Liz Krieg from Maple Flower Farm in Bethel, Vermont has been growing flowers naturally for market for over 20 years. Founding President of the Vermont Flower Council back in 1989 Liz has been a leader in the organic flower movement helping other growers develop markets, grow quality flowers and spreading the love for local farming.

 

There IS a HUGE difference between vegetable growers/flower bouquets in the farm stand or just dedicated flower growers. I am a dedicated flower grower. That’s what I do, I grow nothing but flowers, and I sell them to floral tradesmen, or I use them myself for events I’m having. That’s the difference. If you grow nothing but flowers, you can really pinpoint your knowledge to flowers and their needs and specific cultivars to grow and really become a compendium of information for just flowers, but if you are dividing your attention between flowers and vegetables a lot of times, flowers sort of get sidelined.

So you just sort of grow them, you water them, you feed them, you collect them and put them in bouquets and sell them, you’re not necessarily specializing in the flowers themselves. It’s kind of sad, in a way of growing flowers, but that’s because I’m in flowers specifically. I can’t imagine dividing my time, with vegetables. That’s not to say that I don’t grow vegetables for my own family, I do, and I LOVE doing that. But it’s really to hard to pin point attentive to both of them on a large scale. So that’s what I think about flower growing.

On today’s show, I’m super excited to introduce my new friend, Liz Krieg, who has been growing flowers naturally for market for over 20 years. Founding President of the Vermont Flower Council back in 1989! Liz has been a leader in the organic flower movement helping other growers develop markets, grow quality flowers and just spreading the love for local farming and flower growing!

I really have made flowers over the length of my life the most important thing. I have to have flowers around me all the time. I am proud to say, that now I am a full time flower grower.

As you said I was a Vermont Certified Cut Flower grower back in 1985. Here in Vermont in the state that I live in, the Vermont

I was growing vegetables as well as flowers.

Distribution

I was also an adjunct instructor at Vermont Technical college.

It was exciting! There was a ton of interest in it.

A lot of people thought it was a get rich plan!

Some people fell by the wayside. I stated with it for about 3 years. Fresh cut flowers,, locally divided in the state of Vermont Flower sops they wanted their Columbian?Andean so

Of course they were excellent perfect

I let it go as a side occupation as

Stated actually selling them, to photo spots a table

people waken me to plant the outset hate those He’d s easy I van make s living got mr sf my y. Orbited your w0 tested I golf  hubs fold

I made sure I was organic certified,

that is really f

Where on the eat coast

sold my business to a degree from

was Herd tho the  n

all I could think of Jackie, was when I was I happiest

what did I like to town the most…

when the skies was were pink, very  was fool, Im gonna go back ad did that I

The lead that your growing on

The whole property is about 17 acres.

‘what I had was a I had a cites We’e  just been

my landscape had just gone so craze

couldn’t scale

that’s what I turned up into the cut flower patch,

of course I had tons of

P{Peones

Shrubs

att

wanted to be able

High end designers would really want, also wanted to have an interior environment

stressing resources……………….

Back in the days

Through all of my stock, annulled I also sold to

when I does those greet hen I dd

the difference between a high tuned and  agree

never closed environment

Books are the gateway

I love live audiences

every-time I’m teaching, I learn something new

I learn everything at all. I love that everyday …

Farm Workshops charge an ungodly amount of money for a 4 day seminar $3k.

Allow upwards of 25 people ….

filled to the gills….

Floretflowers.com

Named one of Martha Stewarts upcoming

farms on 2 acres

supplies an astronomical amount of flowers

whole foods and trader Joe’s

weddings …

really basically started by growing veggie

huge difference between vegetable growers flowers in the a

dedicated flower grower….

sell to floral tradesmen for events I’m having

nothing but flower

really pinpoint your knowledge

ni

specific cultivars

compendium of info

dividing your attention between veggies and flowers

grow them feed them water them

collect them, put them in bouquets

specializing in the flowers in themselves

sad way of growing flowers

can’t imagine dividing my time with vegetables

grow vegetables for my own family

I do on a large scale

Tell us a little about yourself.

So grateful to be invited

I have to have flowers around me all the time.

