Interview with The Aster Master - Part 2

Interview with The Aster Master - Part 2

Asters CA Grown California Flowers Chamomile Growing Flowers Matsumoto Asters Seestern Asters Sun Valley

A few weeks ago, we dipped our toes into the world of Aster growing at Sun Valley. I talked a bit about the who (Gerrit, the Aster Master) and the what (different varieties we grow) of our Aster program. Today we're digging deeper and getting into the real heart of the story - the where, when, why and how our Asters are grown.

Bulb Schmulb

As you may already know, The Sun Valley Group started out way back when as Sun Valley Bulb Farm. Our primary focus was (and still essentially is), obviously, bulb flowers like tulips, irises, and lilies. But with our growth as a company has come an ever-expanding selection of cut flowers, including some non-bulb varieties. Asters fall into this category.

Asters grow from seeds, plain and simple. The Aster planting team uses plugs - seeds rooted in about an inch of dirt in trays - that are bought in or seeded on the farm, as they are much more economical then planting seeds directly in the fields. (You can watch how plugs are seeded in this video.) A major difference between growing seed flowers and bulb flowers is seeds or seed plugs don't require cooling before they are ready to be planted. As you might guess, this is a huge advantage for Sun Valley, saving us time and cooler space.

However, that's not to say growing Asters is particularly easy...

Musical Hoops

Sea Star Asters growing in an Oxnard hoophouse

Imagine for a moment physically picking up your house, your car, the garage that houses your car, and all of your loose belongings and moving them to a new location... every year. That's somewhat what it's like with our Aster crops because of a process called crop rotation. I'm pretty sure you've heard of crop rotation before, but in case you haven't, it means periodically changing the crop grown in a particular field to help promote the restoration of essential nutrients in the soil.

A couple years ago, the Sun Valley Oxnard farmers accelerated the Aster crop rotation schedule and wound up with stronger flowers and a higher recovery rate. Great for our crops, hard work for our farmers. Because the Asters require much more than just a field to be planted in (hoops, lighting, generators, hydration systems, etc.), moving the crops requires a lot of time, precision and heavy lifting. But like the saying goes... somebody's gotta do it!

So, how does crop rotation impact our Asters?



Sweetheart Asters making a comeback!

Remember when I called Sweetheart Asters "The Comeback Kids" in Aster Master - Part 1? Well, crop rotation is precisely what facilitated this comeback. When we initially grew the beloved little Sweethearts, "the soil got tired," as Gerrit put it, from growing so many Matsumotos. Sweetheart Asters were the exhausted soil's casualty.

Soon after, the farmers decided to pick up the farm, take all of the hoops off the field, and replace Matsumotos with Iris. (Unlike our Arcata hoophouses, the Oxnard hoops are moveable... in case you were wondering.) This led to an entirely new "growing culture" in Oxnard, which now included crop rotation with Asters, irises and neighboring strawberry farm crops. This shift led to a much more favorable recovery rate for our Asters, and ultimately allowed us to reintroduce our Sweetheart Asters.



Matricaria busy healing the ground!

 You probably also remember me calling Matricaria (Chamomile) "The Healers."  These adorable flowers are vital to the Aster crop rotation process, since they actually heal the soil. And since they make such a charming filler for enhanced bunches and bouquets, our Matricaria varieties are a win-win for us!

How does our Aster garden grow?



Young Asters



Short answer: Year-round in hoops!

Long answer: Aster plugs are planted in hoophouses. Then, similar to growing Royal and Love Lilies, drip tape and a wire grid are laid down. Drip tape ensures adequate delivery of water and fertilizer to the plants' root systems, and the wire grid helps their stems grow straight and sturdy.

Asters are naturally a fall crop, but for some inexplicable reason, they seem to love growing year-round in Oxnard! They take about 10-15 weeks to grow, depending on the season, and the use of hoops and lighting help keep them on schedule during off seasons.

Unlike our bulb flowers, which are cut when still closed, Asters show full color when they are ready for harvest. This makes for a lot of pretty farm pictures! 




