05/26/2026
Recently, the reminded us that growers are heroes for farming through so many climate challenges. This weekend felt like a testament to that truth.
Three days of rain, cool air, and heavy clouds slowed everything down. The rain made harvest difficult and threatened quality, while the lack of sun kept many buds tightly closed. We’ve learned how to respond to heat with shade cloth and cold with frost blankets, but this was one of those moments when there wasn’t much to do except wait and watch.
Weekends like this test us, but they also teach us. Each season gives us new information about timing, varieties, weather, and resilience. And then, just when the waiting feels hardest, a flower opens and reminds us why we keep doing this.
Seeing the peonies and Baptisia bloom this week felt especially poignant. Both came from some of our earliest perennial plantings — from a time when Great Ring Farm was not yet a concrete reality, but more of a hope and a calling we were planting toward.
The peonies were gorgeous, but this week, it was the delicate, ephemeral color of ‘Lunar Eclipse’ Baptisia that lit up our hearts. We don’t have extra bunches of ‘Lunar Eclipse’ for the floor this week, but we will have other beautiful Baptisia available through the CT Flower Collective, along with Bupleurum, Saponaria, and other late-spring stems.
These are the moments that keep us going: the trials that teach us, the flowers that surprise us, and the quiet joy of watching long-ago plantings finally become part of the harvest.
We’re so grateful to have you following along on this journey.