I am proud to say, now I am a full time flower grower

As you said I was a Vermont certified cut flower grower back in 1985

Vermont, organic program was relatively new, I was growing vegetables as well as cut flowers,

Deep Root was a distributer for coops

Ag instructed

in Randolph VT

approached by the Department of Ag to be the president of the new Vermont Cut Flower Council

ton of interest, many people

a lot of people thought it was gonna be a get rich quick plan

some people fell by the wayside

stayed with it,

fresh cut flowers

hard sell

very difficult to break into flower shops

very few private designers

wanted their Columbian, Andean, types of south american flowers

they were every consistent year round and were absolutely perfect flowers

had to let it

take all of those perennials, delphinium, do

selling them to root stock to people

people came and asked if I would be willing to come install these beautiful flowers at their homes

fell right into being a landscaper was teaching in a horticultural program at a tech college

there’s a way to make a living

ran that landscape firm for 20 years.

over those 20 years I also had great gardens at my own home,

still grew

organic methodologies

my company got big

Certified as a Landscape Professional

thriving in New England

sold to a large Tree firm

helped them get their business off and running

took my one year,

casting my next reinvention of what I could be

when was I happiest

memory of getting up early in the morning

skies were pink and the dew was in the air

pick gobs and gobs of fresh buckets of flowers

gonna go back and do what I did

really isn’t much

is about 1/4 of an acre

The whole property is about 17 acres

had a sight that was perfect

cover cropping it and letting it go fallow

was a giant vegetable garden

hydrangeas

shrubs

hibernaums

that I can use for cut flower bouquets

serious amounts of things

zinnias, delphiniums,

high end designers would really want

interior environment

growing in a greenhouse

ran the green houses at the college

landscape business

50’ and 100’

back n the day, only 7 years ago

grew all of my stock,annuals, perennials

other landscapers

a couple of nurseries

busy little business

sold those greenhouses to various people who wanted them,

I knew I needed a high tunnel

green house has some form of mechanical heating/ventilating

roll up the sides

cooling

high tunnel

put up the high tunnel

went through

Johnny’s seed catalog

12’x50’ high tunnel

Dahlia’s tubers. I had special dahlias Cultivars

extremely useful for stems

planted them in the high tunnel

zinnias perfect

outdoor plot

I only did half of it,

still doing a couple of garden jobs

let’s see how it goes. I really wanted to

wanted to increase the dahlia tuber stock.

increase

my dahlia tuber stock

idk what I was thinking

I had a glut of flowers

just top notch, zinnias and dahlias

out of need, I wasn’t planting on selling them

all of my vases

let me just call a couple of florists I knew

they were tapping that flower resource

found that to be the sign on the right track

at this point

exponentially increasing the amount of stems that I’m growing

7-8 good designers,

few weddings

pretty exciting

looking forward to see what this summer brings

Mentioned that I am Vermont Certified Organically

growing cut flowers organically is not an easy thing

seed companies have coatings on tiny seeds,

Lisianthus

native plant from the gentry family

beloved flowers in the floral industry

seeds are about the size of a speck of dust

pour out these specks of dust in a white kind of box

have a toothpick

wet the toothpick with the tip of your tongue

now because of what has happened in mechanization of seeds

coating

pelted seeds

so they can run through these seeding machines

seed coating is usually a type of clay medium

because the coating is on these city bitty seeds

manugarutres are worried the seeds will rot,

so they put this itty bitty teeny amount of fungicides

divided farm

a portion is certified organic

portion that is

many other things like this, that are grown in their own special section

can not be grown as certified organic

because of these seed coatings

grow my lisianthks  in this little greenhouse

started to stop growing my Lisianthus in that soil, it would be take

3 years before that soil could be certified organic!

granted the recertification

So as a cut flower grower

those  types of issues are absolutely maddening! That I believe is all but gone by the time they’re gone,

that fungicide is long gone

nature of the beast, you have to respect the regulations, because it’s purest in nature

that is what organics is all about

stumbling block as flower grower

The standards themselves have

really created for food industry

reality of those cut flower that are coming, that are coming from Columbia and Honduras.

laden with chemicals

think about the cut flowers

the people have for every important celebration of they life, from the moment they are born, to the moment they pass on,

present

for the most part

90% +

that are sold in the US, a lot of more in the US are so laden with pesticides

can you imagine?

