Cut Flower Harvest What s Blooming in the Garden Right Now

Hey again from the garden. So in this video I'm going to share with you what I'm currently harvesting out of the garden and how I harvest it and then give you a few looks around the garden. The first thing we'll start with is rebecchia and here you can see I'm doing the wiggle test. When you wiggle it, if the flower at the top of the stem just moves back and forth and doesn't wiggle a lot, it's ready to harvest. If it wiggles a lot, like this stem, it needs a little bit longer. Here I'm harvesting out of my patch of Sahara rebecchia which has really exploded in the last week and it's one of my favorite varieties of rebecchia because it's so many different colors and they are all double flowers. And when I harvest rebecchia, I cut down as deep as I can on the stem for the longest stem length and then that encourages branching on the plant for future blooms. The next thing I harvested is yarrow and yarrow is blooming like crazy in the garden this year. Both yarrow that I planted and a lot of the yarrow that I have self-seeded. So when I harvest yarrow, I cut the stems down as deep as I possibly can to get the longest stems possible and then I shred all of the leaves on the bottom half of the stem that I have just cut. Yarrow lasts an incredibly long time in a vase. It's really great for fresh bouquets and it dries really well also. This is some self-seeded yarrow that I just let go along the edge of the patch. The trick to harvesting yarrow is to make sure you harvest it when the flowers are all the way open. That will give you the longest lasting flower. If you harvest them too early, like this photo here, they will wilt almost immediately when you harvest them. Next up is feverfew, one of my most favorite filler flowers. Feverfew is similar to harvest just as yarrow. You want to make sure that the flowers are open, otherwise they will wilt immediately upon harvest. Now, feverfew you can harvest about three quarters open, but if the flowers are not open at all on top, that is when you need to give them a little bit more time. Feverfew doesn't last quite as long in the vase as yarrow, but it is one of my favorite fillers to use. Here I'm starting to harvest my fama pincushion flowers. I have both the blue variety and the white variety ready in the garden right now. This particular patch, most of them are too far gone. You want to make sure that you harvest them when they are fresh and not starting to go to seed. As usual, I cut as far down as possible to get the longest stems possible, and then that also encourages branching. Now here's a look at what else is blooming around the garden the 1st of July. Happy Gardening!