Karthauser Sea Star Asters



White Daisy Matricaria (Chamomile)



Freshly harvested Matsumoto Asters


This pretty much sums up my interview with Gerrit, The Aster Master. I, for one, picked up a wealth of new knowledge from this experience. I hope you, too, walk away with a little more insight into growing Asters - The Godfathers, The Comeback Kids, The Crowd Pleasers and The Healers - at Sun Valley!

Click on the following link to watch a video about Sun Valley Oxnard farm and learn a whole lot more about Asters from Gerrit and J Schwanke! (You will have to log into your uBloom account to watch the video.) http://ubloom.com/blog/2010/10/28/the-ca-grown-experience-on-ubloom-visits-sun-valley-group-oxnard-division/ Also, be sure to check out the Sun Valley website to see which Aster varieties are in season now.

If you would like to learn more about our Asters, or if you have anything you would like me to blog about in a future post, please email me! I'll do my best to oblige!

Baby it's cold outside, but it's warm fuzzies in here!

Baby it's cold outside, but it's warm fuzzies in here!

CA Grown California Flowers Christmas flowers Flower Meaning Flowers and Emotion flowers for delivery Sending flowers Sun Valley

The holidays tend to bring on a flood of emotions: Joy, surprise, anticipation, gratitude, love, maybe a little stress from time to time... Spending time with loved ones, carefully selecting the perfect tree, bedazzling the home, swapping gifts, cooking and eating traditional feasts, and traveling can truly cause one to experience every emotion on Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions (see image below) simultaneously. I'd argue that no other season has this impact on so many people.

Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions, 1980 (Notice its floral shape!)


Like the holidays, flowers have an emotional impact on people, and their effects are resoundingly positive. Some of the top emotional benefits associated with flowers (according to a 2006 behavioral research study by Nancy Etcoff, Ph.D. of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School) are increased compassion towards others, diminished feelings of anxiety, stress and depression, and increased energy, happiness and enthusiasm. All particularly beneficial during the holidays!


Increased compassion for others

Reduced feelings of anxiety, stress and depression

 

Increased energy, happiness and enthusiasm

As it turns out, these favorable emotional shifts aren't only associated with receiving flowers - the flowers just have to be present in the home. So, they can be given as a present to a friend or a present to yourself - everybody wins! According to Etcoff, placing flowers in a high-traffic area (oh, let's say maybe the kitchen or living room this time of year) gives the most emotional bang for your floral buck. This makes sense really - higher exposure to flowers = elevated feelings of elation.

It's cold out there. You could light a fire or spike your eggnog to keep warm, but why not use flowers to make things warm and fuzzy?

Happy holidays from Lily and the Sun Valley Team!

Interview with The Aster Master - Part 1

Interview with The Aster Master - Part 1

Asters CA Grown California Flowers Christmas flowers Christmas greens Sun Valley

Now that we're over a week into December, I think it's safe to say we're officially in Holiday Mode. Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, Christmas, or just a holiday from work or school, you're undoubtedly encountering the festive spirit everywhere you go. The colors red and green, silver and gold deck every hall and home. Reindeer sweaters, eggnog cocktails, fairy lights, huge blow-up snowmen, real snowmen, and Christmas cookies are everywhere you look. (My team members just brought in a Dutch auction cart sized load of the little confectionery delights for "Bagel Friday," for example. Many thanks for the gluten-free cookies!) 

Yep, the holidays are here.

Since Sun Valley is full-swing into Holiday Mode, it makes sense to write about our holiday offerings. Of course, we have gorgeous red Tulips, pristine white, Starfighter and Candy Cane Oriental Lilies, fragrant Christmas greens, and bountiful red berries - Ilex and Rosehips. But today I simply want to talk about Asters.

Because some of our Asters come in true holiday red, I thought they fit perfectly into my Holiday Mode schema. A recent interview with Gerrit, aka "The Aster Master," the other day left me with abundant information about the star-shaped flowers.