can you imagine what’s sitting on your dinner table

it’s kind of frightening

I believe that locally grown flowers is very important

but even more so,

there should be organics involved in raising cut flowers

Above all, right there in our faces

most of the people that grow cut flowers, are using pretty much using organic methodologies. Unless they’re grown

so that is my belief scale like

Perhaps pesticides,

are large scale

Most of the people I know that are growing flowers, are using organic methodology

The only input that would have is petroleum based fertilizers

pesticides

t that have to knock down very fast

the organic pesticides

available

big word on

Well, I just had some questions really quick, I also had one comment… A lot of people don’t realize even if they don’t’ grow those  organically they have to be fumigated

Andean pact that was made by the Bush admin

part of the war on drugs. What they did, is they gave them a

a way to make money

instead of doing drugs here, they handed the floral trade right over to south america

During the 70s and 80s

floral growers

established for decades

families who’s whole world was busiest

70s flower growers locally

They handed this over to the given’s in this pact that they made

1988

Andean Trade preference act. It was the Bush Admin’’s

war on drugs. What they did was they allowed the people from these countries

to ship these Tarif free. There was no way American floral growers couldn’t’ possibly compete

purchasing these flowers .

I was president to American Cut Flowers,

lots of these flower growers

1 year after this pact was formed

beginning to the death of the floral industry

I have to be honest up here in Vermont

I’ve seen so many flower shops actually fold

along with that andean pact

large super market chains purchasing

see these same flowers

sitting beautifully displayed among our foods

right next to certified or organic food

sitting there

many people don’t even know about this

They’re not aware, that flowers are laden with toxic stuff

people are dying who are engaged in the floral industry

mostly women who are getting cancer, all kinds of lung issues, you name it, there are problems because of the pesticides being used int he floral industry.

IF you google it, you’ll find a whole bunch of articles recently about

floral industry deaths in South America

So, how I got started, back when Hippies were real back in the 70;s I we was turned onto Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. I read it and I thought it really spoke to what was going on, scared the bejesus out of me.

scared of what pesticides

wand where they do to people

That was the scene of how bad pesticides are.

very shortly after she published that book, monsanto went after her

started publishing pamphlets that made a parody of what people said

Started telling people that pesticides we’re good for the world.

saw through monsanto and what was happening

From tat minute I saw them as the big evil!

Helen And Scott Nearing wrote a book, in the 60s all about subsistence living.

great book about subsistence living

talking about the 70s

Living the Good Life…. did you ever hear of it…

I was just in elementary school in the 70s so I’m just right behind you.

So these are the cataclysmic scenes

whole militant

organics all the way

head set

this is where they came from

led to

reading

the Whole Earth Catalog. Do you remember the Whole Earth Catalog. I was an avid reader of the Whole Earth.

back to the whole earth style and thought process

the less we do to put into the earth in terms of forcing nature, the better off we are

how vulnerable nature is and how as humans we tried to master it and as we try to master it it

really have screwed things up

, as humans, we’re brave need to have the master and respect

who we really need to master ourselves, instead of nature, Because we’re so darned smart

we’re immature

brilliant ideas and ways to do things

mastery and respect for the f

of nature screwing things up

here I am in my older age we knew it should come to this.

here at this place

one thing prevails, if you have your little patch of land and you are being good to the earth and you are  feeding the soil and you’re not using things that kill beneficial insects and birds

mammals and what not

giving back to the land and you’re doing your part in your little patch

I believe in things being able to be started form a small spot and then they move outward into the larger world. Nature wants to be treated naturally

organic should be a rule of thumb for anyone who’s got plants outside on their patio, anybody who is doing anything, whether they’re plants or ornamentals.

Absolutely one fe of the things I’ve learned the most my podcast, 

then kids are crawling on that grass…

I like the way you said that, a lot of appeal don’ts understand.

Landscaping business

accredited organic landscape professional.

