Grown and havested under the Midnight Sun

2012 found us retiring early and moving the family from Fort Worth, Texas back to the homestead in Fairbanks, Alaska. An Airline Captain and an Interior Decorator, we decided to get back to John's farming roots by starting a peony farm in a section of our hay field.  John's father established the homestead in the 1940's by growing potatoes. He eventually changed his crop to hay.  

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Over the course of three years, we planted 5,000 peony roots in an area of about 2 acres in an established hay field, beside our house. Presently we are coming into our tenth year of harvesting peonies commercially and hope to harvest over 25,000 peony stems. It's a good thing we added a floral chiller to the farm a few years ago.  Our stems are picked and placed into the floral chiller to store and to await their next destination - whether it be a wedding in Fairbanks or a fancy event in New York City.

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We are a small family farm - John is in charge of  operating and maintaining all of the equipment.  I handle all of the marketing, designing, and pretty stuff. We do hire a small seasonal crew to help during harvest to help us pick and process our peony stems. Without the extra help, we would surely be in trouble because in Fairbanks it goes from Winter to Summer in a matter of days (it seems). Leading up to harvest we have almost twenty two hours of sunlight that's why we can say our peonies are grown under the Midnight Sun. And when the temperatures are hot it serves to speed things up so the whole field is ready at once ! 

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Visitors wandering through our farm are always a treat.  We never know what we will see when we stand up from working down on our knees. Several times we have seen moose a few rows over from where we were working.  Thankfully we were able to sneak out of the field into the house before she identified us as a threat.

Foxes come and go amusing us with their mischievous antics or annoying us depending on who you ask.  I will never grow tired of seeing the dragonflies circle and swoop around my head hunting for mosquitos.  That's one less itchy bite on the back of my neck.

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