Author Archives: Heather

Let the Holiday Season Begin with Beautiful Rose Hips!

By 1 commentFarming and Flora, Wildlife, , ,

Goebel HIll Farm

We are pleased to be able to offer fresh cut, thornless red and orange rose hips for your seasonal wedding and holiday plans this year.  Planting anything takes patience and this project has been a few years in the making, but the payback in stress relief while hanging out in the rose bushes has been a lifesaver this year!

A little snag in the plan has been our irrigation lines and the local coyotes! We do everything we can to co-exist peacefully with the coyotes.  We like them.  With the million or so voles and rabbits marching around our farm, we would be in serious trouble without our local coyotes, owls, and hawks keeping things under control.

Goebel HIll Farm DogOur two Border Collie/Shepard mix dogs roam the place during the day, but at night the coyotes are in charge.  We know because our dogs and the coyotes exchange wild, bone chilling, yodeling every once in awhile just to let the other one know they are there. Lately, the coyotes have been coming by to snack on the apples out in the old orchard at night and my dog stands on the porch and barks at them to keep them on their toes.  Check out this video where we caught the coyotes taking out their frustrations on 125 feet of drip irrigation I set up on the roses.

                 

 

They shredded it.  The good thing is that it is fall and the rose hips are already ripe and ready!  We have fresh, beautiful, long lasting rose hips just in time for holiday decorating, Christmas wreaths, fireplace mantles and seasonal displays.

Tiny Orange Rose Hips

There are two ways to order; by mail through our Etsy Shop or for local pick up at our farm.  Shoot us an email or use the form below to order beautiful rose hips for pickup at the farm or to reserve with us if you need large amounts for your wedding or event date.

We hope you enjoy a wonderful holiday season!

Beautiful Flowers Available at Goebel Hill Farm for your Memorial Day Weekend Plans

By 2 commentsEvents at Goebel Hill Farm,

Thank you for all of your continued support!  We are in the middle of our ranunculus season here at our farm in Granite Falls and continue to have them available this week.  These gorgeous flowers are beloved for their brilliantly colored double-ruffled petals, tall stems, and long vase life. Our ranunculus stems are between 14″ and 16″ tall and there are ten ranunculus stems included in each bunch.

We are spacing out flower purchase pickups for safety to keep COVID 19 away from our community.  We are scheduling one visitor at a time to our historic farm using an app you can find on our website under the farm shop. We do not have a means for electronic payment at the farm yet, so please use the online Paypal option if you prefer to pay with a credit card. Don’t hesitate to contact us directly if we can help you with anything and thank you for buying locally and supporting Washington’s independent flower farmers. Have a wonderful holiday weekend.

Local Flowers Make Life Better

By 3 commentsEvents at Goebel Hill Farm, Farming and Flora, , ,

We have lift off at Goebel Hill Farm! The dahlias have begun to emerge from the earth and we are on our way to having loads of beautiful flowers this summer. I’ve been using this helpful soil temperature chart authored by Washington State University to try to gauge the arrival of this moment because I left most of my tubers in the ground last fall.

In a normal year, I dig up and store every last one of my dahlia tubers for the next season, but last fall wasn’t a normal year for us around here and things still aren’t normal, are they? We adapt. I dug what I could manage at the time, left the rest in the ground, mulched the rows with chopped up leaves and said a little prayer. We have super drainage, I mean no standing water ever type drainage, so I knew that would help. I became impatient a week or two ago and dug up a few dahlias only to find them sprouting way down there 6 to 8 inches under the ground. I bury my tubers deep so they don’t tumble over in the rain later in the summer when they are heavy with foliage and flowers.

Dahlias sprouting at Goebel Hill Farm

The experts say that the soil temperature should be 60 degrees before you plant dahlia tubers. So either the experts are wrong or this soil temp chart is, Granite Falls per se isn’t even on the chart, but who cares? They made it through the winter and so will we! We are off and running towards another wonderful growing season at Goebel Hill Farm.

With Mother’s Day just around the corner we are offering a limited number of “Flower Subscription Shares” with two options; beginning either in May, as soon as the ranunculus and peonies start to bloom, or August when the dahlias are in full swing.  Each subscription is for a total of four hand tied bouquets to be picked up at our farm every three weeks at a prearranged day and time with Covid 19 safety always in mind.  Each “Flower Subscription Share” package includes a beautiful, hand quilled card created by my sister Brooke!  The card is blank inside and each one is a frame worthy piece of art; you will find them in our online shop.  Order early, subscriptions are limited.

Happy May Day!

 

 

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