Thistlehook Internship (Week One)

This week Anika and I began work with Doug Hock on Thistlehook Farm in East Olympia where he grows a variety of flowers to sell at the Seattle Wholesale Growers Market Cooperative. He specializes in Cornus varieties, piers japonica varieties, prunus armeniaca (apricot), sunflowers, and peonies, but is hoping to grow more yarrow and blueberry branches (with flowers and/or immature fruits) to sell this season.

Here are some of my goals for this internship:

• Experience seeding and in greenhouse
• Experience with propagation (cuttings, mound and air layering)
• Work with and be more comfortable around power tools
• Be employed by the end of the quarter (preferably by a flower farm or working with flowers on a farm setting)
• Focus on and learn more about flower cultivation and propagation

MONDAY

We arrived Monday and immediately were put to work, putting occultation tarps over two fields for Doug. We then began the prep work for planting cornus (Dogwood) on Wednesday. This involved watering them, loading them all onto a trailer and taking them out to the pasture where they were to be planted, staking out the row and measuring/flagging where each would be planted (20 total trees, spaced 7 feet apart). Our final task on Monday was building a garage door cover made out of greenhouse plastic and wiggle wire. Doug wants to convert part of his garage into a greenhouse for starts this season. Stay tuned for more of that process!

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday, we prepared and planted the Cornus varieties. Doug planted the varieties Temple Jewel and China Girl last year, and added 10 more Temple Jewels, 8 Wolf Eyes, and 2 Oculus Rift, making 20 total we had to prep and plant. Prep work involved digging a hole 2x as wide but the same depth of the root ball, fertilizing directly into the dug hole (1 cup bone meal, 1/2 cup sulfur, 1/4 cup azomite, 1/2 cup phosphate, and a pinch of borax), aerating/mixing up that fertilizer with a pitchfork, covering the fertilizer mix with a layer of dirt before planting the tree into the hole.

Additionally, on Wednesday, we divided yarrow, which was very muddy and wet.

All in all, a great first week with a lot of physical labor. Looking forward to the weeks to come and all of the projects we will accomplish.