagram with some things are blooming, so you can see what I mean. That way more blooms will come and everything will be happier and your flowers will be happier.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for coming back on the podcast. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. This is fun, I mean, I get to plant dahlias while you're interviewing me yeah, this uh in on-site interview process is going to be really nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we'll take some videos and definitely have to upload them onto our instagram and go with some of the content from this podcast so people can see what we're talking about yeah, I look forward to seeing you.
Speaker 1:I probably won't. The garden is kind of secluded. It's a real nice little just destination to come and be quiet, got some trees and plenty of room to roam, so I'd love to have you.
Speaker 2:Alrighty, well, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Ani. Thanks for joining us. Like, share, subscribe. We'll see you next week.
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