Buttercups at their best

Ranunculus; the buttercup bred to perfection. We still have a long way to go with growing it to perfection. I find it to be one of the more challenging flowers. The goal is to always grow things to their best around here but the more I learn about the dynamics of soil and how every plant has its nuances and preferences, the more I feel that we can improve on things. I find it so fascinating (and frustrating!) that from year to year there can be such huge disparities in the success of a crop. A lot of this is timing, the weather, whether or not the crop is coddled, varieties, weeds, where we plant, etc. And things get more predictable the longer we do this, more streamlined and organized. Thank goodness. But we do have a long way to go, and I guess that is one of the beautiful things about farming---that you are building a relationship with a piece of land and all the things you grow and each year they become more familiar, more defined in their needs, more substantive.