When this happens - "this" meaning I learned A LOT about our crops from one of our farmers - I need to break up the information into few posts to keep my rambling to a minimum, so here we go. For now, I'll start simple, really simple, and give you a breakdown of the Asters we grow at Sun Valley:

Matsumoto Asters - The Godfathers

Matsumoto Asters, also referred to as Calistephus, feature cushiony, brightly-colored petals in red, hot pink, pink, purple, lavendar, bi-red and bi-lavendar, arranged around clusters of tiny yellow flowers. Because of their popularity among customers and favorable recovery rate, Matsumotos account for a large percentage of our Aster program. You might say Matsumotos are the head of the Sun Valley Aster family.

Sweetheart Asters - The Comeback Kids

They're back! These little beauties, commonly called Serenade Asters, consist of multiple small star-like flowers per stem. They've just made a comback in our Aster arena, which will be discussed further in the next post. With brilliant colors like red, hot pink and purple - not available in other filler crops - and exceptional vaselife, Sweethearts are a charming and unique filler.

Sea Star Asters - The Crowd Pleasers



Sea Star Asters, which consist of Igel, Seestern and Krallen varieties, boast huge heads filled all the way in with petals (except Seestern, which have yellow centers) and tall, sturdy stems. Sea Stars recently made their debut at Sun Valley in summer of 2010, and they've made quite a name for themselves already. You'll have to sea these beauties for yourself to understand what all the fuss is about! (Sorry about the pun - I couldn't help myself!)

Matricaria (Chamomile) Buttons, Cushions and Daisies - The Healers

As cute as the names imply, these little blooms add a dash of whimsy and fun to any arrangement. Aside from their aesthetic qualities, they also have healing qualities. You're probably already aware of the calming properties of chamomile tea, but did you know that the plant actually "heals" the soil as well? This makes them an essential part of our Aster crop rotation, which I'll discuss in detail in the next post.

Finally we have Solidago, which I would describe as bringing the garden into your home due its wildflower look. Our farmers have timed this crop carefully to come in during peak yellow demand seasons, thus Solidago signifies the onset of spring one season and resembles falling leaves another season.

And those, my friends, are the Asters we grow at Sun Valley - all fabulous fillers and some wildly appropriate for this holiday season. I'm glad I finally got the opportunity to share some information about them with you. Now I'm going to don my reindeer sweater, pour some eggnog, and use some Matsumoto Asters for my snowman's eyes! Happy Holidays!

For more information on Matsumoto Asters, Sea Star Asters and Matricaria, check out our flower resource pages:

Matsumotos

http://www.thesunvalleygroup.com/thesunvalleygroup/pdf/SV_RP_Asters.pdf

Sea Stars http://www.thesunvalleygroup.com/thesunvalleygroup/pdf/SV_RP_SeaStarAster.pdf

Matricaria

http://www.thesunvalleygroup.com/thesunvalleygroup/pdf/SV_RP_Matricaria.pdf

Also, please check back soon to learn more about how we grow Asters at our Sun Valley Oxnard farm...

The light at the end of the tunnel

The light at the end of the tunnel

Around the flower farm CA Grown California Flowers Flower farm lily's boots Soil Grown Tulips Sun Valley Tulips

This week has been a bit darker than most. Consider the course of events:

Halloween

Folks dressed as witches, ghosts and goblins (or a sports fan if you were me - hey, I thought it was scary), haunted houses on every block, punch served out of skulls. A dark holiday indeed.

Dia de los Muertos

Skeletons on parade, celebrations in graveyards, the living emulating the dead. Although it makes light of death (and makes very good use of flores), I would still call this a dark celebration.

And then, the light at the end of the tunnel....


This "tunnel" is the  pathway through on of our coolers!

Daylight Savings Time! 

Some groan at the thought of darkness coming earlier in the night, but I bask in the impending sensation of waking up to a little sunlight! Hardly the morning person, I've been impatiently awaiting this moment since we had our first near-frost at the farm.