Do you have any died how much good your lawn

scatter compost on your lawn

your good grass to prevail

literally it gets so strong

it suffocates any weeds that want to come out

mass of organisms

good beneficial types of insects

end up with beautiful

feed it compost

give it compost tea

That enjoy eating that lawn, mow it on time, rake if it fired

compost tea does not smell at all

run around spray your lawn

take care of your lawn like its a living natural thing

challenge someone to go out there and do a study on golfers

spending all their time on

perhaps

heavily pesticide laden

wanna go play on the links

think about it taking your life into your own hands

probably gonna be under it

can plant them about the same time as your snap dragons

12 week lead time before last frost that you need to seed them

in February

a lot of people are seeding snap

peppers

timing isn’t an issue

size of the seed

those seeds did not come pelletized

me my tongue and my toothpick

little bit of moisture

you can pick up a speck of dust

pelletized

organic

filtered its way all the way down to consumer sized packets

the seed manufacturers

prepare them for market

producing the material for the general market

all jumped on this palletized band wagon

I challenge someone to go out there and do a study on golfers.

I need to give a shout out to John Moore who talked about golf courses back in the beginning!

A lot of people on my show have talked about seed starting. 

Do you think about growing Lisianthus,

can you would you eventually get your seeds, 

producing the material for the general market and they’ve all jumped on this bandwagon. The certified growers are e an extremely small voice for the

there needs certainly outstrip the needs d of i

Your looking at a twelve week weed time. You want to sed them in late February

a lot of people are seeding if you are snap dragons

those seeds did not compelling size

or it’s just too time consuming

O ideas twos not any  ,e

You can pick up  speck of dust

I guess what I’m asking is could you go your own seeds

Hybridization has made some double, quadruple flowers, the chances of getting the recessive seed, Lisianthus would probably get a good

if fuss

certified

extremely small voice

very large non-organic

ranges of

Lisianthus

pelletized type seeds

outstrip

small needs of the organic grower

pellitization

not gonna

they are perennials in certain states

south westernUS in

hybridization

made some

doubles and quadruple flowers

you can’t get cleanly

don’t quite measure up to what would be a good quality stem

if you only grew one color and one type

you might get perhaps 70% of the same flower

don’t want any cross breeding with colors and types, being

cultivar differences like length of stem

number of petals per flower

undulations that give it a ruffled look

specific qualities

yes

really large controls every color and then hist

r where the breeding happens

The other thing, as a comparative

even with zinnias

state fair giant

the beaneries giant

block your colors

I like to grow zinnias in solid rows of solid colors

200’ row picking just the butter cream yellows

block of yellow creams to look from

color variety is easiest to harvest them

letting them grow and letting them produce seed

wouldn’t have your solid colors per bunch

seed collecting on a large scale for production is actually difficult with flowers because of genetics

messes with me, that is my only problem, so I found a way to work around it

I will grow these stems, because I have to,

this is what is really needed out there in the industry if I want to have a business, I can not say these things are certified

But I can explain to my florist, they are grown exactly the same way that all of my other organic stems are, the only things that is different.

because of that information

can’t call them certified organic, and quite simply the florists don’t mind. They are happy that flowers are not coated with pesticide. And there is actually a  visual difference

between flowers that are locally grown, they’re brighter, they’re more alive

lasts at least 2 xs as long, because they are not full grown and shipped in a box

Tell me about your first gardening experience? Are you a native Vermonter?

My very first memory of anything green and growing, was my mother who loved having flowers around her house and she loved having house plants. But somehow that always filtered down to me taking caring for them all, because she was a working woman…

Liz did you water?

Liz did you water the ivy?

always saw it as a nagging duty… I just remember I wanted things to die…why did I have to take care of them, they were her plants?! But some how being forced, I think all kids believe that any time their parents ask them to do anything they consider them forced slave labor, I wanted them to die… but I realized that growing up that made me have a love of living things.

You have to make a book about that. That would make a great story…

 

So, they became my life, they became the thing they love the most. It makes me a little teary thinking how mad I was at my mom about it, but now looking back I see, she made something of me.

I was a young woman, I had just gotten out of college. I was with my husband, we had just gotten married. We were both young in our early 20s. We bought a little farm in Ash away Rhode Island. It was  little 5 acre farm, with a cute little house, 2 story, and very picturesque. I  had read the Nearing experience,  and the Mother Earth News, I was such a hippie, totally homespun. And we dug up, and we grew all of our vegetables. I was an ardent supporter of the Rodale Press and ORGANIC Gardening Magazine! I was one of the original subscribers. so I started gardening, I literally had to reach out and find a solution

I froze them, I canned them, we got a dairy cow! WE got chickens! we did the whole thing, the I had my first baby. I found that I really loved the flowers. I’d buy packets of flowers. I’d grow the seedlings and I couldn’t throw any seedlings away.

