I do not give up without a fight.

The last three months I have tried to make the hydroponic stacks a cut flower operation. I had high hopes.

Like most things I want to do, there is no money for new media, the seeds are iffy at best. I have planted in liners, planted it stacks.

Without new media, the weeds are lauaghing all the way and the worms are right behind.

My old bat 70 year old self has tried...

Today, I feel like giving up the lovely flowers and going to something else. Discouraged, I am.

Love,

Betty

Nothing wrong with being discouraged, Betty. You are such a hard worker - you put so much of yourself into everything you do.

This whole world is changing so fast that none of us really know what the future will be, but I do believe that we are creating it - all of us together - everyone in the world is having their say. There are no guarantees, but the more of us who choose to envision a world of prosperity, the more likely it is to eventually come to be. So do your rant. Yell at God if you feel like you need to. Get the discouragement out of your system, because once you do - you, being the person I have come to know over the past seven years, will put your mind and heart to work and you will come up with a new and better plan, and you and Dave together will make something wonderful.

I believe this.

Annie

Remember this story? It will take a few minutes to get through this two-parter, but it's worth it in the end.

Annie again

Good message in the Video, Ann.

Keep fighting, Betty.

It's all I can do to keep a yard going. Florida farming is a challenge to anyone. My neighbor has a grand garden - and rats in the attic. I had his rats one year and a keeping my fingers crossed...

Our town is starting a community garden - that will be interesting!

Some flowers are hardier than others - but I don't know much about growing or selling them. I'm sure some are more in demand.

Rest awhile, Betty. Take a vacation, a new idea will come.

Thanks Ann, and Abe and Alice and DK. I needed that. I am putting on my sweat band and going out to plant some more seeds.

Love,

Betty

Any experiment from which we learn anything at all should be considered a success irrespective of whether the outcome is what we wanted.

What Ann said.

Betty, the flowers in demand are those for weddings and funerals. Two certain events.

I bet that's true. There were a lot of flowers at graduations, too.

My David pointed out to me that I am still learning the business and that is true. Summer in Florida is a challenge. Most farmers in this area are growing watermelons and cantalope that followed the strawberries and the tomatoes are almost all harvested. The rest of the summer the land lays vacant or has a cover crop that will be plowed under to replenish some of the nitrogen that has been used by the marketable crops.

The growers of flowers are very rare. The only grower I could find grows snapdragons and the only brokers I could find are out of Miami and deal in flowers from Colombia... Colombia has the carnation and crysanthemum market.

What I hope to do is called Specialty Cut Flowers. That would be anything that is not grown enmass in some foreign place and shipped in or field grown like roses. The flowers I can buy from Walmart are mostly Columbia grown flowers and a nice bouquet is 4.88. It comes with a packet of Floralife which is wonderful stuff. That is hard to compete with.

The most used flower is the rose. Many growers, here and abroad, specialize in roses. Most weddings and funerals, mother's day, valentine's day call for roses, with a combination of mums and carnations mixed in.

The flowers that will grow in the heat of Florida summer are many. My mix includes sunflowers, cosmos, lots of daisies, dahlias that grow from seed (most are grown from tubers) zinnia, calendula, asters, gerbera daisy, stattis. gomphrena, baby's breath and queen ann's lace and some I forget at the moment.

As usual, my biggest challenge is not the growing but the marketing. I hope flowers are not as difficult to sell as my Wooffer's book.

Like Al said, at least I am learning something.

Thank you all for the encouragement.

Love,

Betty

I would guess books are the hardest sell now.