Farm journal · the 2024 season

The year the sky fell on the flowers

People ask me what the hardest part of flower farming is. They expect me to say the weeding, or getting up early, or transplanting lisianthus plugs — 250 baby plants to a tray, every one moved by hand. It's none of those. The hardest part is that you can do everything right and the sky can still take it from you in ten minutes.

That's what happened in August of 2024. A Monday hailstorm came through the Heber Valley and when it was done, we'd lost about 80 percent of the farm. Two acres of zinnias, dahlias, cosmos — flowers I'd been babying since the snow melted — shredded where they stood.

I'll be honest with you, because that's how we do things here: I hoped everything would bounce back quickly. It didn't. We had an event planned on the farm that month, with a u-pick, and I had to tell everyone there'd be no picking. We held the gathering anyway. There were still bright spots — there always are, if you look. The big sunflower mural on our barn doesn't care about hail.

What the flowers did next

Here's the thing nobody tells you about a hailstorm: it isn't the end of the story. Flowers want to live. Through the last weeks of August, the farm quietly put itself back together. And by early September, the flowers that came back from that devastating storm were at their loveliest all year. The dahlias — which take their sweet time in our short mountain season anyway — finally showed up, and they were spectacular. It felt like the farm was making a point.

And then, because 2024 wasn't done with me yet, I broke my leg.

So there I was: a farm full of the most beautiful late-season flowers we'd ever grown, and a farmer who couldn't get down the rows to cut them or make the bouquets. I decided my misfortune would be somebody's lucky day. I opened the gate and put the word out: come when it's convenient for you, pick your own bouquet, one dollar a stem, nothing off limits. Scissors on the back shelf of the booth — use them and put them back for the next person. Venmo or cash in the box. The same honor system the booth has always run on, just with more of the work on your end and a better price to match.

That's how the 2024 season ended at 340 West 400 North: neighbors letting themselves through the gate, cutting dahlias that had no business being that gorgeous, and dropping dollars in a box while I supervised from a chair. Not the season I planned. A season I'll never forget.

What I took from it

If you're thinking about growing flowers up here at 5,600 feet, here's what that year taught me. Plant more than you think you need, because the sky gets a vote. Don't rip things out after a disaster — give the roots a few weeks to show you what they can do. And build your farm on trust, because when you suddenly can't do the work yourself, trust is the part that keeps running without you.

Mostly, though, it taught me why I love a short season. When you only get flowers from late June until the first frost, every single week matters — the hail weeks and the comeback weeks alike. You don't get to take any of it for granted, and neither do the people who stop at the booth.

The dahlias came back that year. They come back every year. That's the whole business, really: betting on things coming back.