Christmas Bouquet

Erica was able to create this end of season beauty by ferreting out the few blooms remaining in the flower garden after our recent rains and frost.

 A variety of red, pink and yellow roses, sweet william, ornamental cabbage, delphinium, lollipops, and Italian white sunflower.  All hardy survivors bringing us their floral joy during the 

holiday season.

The finishing touch:  some mistletoe foraged from nearby trees.

My neighbor showing off his latest find.

Giant Bolete Mushrooms

He's keeping their location a secret!

Check out the very soggy Laguna in the background, swollen to lake size proportion after the latest series of storms.

 Graffiti Purple Cauliflower

Cabbages

tierravegetables.com

Another Wedding

Congratulations Clair and Scott!

http://erinashford.com/blog/?p=1823

We were delighted to provide the flowers for this early September 2012 wedding in Occidental.  Late summer mix of our best:  dahlias, sweet william, ice euphorbia, golden drumstick.

Fruit flies taking refuge inside the petals of one of the remaining dahlias in our garden.  From a distance this appears to be a 

black and white dahlia.

Happy Thanksgiving

 We cooked a heritage, free-range turkey this year.  Our bird was raised nearby in Windsor, CA by our daughter's friend Dominique.

Wild Mushrooms

Prolific in the neighboring field after the first rains of the season.

Two new tomato varieties, a gift from our dentist's wife.  

We will save the seeds and try propagating for next season.

Bottling

Pressing the zinfandel.

Wine Crush

at Vine Hill Farm

 

  The grapes are ready!  John is picking our 'estate grown' cabernet.

Vine Hill Farm 

Our flowers used at a June Wine Country Wedding 

in Sonoma County.

 http://www.getmarried.com/trends/rustic/198-real-wedding-jennifer-chris 

 This box is loaded with our short stemmed mixed garden bouquets.  These are currently selling for $8.  Many customers are purchasing the bouquet along with the mason jar in which it is nestled.  $10 for the works.  JUST GRAB AND GO.

This is an example of my long stemmed bouquets.  There are 20 to 30 stems in each of these.  They are currently selling for $10.

Bells of Ireland

Our second crop 
of Bells of Ireland are coming on strong.  These 
will be in most all the bouquets until the end of the farmer's market 
in late October.

Old Vine Zinfandel

John calls himself a "garagista".  So besides turning into a floral arrangement studio each Friday, throughout most of the year in the garage we have tubs, carboys, barrels in the process of becoming wine. 

 Vintage 2010

Harvest Fair Winners 2012

  
John's latest winners.  Note that he has chosen to use pictures of our flowers for his labels.  He has been entering his homemade wine at the Sonoma County Harvest Fair for many years. 

Our daughter Erica was the inspiration for dabbling in flowers.  We continue to be pleasantly surprised by the compliments we receive from our Farmer's Market customers and have launched into weddings now, as well.

Erica gave me this book, The 50 Mile Bouquet, and as I read through it I realized that is what we are actually doing - "slow flowers". 

Of course, I knew about the "slow food" movement.  Applying the concept to flowers made perfect sense to me.  For more information about the "slow flower" movement, I have included the link below.

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/23/4574417/sacramento-area-farms-pick-up.html

Another gorgeous wedding bouquet.  Fall colors in the dahlias, asters and lisianthus with a couple of drumsticks and a weeping millet stalk.

Corsages for the moms. 

'Bouts' for the guys.

 John meets his challenge.  Stuffed and hugely harmless.  

Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia.

 

Our Salt Spring Island competition.  Beautiful country bouquets selling for $12.  A transplanted Healdsburg girl working here.  Notice they still have sweetpeas in mid August.  The flowers and other produce seem to come on a bit later in their bioregion.   This was the Tuesday afternoon Farmer's Market.  They have a bigger one on Saturdays.

One of many farm gate stands on Salt Spring Island.  I loved the clever flower holders.  A custom designed wooden stand holds a litre-size milk container.  Flower stems soak within until snatched by a customer.

I have no idea what this is.  It is blooming on a tree outside the entrance to the University of British Columbia's Botanical Gardens.

A roadside Inn outside of Penticton.  The hanging flower baskets are everywhere in B.C. This display was too overwhelming to just drive on by.

Hi!  John and Janet are traveling in British Columbia, Canada.  This is such an amazingly beautiful place.  The weather here is even better than Sonoma County, at least right now.   We are currently in a waterfront cottage on Salt Spring Island across the bay from Vancouver City.  Today we traversed the island and saw so many small farms, farmstands, and even enjoyed the small midweek Farmer's Market in the "heart of town" - Ganges.  We ran into vendors who hailed from the Healdsburg area, relocating here.  Why not?  Can't upload any pics yet but will when we get back home on August 28th.  In the meantime, to all our favorite Occidental Farmer's Market flower customers - check out Tierra Vegetables on Airport Drive in Windsor.  http://www.tierravegetables.com/ They might be carrying some of our garden fresh bouquets for sale.  See you soon.  Vine Hill Farm -Farmer John and Janet Maier

DAHLIAS 

$9 each   OR $15 for 2

We have some beautiful dahlias in large pots for sale this week at the Occidental Farmer's Market.  John has been taking orders, so come by and let us know what you would like.  He has been able to squeeze in a few of these to display each week, depending on how much room is left in the truck after we load up all the other items we are selling. 

 

Sweet Dreams with Helen's Little Orange in the background.

 

Sam Houston - he's a big guy about 8 inches across.

 

 

Also, the sunflowers are making a big show in the garden right now.  I'll be adding these to the mixed flower bouquets, with a few "mostly sunflower" bouquets as well.

We did the flowers for a wedding last week.   

Bride, bridesmaids, large table, small table bouquets. 

A total of 62 bouquets

Congratulations Amanda and Dustin!

The purple and yellow blossoms above belong to a flower called salpiglossis also known as Painted Tongue.  We gleaned some local, wild sweetpeas and mixed them with Bells of Ireland and fresh boysenberry sprigs.

Amanda's Bouquet

Pinks, lavenders, and whites.

Hydrangeas, white snapdragons, sweetdreams dahlias, heavenly bamboo flowers, lavender, pink yarrow.