Before I knew it, I was glutton for flowers! I had this unreasonable need. They took over.As based as cut flowers  a business. Way back then, before I thought of cut flowers as a business, people would  stop on the road and ask if they could buy flowers. But, I was a good hippie, so I gave them away! I gave a way a lot of flowers.

Then I moved to Vermont, I had 2 boys! So I had 3 children. Big garden, lots of flowers, when my kids got old enough to go to school for a whole day, I signed on, I went back to school to horticulture college. I wanted to be a horticulturist.

 

I wanted to learn more, I wanted to understand the science of it. I wanted to be a horticulturist. So I went back to college and got a 2 year degree. I was a non-traditional student. When my kids were old enough to go to school

That put me in my late 30s, all the kids going to college were 17,18 … So I was completely non-traditional. They had this beautiful mechanized glass greenhouse

All they’d used to for before that. They were growing all tropical for identification.

horticultural program

I approached the head of the dept at that time there, lets do a sort of mini-business and lets grow a bunch of seedlings for sale for spring, let’s grow poinsettias for Christmas. Before I knew it the president was cutting me a out some budget to fill that green house up, the next high I new were were landscaping the college and it became a big deal!

being the lead horticulture

next thing I knew I was adjunction classes and being the lead horticulture

dept of ag found me, it just sort of this thing that happened out of my love for flowers. It just all manifested out of my love of flowers. The things would just sort of drop in front of me

I have a friend who says is there there is no such thing as luck there is the ability to identify opportunity and signs that sit in front of you.

they end up right, I think that’s what has happened, I’ve been aware of opportunities

different paths I’ve chosen, which is pretty much in the green industry, it’s always been about the flowers. Always. I’ve been having a great time!

I love it! I think listeners are gonna like this and think of different ways, your life has been inspiring and the way you followed your dream, worked hard, and put in the hours. I think a lot of luck comes to you because you worked hard to be in the right spot. I believe that people maybe followed a passion or put in the time to build those connections and do the research….

definitely people

Have you done your strengths? Because I am

intellectualizer, of a person who I collect info, I never know why. I would sit with friends, they would say you know a little bit about everything, I love learning.

liz

I love information and I love learning. That would be my advice to anybody starting out to anyone or any gardening in general. Put your hands on a few good tomes. Really read them.

IDK if anybody reads books anymore. I have a kindle, but I love books. I love the feel of books in my hands.

some good gardening books you can’t even get in print anymore. One of the things that I wanted to point out is, that even though that I have gardened for so long…there are great new efficient ways to do things that reduce the amount of labor. Your front end labor is hard, but it’s different.

When I had these big greenhouses, I’m sure people see this when they are

I use this stuff

woven ground cover

the way you followed your dream and worked hard.

I find that luck comes more when you follow a passion and then its got you to that space and you’ve built that spaces….

Have you don’t your strength insights?

I’m definiti

Im and intellectual

You know a little bit be

that’s definitely key is organic gardening or gardening in general

put your hands on a few good tomes.

I even have a kindle

I love the feel of books sad

front end labor is hard

In sure that every body sees this at their nursery. It

ground cover

woven

black

polyethylene

varying lengths

50’ to 4’ widths .

I would get 10 foot widths because my green houses were big,

They have these lovely green stripes that go the whole length of the roll. spaced exactly a foot apart

what’s great about this stuff is that you put it down on the ground

light can’t get thorough it

if you water , your plants in the greenhouse,,

water can

If you perennials sitting outside  ab it place

hundreds of containers of potted perennials that would sell every year, so I’d grow them outside, so I’d have this ground cloth down and the containers  would sit on top of that.

 

didn’t have to worry about weeding

Now I

floral gardens

do all of my rows

4 foot wide rows, sort of the standard by growers these days,

so is this method. I’d put in the compost, put in the rock phosphates and add the good organic minerals that plants and soils need to be healthy.

All the things plants need to stay healthy.

4-5 lines of irrigation tape

need to water

can’t just throw the seeds

don’t want to sprinkle you want to water at the roots. So then I’d lay down this ground cloth which covers each row.

