Willow & Mabel Garden Co.

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Willow & Mabel Garden Co.

Willow & Mabel Garden Co. Willow & Mabel Garden Co I am an English transplant living outside of Seattle, USA. Well, it did not beat us. I am very nervous and very excited too.

For most of my life I have enjoyed growing vegetables and flowers but just as a hobby and a way to relax after a day at the office. A couple of years ago, my husband and I and our two teenage boys moved from our beautiful self-built house into a 100 year old dilapidated farm house on 5 acres of land. I think that everyone thought that we were crazy and had taken on a DIY project bigger than even m

y carpenter husband could tackle. My husband and two teenage boys, with help from lots of friends, transformed that dilapidated farm house into a wonderful, welcoming home that we are all so happy living in. Last year I was flicking though a magazine and came across an article about two women who gave up their office jobs and followed their dream of becoming farmer-florists. I read, and re read this article and thought how I would love to do that. The magazine article floated around my head for weeks thinking about it. I mentioned it to my husband, who never shy’s away from a challenge and he said “what are you waiting for? Do it!”

So here I am making my first tentative steps towards achieving my dream. The fear of failure keeps churning in my stomach, but as my husband says, “what is the worst that can happen? – We will have a lovely flower garden and green house.” I cannot afford to dive into this as a full time project but I am going to make baby steps towards that goal with the help and support of my family. So that is how Willow & Mabel Garden Co. started – which is lovingly named after our two Pygmy Goats! Now you can follow my muddy footsteps down this road & see what happens. As I was told recently – “Never die not knowing”.

03/24/2025

One of my favorite chores of the day is taking care of the chickens. Over the years we have had bad luck with eagles taking them. Last year I changed the set up and a fence was built so they couldn’t wonder around over 5 acres and up and down the lane. They still have plenty of room and shelter from prey under the trees in their enclosure. It seems to have worked really well as I have not lost a chicken in over a year now. The greatest reward is a basket full of eggs.

03/20/2025

The first day of Spring…you can feel it in the air and see all the changes that are happening in nature. The sheep have been sheared here on the farm and are loving their new found freedom. The daffodils are blooming along with the first of the blossom. We are getting 4 seasons in one day which is a sure sign of spring and my “to do list” is about a mile long!

03/16/2025

Simple bowl Sunday…from a wet & blustery day in the PNW but Spring is so close we can almost touch it!

03/15/2025

The big dahlia tuber sales are stressful…I have to be honest it was easier getting Taylor Swift tickets than the tubers on my list this year!

I am just a small little farm and I have some beautiful dahlias left in my store including Brown Sugar which I love. She is a strong, reliable dahlia that produces so many blooms and then tubers at the end of the year - and perfect for those autumn boquets - PLUS it is Parker from favorite dahlia so it must me good!!

Hop on over to my website to see the dahlias varieties that I have left. ✨

03/14/2025

The last couple of weeks has been a seed sowing frenzy around here. The greenhouse is full of so many seed babies.

If starting seeds from scratch is not your thing or you don’t have the time or space I have the perfect solution. I am excited to announce that I am starting several collections of cut flower starts that you can purchase on my website. They will be ready to pickup from my farm at our Spring Market in May.

The link to my shop is In the comments below ✨

Photography

03/10/2025

The sun came out..and everything felt a little bit better!!

However, some of us are in need of a haircut…we have one sheep shearer on the Kitsap Peninsula so you have to book ahead…the girls have one more week to wait and they are going to be a lot lighter and might possibly be able to see where they are going!

03/07/2025

Several years ago I started to dabble with dried flowers or everlasting flowers as I prefer to call them - less connotations with dusty flowers from the ‘80s and your great aunt Mildred. I guess you could call strawflowers my gateway drug into everlasting flowers. From those experimental days of drying flowers to today I have always loved the crinkly texture and vibrant colors, they will always have a place in my field.

Yesterday the first trays of strawflowers were sewn. Germination tips…fresh seed and they need light to germinate so only a very light dusting of vermiculite.

03/05/2025

Yesterday was spent in the greenhouse. The first really big planting session ~ if you don’t count the sweet peas. Listening to the rain beat down on the outside of the greenhouse was oddly comforting. Usually BBC Radio is humming along in the background but for our mental health we have decided that we can not listen to this at the moment as the news on the hour ever hour is too much to bear. Planting seeds is to look to the future and believe that everything will be OK as hard as it seems right now. Wrapping ourselves in nature is possibly the best solution.

In the little square is Bronze Fennel which I love for fresh arrangements and drying, it adds a little sparkle.

Photography

03/03/2025

What a weekend….in so many different ways! I launched my dahlia tuber sale on Saturday…thank you so much to all of you that purchased dahlia tubers from my farm. I hope that you love them just as much as I do. I actually launched the sale whilst I was in England. Sadly my mother-in-law passed away recently and her Celebration of Life was the same weekend as my tuber sale. Was I nervous that something might go wrong whilst I was sitting in a hotel built in 1720….yes very!! Was I tired yes definitely- I never advise flying to Europe for 2 days….but I am so glad to say that everything went without a hitch. Mi Mi would be proud!

I do still have some dahlia tubers available for purchase so hop on over to my website to see what is available.

03/01/2025

Today is the big day!! My Dahlia Tuber Sale starts at 9am PST….we have worked so hard to get to this point. There are more tubers and varieties to offer than ever before…I hope that you find some that you will love as much as I do to add to your garden or farm. ✨

02/24/2025

The magic of the hellebore..this weekend has been full of sideways rain and wind storms so these beautiful flowers were a much needed pick me up.

I have to be honest a trip to a warm beach is what I actually need right now but as there is no chance that is happening then hellebores it must be.

