Memorial Day Weekend 2013 happenings

Hello All,

Yes it has been too long since our last blog, but what better time to resume but the planting weekend of Wisconsin- Memorial Day weekend.

The photos above it to give a shout out to local artwork done by family and friend. The Willoway Farm sign itself was made by Farmer Dan's sister -Elizabeth Brunner. The logo was taken from our barn built in the 1800s which we thought we would honor to remember the fine craftsmanship of whomever made the barn. Back in the 1800's barn builders used symbols to sign their work. The symbol itself could be interpreted however you like: is it the sun? flower? full of circle and symmetry we dug so we are using it.

The fine bracket was created by Nathaniel Reinartz of Lake Bernice, Wisconsin. The best contact we have for him is his email address: newburg_wi@yahoo.com. Please feel free to contact us if that does not work. He has work at the Urban Ecology Center, at Weeds in Cedarburg and soon will be doing the hinges for our Timber Framed Vegetable wash building doors.

Regarding happenings at Willoway Farm successions of beets, heirloom lettuce mix, radishes, spinach, lettuce heads, beans, kale, chard have all been planted with more plantings to conduct. This weekend we plan on planting the curcubits (cucumbers, squashes)-which we held off a little due to the funky unpredictable cooler weather this spring has presented to us. This will be closely followed by our heirloom tomatoes, peppers and potatoes along with a Okra and a bounty of cut flowers for our Waggle Dance Flowers department. ANd you bet those strawberries are in blossom now-yum, yum, yum

Waggle Dance Flowers is part of Willoway Farm. Being that flowers are an integral part of our farm's production : i.e crop rotation, beneficial insect habitats, green cut flowers for our flower share and Wedding arrangements, even the cup plant flowers provide a bucket of water for our beloved birds such as bluebirds and mega bug eating swallows. Waggle Dance Flowers has it's own facebook page now which you can feel free to like. We have yet to make the email, website marketing aspects of it.
What does WAGGLE DANCE come from: HONEY BEES. We raise honey bees for ourself and of course for are open pollenated veggies. The waggle dance an just another one of those amazing things honey bees do which the female worker bees do to direct the other worker bees to the most optimal flower/pollen location. This dance completely incorporates the degree distance from the sun for direction and the longer the dance the further the distance the voyage to the pollen is. We love our honeybees and it again is an integral part of Willoway Farm, from the veggies, herbs, and apple trees, strawberries. This all goes along with why we create wedding flower arrangements to give people a choice from the Conventional imported flowers you get from grocery stores, florist and gas stations. The conventional flower farms of South America and Africa have all reported a loss of honey bees in these areas. Not to mention conventional flowers farms are the host of underpaid workers subject to harsh chemicals causing serious sickness and cancers. Even florist get sick from the green floral foam used which contains black carcinogens and other nasty gas base -plastic chemicals...the list goes on and I think I , Jacqui of Willoway Farm have said my mouthful for the day and best get back to the work at hand.
BTW-we are expecting another bambino in about 5 weeks....amid all this we are getting pumped for this new arrival-Happy planting to you all!

CSA Flower Shares still available for 2013-Great Mother's Day GIft

Flower Shares are still available for 2013 CSA. Here is  a picture of flowers we did for a September wedding.
Yes wedding flowers grown and designed by Willoway Farm are available. The sooner the wedding is booked the more choices of flowers you can get. Only one wedding per weekend -so weekends are filling up.
Please see our website for the Flower Share options. After April 1st 2013 the flower share CSA price goes up. The share is for 17 weeks long and this is our 7th season offering it -so we are pretty well versed in this department.

Our vegetable CSA is full for the drop off locations. But we do have CSA produce shares available for farm pick up on Mondays. The egg share is full also. Sign up form is on our website: www.willowayfarm.net

We are so excited too,  to host a restaurant to farm dinner provided by Braise Restaurant of Milwaukee on August 18th. Only 30 tickets available- planning is in the works-so this is a early heads up-prpobably will be posted on the Braise site within a couple of weeks.

Keeping our Flower arrangements green-info on the green foam used in commerical flower arrangements

Hello All- So this past winter because I, Jacqui of Willoway Farm who love s“playing with” and providing organic flowers for people and events thought maybe I should take a flower design class to learn more about what techniques can help me make flowers. 
What ended up happening was I learned by my own research and having lovely off time-winter more about commercial flowers and the green foam used in flowers arrangements. As a result I vow to never use the green foam used in commercial flower arrangements. I already new I would not use commercial flowers because of the not sustainable aspect, not fairly paid farmers from South America and of course pesticides and herbicides, preservatives all used in growing and shipping these flowers from South America. And recently I went to the wholesale flower businesses in Milwaukee and yes the manager confirmed all there flowers come from South America.
So I would like to share some information about the green foam used in flower arrangements…which would probably gross you out as much as it did me.
And to further make a case for buying local organic flowers is this-
Supporting local farmers supports the local economy-directly.
Purchasing organic flowers are plain not toxic. I have seen comments of florist who got sick from handling the foam with bare hands as it does seep into the skin –and yeah they were hospitalized as a result-do you want that in your house around your children?
This concept of buying local organic flowers also supports the fair trade, fair wage movement for farm workers…not to mention the unsustainable methods of flying flowers across countries.

Regarding Green Foam in Flower arrangements and its toxicity!
To get the MSDS copy of green foam used in flower arrangements it is not readily available for the public-you can request it from Smithers –Oasis. You can also request info on such things as floral foods, dips, leaf shines and adhesives which contain bio hazard chemicals either for you or the environment.
The basic element of floral foam is plastic . So of course for me taking this flower design class I compost nothing I take home from it-not the flowers or the foam-I would not want the toxins and uncompostable things near my compost or garden.
You can look for yourself at –
www.fdionline.net/files/MSDS?SO-OasisFloralFoam6-05-06.pdf
namely components of the green foam are:
Formaldehyde, Carbon Black, Propriety Acid catalyst, Propriety Sulfactant and Barium Sulfate. The first two known as carcinogenic.
The document also suggest the foam may be irritating to the eyes, skin, and respiratory tract. It also says prolonged exposure to Formaldehyde and Carbon black may cause cancer. There are a few pages of info about the hazards and possible symptoms both long and short tem. A wealth of knowledge here about the product.
It carries risk if the foam is inhaled.
So what can I do for those fun floral arrangements?
One green step I’ve taken on Willoway Farm business is to avoid plastic whenever possible, so floral foam is out of the question anyway. But, it does give me relief knowing I’m not putting my own health at risk or that of my community/planet around me by using floral foam.
This is no easy task however, as floral foam makes it so much easier to make exciting and modeled arrangements. Instead I can make balls made from wire which then I would keep in water. And cover that section of the arrangement with our on farm foliage or moss unless the container covers most of it. So too all the vases and arrangement containers are not plastic. That means the containers are more expensive-but with us they can always be rented for your event