6 foot wide row

4 foot in the

1 foot of each side of the aisle

each row meets in the middle you know with these rows of landscape cloth. Now the clot itself, I burn holes in it.

holes are only 2in , 9 inch spacings,

2′ holes. We have this metal template and use this propane Benson thing to burn really nice holes. The plastic melts, so it never frays, it just stays perfect. Then you have this beautiful black grid to plant in with these perfect holes.

with irrigation  organic soil underneath

plant your

irrigation on a timer

watered a specific amount of water and specific amount of time. And those flowers grow spotlessly clean, with almost 0 weeding.

no weeds

Right in the middle of that 2 foot path

even the path is covered with this cloth, so everything is pretty much wrapped, the soil is wrapped in this wonderful dark cloth. You get all sorts of great stuff happening like earth worms, happy flower roots

really shiny clean beautiful product!

because you’ve done all that work in the beginning, that’s where all of your energy goes when your setting it up, once you plant all those plants up in down there each week.

not

You have a really clean modern way to grow your plants.

I had mentioned to you, one of the books that I really loved is the
New Market Grower by Jean Martin Fortier. This book, is about small scale organic farming and it’s about getting amazing amounts of produce out of a much smaller space. And how to do it. This is probably one of the best bibles about how to take a very small piece of land and how to get 3-4 times as much produce off of it then a farm 10 xs the size. It’s a great book. It’s all about soil health, how to do things smarter, how to plant more intensively, how to feed things

That’s how some people can do this on a small scale.

You mentioned the Facebook page for the flower farmers, a lot of the flower farmers on that page are tiny ! They’re mom and pops or mom home with little kids and they’re making beautiful products!

making money doing it, is $50,000 a year, or is it $5,000 a year or is it $500 a year? It all depends how intensively you plant and have to work with.

the ability to learn how to get the very most and the very best product, out of your property. All it takes is reading about it and applying what you’ve read. I encourage anybody who that has a little thing in him, in their heart like grow fresh cut flowers

even shrubs

or even trees for a trade

find a way to get started, just get started because before you know it your somewhere!

That’s one of the very first books I bought when I started the podcast. Joyce Pinson from Friends Drift Inn recommended it back on episode 45 who also is in the Flower Farmers Group and I noticed another friend we have in common. WE have been trying to get started using a lot of those suggestions. And you can even look at even if you’re not making money you’re gonna save money. The whole time I’ve been talking to you I’ve been thinking about Georgia O’Keefe, I read a book about her and she was so influential in buying flowers. I always thought of in NYC, there is a market on almost every corner and they all have flowers. I always thought that would be an amazing business if all those flowers on those corners were organic.

A lot of growers on the Flower Farmers Page are mostly all growing organically

difference about the national organic program has made it illegal to  say your’e do anything organic. You can’t have a sign that says your are organically grown

My annual fee to be certified organic is $450 a year. It’s so hard for people who are small. But for me it was important to bring organics forward and for me it was worth the value to pay that fee. It’s also so regulated Jackie, the record keeping it drives them crazy. I tend to be OCD about records away. I’m keeping records because I’m always making comparison.

You’re a data junky.

I don’t want to be

this is hard work.

 

pissing into the wind

Being strategic and efficient is essential!

you’ve got to know what your doing

I read a lot of the Facebook things

they don’t know how they did from year to year, per cultivar! They think maybe they sold more of this.

I want to know,

compared to something else

out the door

not gonna waste my time

or larger amounts of the successful one.

People might not realize 

Denise and Tony Gaetz  in episode 110 talked about that a lot.

Those two are my heroes! Anything those two post. I love their websites. They have some great little videos there about how to set up low tunnels.

don’t want to go certified, they also have a lot of preconceived ideas about what they have to do even though they have not researched it.

not wanting to pay a lot of money to be regulated

either

your certified organic or your not, but if you’re going through all that trouble, you can’t say in writing!

you can say it

you can’t write it

just want to be able to say, my plants are organic. Except my Lisianthus.

