Harvesting Morning Joy!

Plus Famous Linden Lane Flower Farm English Scone Recipe!

It is a long-standing Linden Lane tradition to hold Harvesting Mornings once market bouquet season starts. We bring in many helping hands, and have a wonderful time harvesting flowers on Monday mornings for our Tuesday farm stands!

A whole wagon of flowers clipped during a harvest morning!

So many gorgeous Zinnias ready for harvest!

Clipping a beautiful Avignon Apricot Snapdragon

As many flower farmers know, the best time to harvest flowers is in the morning. Most flowers need to be clipped before their blooms have fully opened. Once they are open, they can be pollinated, and a pollinated flower dies much quicker in a vase. As the heat of the day increases, more blossoms start to open, so there are fewer good blossoms to harvest! In addition, flowers are at peak hydration in the mornings. Afternoon heat can cause wilting in clipped flowers. We don't want any wilted flowers in your market bouquets, so we avoid this at all costs!

A lovely bucket of clipped Rudbeckia

Cosmos, snapdragons, and scabiosa all in one bucket! Gorgeous

Harvesting so many flowers would take impossibly long for just the two of us, so harvesting mornings are also gathering times for Linden Lane! We call in kids, friends, cousins, and more to keep these morning harvests contained to those cool morning hours!

Working together to clip and strip leaves from flower stems can double your speed!

One thing that keeps people coming back is our traditional breakfast of English scones. My husband has perfected his English Scone recipe and works hard to make big batches each Monday morning for all of our harvesting helpers. Once baked, my littlest kids love bringing out the basket of still-warm goodness to all the workers. We try to have a new flavor every week, but some Linden Lane favorites are Lemon Poppyseed, Cranberry Orange, and Maple Pecan.

Here is the recipe--the best English Scones around!

A big bunch of Dahlias is almost as good as a fresh scone!

Harvesting mornings might be a bit chilly or a bit long, but it all pays off when we see the finished product of the market bouquets! While harvesting, we like to imagine what "recipes" for market bouquets we can make with our current flower. No matter what plans we end up using, the finished product is always beautiful!

Fresh market bouquets out by our sign for the farm stand!

What is your favorite flower to see in a market bouquet?

Best,

Jaime