If you're like me and love that first whole week's feeling of "sleeping in," then I'd say you're already aware of the perks of Daylight Savings Falling Back. But who, if anyone, appreciates it at the farm?

As it turns out, there are a few people at Sun Valley who love DST almost as I do. For one, our Greenhouse picking crews, who start the day early, enjoy that extra hour of natural sunlight in the Greenhouse. Picking flowers in the Greenhouse or anywhere is a lot easier when you can see them!

Speaking of the Greenhouses, there's one major perk that I'm reminded of when we Fall Back on our clocks: Once that NorCal winter weather starts coming in - ahem, rain - our team has rows upon rows of balmy Greenhouses to stroll through in order to escape the torrential downpours. We had a few readers over the past couple weeks say they'd love a job that allows them to walk through our beautiful farms (inspired in part by these posts: click here and here). Well, when it's raining, you'd certainly love our Greenhouses!

To illustrate what I'm talking about, these are a few images I took today whilst walking the Arcata farm...
 

Since it was sunny and didn't quite capture the "torrential downpours"
that I wrote about, I thought I'd show you a picture of one of the many
puddles that remind us of yesterday's rain. Look closely, you can see
a reflection of the Greenhouses in the puddle!



A row of Greenhouses



Seedlings that will become the rich burgundy Sumatra Lilies



Orientals nearly ready for harvest



Tulip pickers



A full load of Tulips ready to be graded



Freshly steamed soil. Because we reuse our soil, we steam it in
order to remove unwanted pathogens and weed seeds. 

Aside from the picking team, there are a few others who get an extra pep in their step from the time change: 1) The Farmers. Although they have to be somewhat hardened to the elements, I'm sure our farmers enjoy the extra warmth from the sun first thing in the morning. 2) The Sales Team. Your helpful Sales reps are here dark and early each day so they can help you out, whether you're down the street or on the other side of the country. After Sunday, that'll be bright and early! 3) Anyone else with an early morning start. You get the idea.

I could go on more about why Daylight Savings Time is great, but I have a feeling I'd start talking in circles. Enjoy that extra hour of sleep on Monday!

If you've got anything to add to my one-sided conversation on DST, please share it in the comments below!



Sun Valley's Top 3 Fall Colors

Sun Valley's Top 3 Fall Colors

Autumn Colors CA Grown Cotinus Fall Flowers Hydrangea Lilies Sun Valley Tulips

As the air gets a bit crisper, leaves crunch under our feet, and (up here in Humboldt) rain pours on our heads, we can all truly feel fall setting in. You can even smell it, with scents like wood-burning stoves and apple crisp wafting through the air. But what does fall look like?

Around the Sun Valley farm, it's colorful! Although, not in a "spring colorful" sort of way - it's a bit more rustic. I guess it's just how you'd imagine fall looking!

Here are the Top 3 fall colors I've been seeing around the farm lately:

Fresh purple Cotinus

1. Deep Purple

As green foliage naturally starts to fade away with the warm weather, rich purple comes in the form of Cotinus (which I've mentioned once or twice before - click here and here to read more about it). Cotinus leaves are truly a treat for the eyes, with their tricky hints of dark green and even reddish-pink. The dark coloring of Cotinus makes it the perfect compliment to any type of fall arrangement, be it classic, contemporary or spooky!

2. Marbled!
Another crop you might have heard me mention lately is Antique Hydrangeas. (Click here for the latest Hydrangea post.) These huge mop tops are full of burgundies, greens, blues, purples and several other colors when you look up close. I suppose Antique Hydrangea is exactly what I meant by "rustic."

A bunch of marbled Antique Hydrangeas

3. Orange
Think pumpkin patches, falling leaves, candy corn... Orange is the unofficial color of the season. Naturally, we have plenty of Tulips, Love and Royal Lilies, and crops just coming in, like Ilex and Chinese Lanterns, that help put the Orange in your cornucopia!