02/22/2025

Mark your calendars! March 1st at 9am PST I will be holding my online dahlia tuber sale! ✨

You can go to my website and take a look at all the varieties I have to offer this year. Each variety will say sold out until the inventory is loaded. Also take a moment to read the terms and conditions of my sale. The dahlia page will be unavailable after Tuesday evening until the sale date.

I can’t wait to share all of the beauty with you.

02/21/2025

Something totally different from dahlias today. Homecoming boutonnière ~ no gaudy imported red roses with lots of fluffy ribbon. This is such a sweet boutonnière for Homecoming and you know that nobody else will be wearing one like this.

If you have a teenager in the house and would like something totally different for Homecoming or Prom do give me a shout. I would love to create some everlasting flowers for them. ✨

02/17/2025

Happy Monday to you…if you follow me and read my captions…what a novelty…you will hear me talk about looking for “Glimmers” each day in this crazy world that we are currently living in. Yesterday’s glimmer was going to our neighbors to meet their newborn lambs. We made a very adult decision last autumn not to breed our ewes as we have a lot of personal things going on this year- when we made that decision we did not know the half of it - so it was definitely a good choice! For this year I will just head on over to my neighbors and enjoy their lambs - their ewes are actually from our flock so it is nice to see them doing so well.

02/14/2025

Yippee! We finally finished dividing all 1,400 dahlia tubers! I will have to admit that this year’s conditions were not the best. It was probably the coldest two weeks of the year in our area. We sat in the old root cellar in so many layers of clothes with blankets and a hot water bottles on our laps! We persevered and yesterday we finished. Such a good feeling. All of the tubers stored well over the winter with only a couple of minor casualties!! Now I just have to prepare for my dahlia tubers sale. Dahlias are definitely a labor of love.

Thank you to & for sticking it out x

02/12/2025

The light is at the end of the tunnel…or perhaps the root cellar where we have spent more hours than I care to think about dividing all of the dahlia tubers. We are have a couple more days left. Each evening I add varieties to my dahlia shop on my website. If you would like to take a peek at what I will be offering then head on over to my website.

All varieties will say Sold Out until just before the actual sale ~ but this will give you an opportunity to take a peek ahead of time.

Here are a few of the lovies that will be available.
Swipe through to see images of these beauties ➡️
Kelgai Ann
Karma Prospero
Brown Sugar
Sugartown Sunrise
Alpen Sundown
Cupcake

02/10/2025

Week number two in the basement dividing dahlia tubers…all going well we should be completed by the end of this week..🤞🏻That leads me to say we are hosting two workshops in my greenhouse on March 7th at 11am & 2:30pm to teach you how to confidently divide dahlia tubers. It certainly can be a little intimidating when faced with a huge clump of tubers to know where to begin. There are a few spaces left so come and join me, have a big mug of tea and a chocolate buscuit 🇬🇧 and we will conquer those tubers!

For more details and reserve your place head over to my website.

Dahlia featured here: Oydessey
Photography
Ceramics

Address

Central Valley
Poulsbo, WA
98370

Website

http://www.willowandmabelgardenco.com/

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Videos

Yesterday was a really wet, cold harvest. When I fell out of bed this morning I knew what it was going to be like out there after all the rain yesterday. Yes, I could have worn waterproofs but to be honest with you I hate them…I end up hot and sweaty in all the wrong places so I just battle on in my work trousers and get on with it. The feeling when you pull off your wet clothes and put on some dry ones added with a big mug of tea can’t be beaten. This little beauty Kelgai Ann survived the rain 🤍

Oh goodness…I think I have found the most perfect Cafe Au Lait dahlia EVER! Yep…I said it…she has perfect petal formation…beautiful coloring…no bug damage…(seriously how is that even possible) and a long, long stem…..I want to keep her alive forever!

Are you in panic mode for that last minute Christmas gift? I still have a few CSA share available for purchase on my website…give the gift of flowers this summer…hop on over to my website for all the details. 🎄

Today we start putting the fields to bed for the winter. Penny & I will work down each row and start taking out all the support netting and hardware. Over the years the two of us have created a good system to get this down quickly and efficiently. 💪🏼 - also I have deliberately not put music to this reel…the birds in the background make the most beautiful music…..

Inside the Drying Shed…a constant shuffle and this time of year making room for more flowers coming in.

Dahlias from yesterday’s harvest 🧡

The first weekend that I have no events or weddings on the calendar for a very long time. Just catching up with good friends, we will be sitting in the apple orchard sharing good food and a couple of drinks and much laughter. Dahlia: Polka

This is why we are so anxious for the dahlia field to start blooming. This dahlia appeared yesterday and she is beautiful. This is the first time I have grown her. Her name is Daddy’s Girl…not sure if I am keen on her name but she sure is pretty.

Happy Monday….we are going to be busy as bees are here on the farm this week with beautiful sunshine in the forcast.

One thing that this nightmare situation with Covid has taught me is that nothing ever goes to plan at the moment. My family in England has not been all together for Christmas for 27 years now…this was going to be the year…..and then my nephew got Covid 4 days before Christmas….so that turned things upside down, so we will have to wait another year!….but we worked it all out….today my sister and I and the boys headed to London to do the things we were going to do before Christmas….we avoided the tubes….we walked everywhere….we saw so many things we would not have done if we had taken the tube….we drank champagne in Harrods and saw the all the Christmas lights just as we planned before Christmas. It was the best day. If you ever get chance to go to London at Christmas time you must go….it’s amazing.

Happy snow day!! I’ve been hoping for some snow this winter and I’ve got it and some more! It’s certainly a winter wonderland around here at the moment ❄️