 

Right after them Elizabeth Weller came on after them in episode 111 and talked about the Certified Naturally Grown certificaiton.In some way their standards are actually higher then certified organic and their certification fee was lower. It was funny one day I went to he Farmer’s Market, I felt like the police and people were worried that I was there to check them out. 

health of the soil

what you use to fight insects

 

certified naturally grown

it’s a great organization

peer regulated

inspector

other people who are growers who come out

I’m all for

I’m a socialist when it comes

NLP is a US Ag program

they’re the ones who started that whole organic

if you all buck regulations

will get under your skin

a little pissed off about what you can and can’t do

you can not knock that pest down

used every ORMI approved thing

that you can for that pest

you can talk to you certifying specialist

if it means you have to use a conventional

they’re not gonna let you have financial losses because you can’t get rid of a pest

makes me want to Segway into another area

basically

energy

every living thing has a level of energy

when a plant is not given enough good food and water

electrical current

that it gives off change

bugs see that light

generally

speaking

bugs pests are attracted to the weakest plants

beach the epidermis on the leaves

is easier to pierce with the insects proboscis

is weaker and easier to get their teeth into it,

back to the methodology

winter cover crops

feeding soil

using compost teas

all the good stuff to help the plant

fullest capacity

chances are that you are not gonna have

rare

in my personal history

not a big problem

if you have a problem

physical

pheromone lure

work in organic methodology

perfume that’s put out by females

in some insects the male

it’s an attractant

let’s say Japanese beetle

female who has the pheromone

make these traps

those yellow things out there

with a bag

those little tablets that sit in the middle of that quad of yellow wax cardboard

pheromone attractant

males are attracted in abundance to that yellow wax paper

flies directly

not smart enough to get out of bag

males are largely

attracted and caught

reduces the potential for

all Japanese beetles are made for is chewing and screwing

eat and

male comes and attaches to female and continue eating

drop into turf

love turf above anything

lay their eggs

grubs basically mature over the winter

live off the

ugly white grubs in the soil

are chewing in the grass or field grass,

not picky

if you want to know if you have a bunch of Japanese

voles

that run those little tunnels

carnivores

live on

can tell if you have a Japanese beetle problem by looking on

bio organisms

milky spore

is a white powder

pretty innocuous

can spread on lawn

microorganism

loves to make Japanese beetles

basically get the flu and die

ways to fight everything out

things

I don’t like to use things that you spray

just because it’s approved

but as a poison its approved for Organic use because it’s residual

lets’ not kid any body

if you are trying to live on this green earth

anything you use to kill a bug is capable of killing other things, bees, monarch butterflies

try to

really big to go out in the morning

love Roses

love raspberry plants

knock em off the leaf,

kind of dopey

wings don’t want to fly

canning jar with soapy water

then thump them right in,

last bath

that’s how I deal with them

 

 

Which activity is your least favorite activity to do in the garden.

It’s all a matter of head set. As soon as I get an attitude

I used to hate weeding

I see weeding as a very zen sort of things

Hating and loving thing

very weather and body pain dependent

I dislike things if my body is sore and its’ hot outside

my body is saying

I do my

I change my way of thinking about it.

I get myself psyched up

and I’m looking forward

play some good old Crosby Stills Nash and Young

What is your favorite activity to do in the garden.

cutting bucket and buckets and buckets of flowers

strip the leaves off

looking back at the bucket and its’ fuller and fuller

it’s heaven

those are just dishes

that’s what you do when its hot and your body is sore

when

you play in the water

just a spin

whatever spin you put on it

when you train your brain

actually start enjoying

don’t resist

that you have to do it

you’ve trained your brain to actually do it

do it with love

joy

the hardest thing is when I have to use my body in a hard way

its’ when I have to fill wheelbarrows with compost

and dump the wheel barrow

spread the compost

uses my body in my way

easy to get a repetition injury

my body remembers

wear an armband on my right arm

where my tennis elbow

when it’s hard for me like that that’s when I’m unhappy

but hey

I’m counting my blessings that I’m still mobile

and able to do pretty hard work

grateful to be a woman living in the US in this amazing country

I can make myself anything

I’m doing what I want to do

its’ really hard to get bummed

What is the best gardening advice you have  ever received?

I’m thinking about probably my best gardening advice is reduce your hard hard labor to only 3 hours a day

don’t spend 6-9 hours doing hard hard labor

it’s a finite source

gonna impact everything

then give yourself a couple of days to recuperate

hard labor you just have to be smart

what are you trying to accomplish

have a plan be good to yourself

Is there a favorite tool that you like to use? If you had to move and could only take one tool with you what would it be?

it would be a broad fork! it would be the one tool

Do you have any tips for eating or harvesting vegetables or fruit on time? 