Fresh orange Tulips, ready to ship

4. Don't forget about... I know this is a Top 3 list, but I certainly don't want to sell the rest of the fall colors short. I won't list them off, but I'll put it this way: if you can imagine a color, I'm sure we've got a flower for that.

Now you tell me: Did I leave anything out? What colors do you think should have made the top 3 list?

Fall is here! Shhh... don't tell the Tulips

Fall is here! Shhh... don't tell the Tulips

CA Grown Fall Flowers Soil Grown Tulips Sun Valley Tulip festival Tulips

Kees Nelis Tulip, in season now

Whether or not you're ready to put your flip flops and beach towels into storage, Fall is officially upon us. It's time to rake leaves, visit apple orchards, dress in layers, watch football, carve pumpkins, stuff turkeys... and harvest Fall Tulips, if you're part of the Sun Valley team. And it's time to write about them if you're me.

Remember when I told you about Ice Tulips a few months ago? Well, store that away with the zinc oxide. Fall Tulips are a totally different story.

Fall Tulip sprouts planted in soil,
growing in the greenhouse, Sept 28

The Fall Tulips tale is more like that of those Easter and Mother's Day favorites - Spring Tulips - just on opposite schedules. We buy the bulbs around six months before we intend to grow them, plant them in soil and store them at wintery temperatures in our coolers. When their growing season starts, we put the crates full of Tulips in soil right into the Greenhouse week by week, which allows us to do two things: control the color mix and provide a continuous supply of Tulips throughout the season. All the same as Spring Tulips.

Q: So what makes Fall Tulips different from Spring Tulips?

A: Their bulb origin.


Abba Tulips, a Fall variety

As you may already know, our Spring Tulip bulbs come from Holland. Our Fall Tulip bulbs, on the other hand, come from the opposite end of earth - New Zealand. (As it turns out, the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy isn't the only great gift the Kiwis have given us.) Using southern hemisphere bulbs allows us to grow Tulips during the North American Tulip downtime. Looking at the bigger picture, this allows us to do one of the things we do best at Sun Valley - grow Tulips year-round.


Bulbs from the Netherlands in the Northern Hemisphere (top arrow)
and New Zealand in the Southern Hemisphere (bottom arrow)
allow us to grow Tulips year-round 

So, even though Fall is here with in all its crisp, fallen leaves glory, the Tulips we're growing are convinced it's Springtime.

Let's not tell 'em.



Check out the Fall Tulips we have in season now by clicking here! 

Lily's Fun Facts about Fall Crops

Lily's Fun Facts about Fall Crops

Around the flower farm CA Grown Cotinus Growing Flowers Hydrangea Sun Valley

My boots didn't travel too far over the past week, so today I'm going to share a couple Fun Facts about our Fall crops (one that's educational and another that's downright cool) that I learned right here in the office.

Fun Fact #1: Did you know that the "petals" we see on the surface of Hydrangea aren't actually the blooms?



Don't let these bloom-like flowers fool you...

Hydrangea's surface flowers are actually petal-like sepal structures. The real blooms are below the flowers. If you look closely in the photo below, you can see the pistil and stamen. This is the true Hydrangea bloom.



Spreading apart Hydrangea's surface "petals," or sepals,
reveals the pistil and stamen below.



A close-up of the real Hydrangea blooms

Fun Fact #2: During certain times of the day, you might smell Maple syrup wafting through the air at Sun Valley. Unfortunately, no one's serving up pancakes around here (that I'm aware of). The scent actually comes from one of our Willow Creek Fall Crops, Cotinus, which smells strikingly similar to Maple syrup when it's cut! One of my team members discovered that one day when she cut Cotinus at her home. Talk about a pleasant surprise!



Cut some of this Cotinus, and this is what you'll smell...



Who's hungry?

So, these are the fun facts that I learned this week. The education never ends around here! Now don't go trying to put Cotinus leaves on your pancakes...

Keep following Flower Talk for more information on our Fall crops. Also, if you ever have questions or topics you'd like to learn more about, let me know in the Comments. I'm always happy to investigate new topics and share my findings!