Signs of Spring

Winter time is a beautiful time for reflection. Slowing down and relaxing. Finding joy in the little things. Planting seeds, sprouting corms and getting organized for the season ahead.

A little reflection back to 2009 when I lived in Rome, studying Architecture. I remember roaming the streets of Trastevere looking for something to eat for breakfast. Italians don’t do breakfast like Americans, most breakfast is made at home. What they do have is one of the most amazing things I discovered while living in Rome, it’s called spremuta d'arancia! That’s fresh squeezed orange juice. I remember ordering spremuta almost every single morning for my breakfast with a croissant, sometimes a coffee. It became a routine; my favorite part of the day. Then, one day I showed up and asked for spremuta and they gave me a glass of red juice… I didn’t understand what this meant at the time. It was spring, and along with it came blood red orange season and that was the orange juice that you got. Oh a new love… like no other! One that speaks the language of the earth. This Idea of eating within the seasons was introduced to me in a foreign country. I will forever be grateful and so appreciative of this way of living. Whenever I see Blood Red Oranges this time of year I like to make a little spremuta to warm my heart.

I absolutely love this tradition, growing with the season and changing with it as well. Finding new things to excite me and inspire. As I’m planning for the garden this year I’m excited for all the different phases and flowers that will come in and out. Right now, the colors of fresh oranges and the memory of flowers bring the sweetness of summer into my body and fill my heart.

I have so many Flowers I am looking forward to this spring! Some are tulips, foxglove and Italian Ranunculus. I just started sprouting my ranunculus in the green room! They are such an incredible flower, they look like tiny land octopus.

I’ve dedicated an entire bedroom to growing and storing plants, where they’ll be protected from freezing temperatures until it warms up. The Tulips and yarrow are already showing signs of life in the garden, just in time to be blanketed again by a protective layer of a beautiful, white snow.

I just announced my CSA’s at an event in my local community and already have so many amazing friends and supportive neighbors. If you’ve cheered me on, purchased my flowers or a CSA from me, thank you for your support and encouragement, it means the world to me. I couldn’t do it without you!


Spring offerings

This spring we are offering several CSA’s

CSA stands for community supported agriculture. This is a great model that allows the community to support farmers in the beginning of the season when most upfront costs are incurred. The CSA model ensures that we will be able to provide you with weeks and weeks of beautiful flowers in the Hudson Valley.

May-June Spring CSA Offerings



Spring Flower CSA Featuring Tulips

Two or Four weeks of Spring Bouquets. We anticipate blooms around 5/10 or sooner. This is a lovely gift for Mother’s Day! Tentative Pickup Wednesday Afternoons at Unfiltered Wines in Woodstock. 3-5pm


Spring Perennial CSA Featuring NY Native Wildflower Plugs

This is our first year of providing Pollinator Perennial CSA’s!

Inspired by my love for supporting native wildlife and the restoration of the land that came before us, The Woodstock land Conservancy, the Pollinator Pathway, and the Woodstock Biodiversity Initiative; to include more pollinator friendly native wildflowers within the community.

These plants are selected for their collective beauty along with their climate resiliency and resistance to deer. They support native NY wildlife throughout the season. What a great way to support the biodiversity in our community. You can choose between having a pollinator patch (60SF) which consists of 32 perennial plugs of native wildflowers and grasses. The pollinator garden option consists of 50 native wildflowers, ferns, and grasses that fills an area of approximately (100SF)

32 Pollinator Perennials CSA + 50 Pollinator Perennials CSA

Join our mailing list so we can let you know when our flowers are ready! Pickup from our new flower farm in Saugerties, Delivery options also available locally within 30 miles of Woodstock.

We also have other CSA’s and Landscape Design this Season

Early Summer Flower CSA

Featuring Wildflowers



Late Summer Flower CSA

Featuring Dahlias

2, 4, and 6 Weeks of Dahlias from our Flower Farm

Spring Landscape Consultations and Installations available on a first come first serve basis. Please email Lauren@famousmeadow.com if you have any questions.

Micro flower farm feast

I’m finally planting the seedlings that I started back in February 2022 into the garden. I’ve be calling this my micro flower farm. Partly because I started small and secondly because they didn’t get planted immediately and some of the flowers started blooming at very, very, very short heights! How sweet!

The first day I transferred my flats down to the garden from the greenhouse, I thought they would be fine on top of stacked bags of soil. I was too naïve and very wrong, a hungry little furry creature decided to bite off the tops of every single dahlia that I had started from seed. They even went after the Gomphrena, every last one of them.

I’m glad I am finding this out before all of my famed dahlia tubers start blooming. That next day in the garden I saw a groundhog just outside the fence. He looked over at me with a sly look, one of gratitude. In his own words he said Thank you for providing that delicious meal.

Organic pest management is working with nature finding a balance each living thing has a predator and it also has things that likes to eat. Initially, I decided to get organic sluggo, coyote urine, and Repels all. Later on I added copper tape for slugs because they’re still a problem, Japanese beetle traps, solar powered sonar spikes to deter moles voles and groundhogs.

I know it’s starting to get out of hand, especially the smells! And I’m supposed to be working with nature, so where are the predators to these pests? I also picked up a have a heart trap from Restore 28, just incase…that trap is now covered in peanut butter and melon! Its been flipped upside down several times by someone who really likes these tasty treats.