4

Do you have any secrets for preserving food-making it last? 

4

A favorite recipe you like to cook from the garden?

4

A favorite internet resource?

4

A favorite reading material-book, mag, blog/website etc you can recommend?

The 50 mile bouquet

the whole Andean Pact

floral c

really does talk about

the values

she’s the point girl for locally

part of her group of people that support her whole program

time for us American florists to take our Flower Power back

More americans just buy flowers

all over NYC

in cities there does seem to be more flower sales

very little of nature

people out in the country

you go to Europe

when you see what our govt. did in 1988

floral trade

gave it to other countries

wrong over in Europe

daily commodity

see a guy walk down the street in Paris

a baguette in one hand and

Liz Krieg

BOOKS

Living the good Life how to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World Paperback – 1973

by Helen and Scott Nearing (Author)

Specialty Cut Flowers: The Production of Annuals, Perennials, Bulbs, and Woody Plants for Fresh and Dried Cut Flowers 2nd Edition

by Allan M. Armitage  (Author), Judy M. Laushman (Author)

Flowers for the Table: Arrangements and Bouquets for All  Seasons   Mar 1, 2002

by Ariella Chezar and Shaun Sullivan

The 50 Mile Bouquet: Seasonal, Local and Sustainable Flowers  Apr 1, 2012

by Debra Prinzing and David E. Perry

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses   Apr 15, 2009

by Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch

started out here in Vermont here in the early days.

I love what he put out with the 4 Season Harvest which talks about growing in tunnels, you can pretty much

The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Small-scale Organic Farming  Mar 4, 2014

by Jean-Martin Fortier and Marie Bilodeau

websites that I really love to go to:

learn

Floret flowers.com

gives so much back to the floral growers trade

why she likes them

lots to learn there

just started to

another place I like to go to

Sarah raven.com

over in the UK

has another great site

product to sell

picked a specific packet of seeds

The Facebook page for the Association for Cut Flower Growers

ASCFG.org webstie

the American Association for Speciality Cut Flower Growers

bulletin boards

many of the people that are on the Facebook

highly recommend that organization to join

If you have a business to you have any advice for our listeners about how to sell extra produce or get started in the industry?

4

Final question-

 

if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?

#1 The CLEAN AIR ACT, i wanted it to happen

the whole world needs to wake up

#2 I am so supportive we absolutely need to have GMO labeling

the food that we are eating

if it is tampered with on a molecular level

Im not completely against what is happening GMO wise

Im not a s

when I buy salmon

I want to know if it’s the new funky salmon that grows to the full size in

wild caught

very fatty looking

hey its delicious no grip there

crossing the genetic code

faster growing

pollock type fish

now they are farming those

no GMO labeling on them

Ferro island salmon

GMO island salmon grown from

like to make sure that GMO labeling is happening

people need to know that

always hated Monsanto and most big businesses

lobbying trying to keep u s in the

increase pockets in their pocketbook

Do u have an inspiration tip or quote to help motivate our listeners to reach into that dirt and start their own garden?

I have something that I have always loved idd come from Rachel Carson in Silent

those who dwell among the beautifies and mysteries of earth

landscape design

I can’t believe that

in retrospect

I’ve done all that

its always been in the heart of

Im an earth sign

shy of critics we love to murder our heroes

Im so sensitive

IDK if Id be ready to cast my pearls

birds just dying for your birdseed

networking is so vital to success

mirrors what they are after

thank you for encouragement

How do we connect with you?

20 minutes

right in the heart of Vermont

the top of the state is an hour away

snuggled between

blog itself is only month old

hundreds of hits

don’t know where they

mapleflowerfarm.com

can go to my Pinterest page, Instagram page, Facebook page

blog is write there

featuring mostly natives that can be used as cut flowers

one native at a time

what I know about them

how they can

my voice translates through my hand

kind of loose and flower

might even get one of those comfortable

dictate and it writes it for you

then you can edit

flow and talk as a normal person

stiffens

I do believe that magic is all around us all the time…

mapleflowerfarm@gmail.com

TELEPHONE NUMBER

802-234-6576

PHYSICAL ADDRESS

3340 Christian Hill

Bethel, Vermont 05032

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