Every Monday, like clockwork, I chug my coffee wave the kiddos off on the bus, and head for the dahlia field with clippers in hand. While the farm team bounces around the rest of the fields pulling morning harvest needs, I handle the bulk of our dahlia harvest with Mackenzie. It’s quite a sight to behold as the sun reflects off the morning dew. The explosion of color that covers the field really does take your breath away… at least for the first couple of weeks.

Mackenzie prepares the buckets, records the bunches, cleans the stems, and makes sure they get to the cooler. My job is to wrangle each patch scouting for every bloom and cutting them to suitable lengths. I bring her piles of flowers as fast as I can and we joke and reminisce over weekend activities while trying to make quick work of the thousands of stems. As the daytime temps rise we fight the clock - we only have a few hours to get them into the cooler before the flowers show signs of stress and are unusable.

About halfway through the jokes turn more into whines and we all question my need for so many dern dahlias, even me. Having the quantity and diversity is important for us to fill all our orders and make customers thrilled as needs arise over the season but in order to keep the plants producing we have to harvest very hard, meaning all the blooms at least once a week. It’s amazing to see literally thousands of stems come out of the field on Monday and by the following week, it’s another explosion of color.

But to be real honest even as pretty as they are and as much as I really like spending time each Monday harvest with Mackenzie, I’ve hit my dahlia wall. I know we only have a few more weeks with the absolutely beautiful flowers but I'm sick of harvesting them all.

So I convinced The Lady Monarch (Mom) to let us open the dahlia field up for the rest of the season as an extra space for pick-your-own! Come out to the farm next week (follow us on Facebook to stay updated) and stuff a cup with some of the prettiest fall flowers of the season. And when I say stuff a cup I really mean it - it’s less I have to harvest later.

XOXO, Jess