Fall Flower Inspiration

Fall flower bouquet inspiration.

Recently my daughter discovered a friend had gone to a local flower farm. We couldn’t wait to go. We both decided it looked like our kind of place, and we booked our reservation at the Heirloom Acres Farm in Orangevale, California this past weekend. It was their last flower picking weekend for 2020 before taking a break to set up for the holidays. We had such a sweet time there!

My daughter and I in the flower fields and a picture of the barn.

This is how it works there: 1. You reserve a spot and pay an admission fee of $25.00 for which in turn you receive a bucket of water and up to five guests per ticket. 2. You bring your own snips and gloves then you pick your own flowers from their flower fields.

Here’s one of our buckets of picked flowers.

The family that owns Heirloom Acres is very friendly, and we so enjoyed tiptoeing through the gorgeous blooms one of our favorite pastimes. I was drawn in particular to the strawflowers (see below) which I thought would make a beautiful fall bouquet. I’m always so inspired by nature. It is a great way to help you decide what color combinations you might like for your home. Making fall bouquets helps bring a little bit of the outdoors inside especially as the cold of winter draws closer.

A close-up of one of my favorite bouquets.

I loved the combination of these flowers for fall.

Here are three of the flower arrangements we were able to make with our buckets of flowers.

Heirloom Acres Farm had a rainbow of colors to choose from. My daughter chose bright pinks and oranges for her bouquet pictured above right. They also had a section of the farm with lavender and we were able to make an all purple bouquet above left. It really is amazing how beautiful all the colors went together. All in all we were able to make 6 arrangements from our 2 flower buckets. We decided we will definitely get on their list for next summer!

Take care,

Christina

My Visit To A Lavender Farm

A view of the Capay Valley lavender farm, Patchwork Farm.

When I was a child, I remember going to visit my grandmother and smelling lavender when she opened up her linen closet. She always had sachets or cups of lavender to freshen up her linens and keep the moths away. Funny how you associate certain smells with experiences and they help remind you of different moments in time.

A view of the tasting room.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to Patchwork Farm in the Capay Valley about an hour and half away from Sacramento, California.  My sister-in-law invited me to attend an event known as Lavender Weekend.   We went to a beautiful 27 acre lavender farm called Patchwork Farm.  The owner Sherri Wood established her farm in 2017 and currently grows several different varieties of lavender.   Some of the lavender is grown for culinary purposes and these lavenders are smaller in size.  The larger Intermedia varieties that Patchwork Farm grows such as Grosso, Provence and Super I learned are the aromatic varieties.  These aromatic varieties were bundled and dried inside of the farm’s barn which smelled fantastic.  In the store building near the barn, you could see the copper still used to create Patchwork Farm’s own lavender essential oil.  Sherri offers the essential oil and candles for sale here as well.

My basket full of lavender bundles.

The pretty lavender copper still.

With the smaller cooking varieties, Patchwork Farm offered a cooking demonstration where Sherri was making desserts flavored with lavender, and offered popcorn with herbal seasoning, bread mixes and a lemon/lavender cake mix that I had to buy to try of course.  They even had a taste testing of samples of lavender brownies, lavender breads, lavender beer, and lemonade.  As part of our entrance ticket, each person got to make their own lavender sachet.

With your ticket purchase, everyone received a free lavender sachet

It's definitely something that I would enjoy doing again.  I loved being able to purchase the different lavender products at the farm. These items included candles, essential oil, food products and the bundles of lavender. I also enjoyed the tasting. It was a lot of fun.  The owner Sherri was very sweet, and it was a great place to have a relaxing day.  With the lavender bundles I purchased, I’ll be updating some of my current dried flower arrangements.

Grosso Lavender bundles drying.

The other variety of lavender bundles (possibly Provence) you can see the difference in the shape and color.

I loved the color of this Bee Balm plant in Sherri’s garden. It coordinated well with all the lavender plants.

A visit to the Capay Valley, it's a good thing! It's something that I think people would really enjoy! Here’s the link to check out Patchwork Farm on instagram.

Take care,

Christina