Every day I come out and I find a new pest problem. A lot of times I’m not sure what some thing is and I have to look into researching the animal and whether or not it’s detrimental to the plant I find it on or near. I’m learning so much about insects. So far my intuition has been pretty on point with whether or not something “belongs” in the fenced in garden but because I’m not 100% familiar with where I am I always do research before removing something from the garden. I remove leaves that are nibbled, I spray overly eaten plants with 1 tsp of Dr. Bronzer’s soap in a spray bottle of water.

I laid down weed barrier fabric on two of my rows! A farmer in Goshen recommended it for large open flower fields so I wouldn’t spend my time weeding.

Under and around the fabric, It seems to be a playground for little rodents or voles, an area where there are no predators they’re protected from the sun in a land where there are many rocks within clay heavy soil that these animals cannot dig through easily!

They absolutely love every single hole that I’ve dug and replaced with loose organic soil, fresh tender roots and scrumptious leafy flowers! Oh no, what have I created!? A buffet for these little gremlins, every day I find something new, six or more Plants dug up, tossed aside and it’s become a puzzle game, a game of memory. Which plant, which hole…sometimes they are destroyed, other times the “ animal pruning” creates stronger more resilient plants. Hey, is this it, I’m finally working with nature!

I really want a motion activated Camera down there so I know exactly what is causing the problem!

The Beginning: Famous Meadow Farm in Woodstock, New York

At the beginning of 2022 I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to have all the flowers that I wanted. A dear friend of mine Andreea, invited me over to start seedlings in the beginning of February in 2022.

A full year prior I bought enough flower seeds to cover several acres, echinacea, sunflowers, rudbeckia and so much more. Most of the seeds I never even got to plant, I didn’t have land for it so I never planted them Aside from sneaking some seeds into my sister’s yard with my niece and nephews or giving them to my Aunt Bonnie or my Grandparents.

Andreea has a beautiful garden by the beach in New Jersey where my family is from. She is the mastermind behind little bites of joy and my partner in taking this flower farming to the next level. She suggested we plant seeds and we began soil blocking.

I thought OK I’ll figure out where they go… she was right because once I had the need for land and all of these living things dependent on it, I found exactly what we needed. I was looking for places to live and then I saw a newly posted listing for an apartment with a garden on 7 acres.

I thought to myself, this has my name written all over it, a place where I could plant all the native plants I want, paint sunflowers in my garden and nobody would question it! I could be myself in Woodstock, with nature, art and culture; in the mountains with the stars.

I’ve come a long way to cramming in every plant I could on a fire escape in Brooklyn. Its like this has been waiting for over a decade for me to finally have a little piece of earth to plant in.

So it looks like everything is coming together, I’ve got my plants growing and the snow is starting to fade finally. I didn’t realize the difference in the seasons would be so drastic! Once I moved north to the mountains, I lost about two months of the growing season.

It’s very different from what I’m used to working with. It’s really wet here, I feel like I almost don’t need to water… at least not until the hot summer heat sets in and my dahlias start pushing through the soil.

The rows are 4’ wide with 3’ rows between them… as suggested with creating air flow within dahlias. This allows for (4) plants every(12”) or 3 every (18) inches throughout the row.

Breaktrue

Spring is here and that means all life is trying to break through the defrosting earth. We tend to overlook how beautiful and positive this breaking can be. Breaktrue, from the earth. This is who we are, each and every one of us is perfect just the way we are and everything we ever need is deep inside us. We just need to break true 🌋🌒✨

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn 2017  

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn 2017  

New Haven Moment

A friend and I had talked about visiting New Haven for a few months and by this time we both needed to get out of the city, so we took a little trip up North.  I was truly excited for an adventure to a new and unexplored city. One of my favorite things to do is just up and go, and I instantly found myself quite fond of this quaint little town. A little part of me didn't want to explore as much just so I would have reason to come back.

 

I walked diagonally through the green and found myself right in front of this beautiful gothic revival clock tower. The clock started playing this cheerful melody and with each delicate chime the wind swept the amber leaves off of the majestic trees. I watched the leaves flutter downwards through the sunlight canopy to this magical melody.  We went to Claire's Corner Copia for lunch and checked out a rare book. 

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Twilight Yoga on the Rooftop Vineyard

Tonight we welcome the Moon to come a little closer. Over the next two days the moon will be its brightest and much closer than usual. You might even feel something because the moon effects all living things. 

Tonight was the opening event of Rooftop Reds in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We had a wonderful vinyasa flow class on the rooftop vineyard, between the rows of grapevines.  What an amazing way to welcome fall in this incredible city.

As the sun set it washed the sky with its beautiful orange glow on top of a deep lavender backdrop. Each breath allowing us to open our hearts and embrace life as we look forward to the wonderful unknown. 

This was the first of many rooftop events at Rooftop Reds and they will continue having twilight yoga every Friday this fall until it's too chilly. 

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All life is interrelated

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly... This is the interrelated structure of reality. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

New York City legalized bee keeping in 2010 . Native honey bees love Native New York Asters. Smooth blue Asters are just one of the native flowers on this Brooklyn green roof... our bees just love it! Bees on our roofs are a great thing 🐝

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Buckminster Fuller

“

”In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model.



You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called.”

”
— ~ Buckminster Fuller ~