A very small farm in Blanchard is very thankful for a second growing season

BLANCHARD, Okla. (KFOR) — Ali Igo has been dragging a 300-foot hose across her very small farm for most of the summer, then past Labor Day.

"You have to deal with the wind and heat," she says. "It's a lot of work. That's for sure."

Her crop is cut flowers that she brings to special events and farmer's markets.

Zinnias, marigolds, amaranth, and even black-eyed Susans.

"I started out just giving them to friends and family," she recalls. "Then people kept telling me they really liked them."

They are the 'cut and come again' flowers she can keep going through what can often be a brutal, Oklahoma summer.

Walking down a short row of zinnias, Ali explains, "These are a little more tired. They've been working since April."

"Between the pests, and weeds," she explains further, "then you have to sow the flowers and grow them. A lot of people don't realize that it's really labor intensive." 

Ali grew up in the heat of Gulf Coast Florida, getting lost in her grandmother's big garden, and lost again in her own, ever thickening plot.

"I just keep walking my plots and growing flowers where there's not," she smiles. "That would be nice to have most of my yard covered in flowers."

Most of the farms around Blanchard grow hay and winter wheat.

IGrow Blooms harvests from April all the way to the first freeze of fall.

That first break in the heat, the one that brings rain and cooler temperatures, is welcome as a kind of second spring.

"That's exactly how I describe it," she agrees. "Oklahoma is getting cooler. The pests are starting to die out a little bit. Then, normally, we start getting rain." 

There might be better spots in the country to grow cut flowers, but Ali is putting down roots here, planning for less grass to mow, and more blooms to grow in both spring and fall.

For more information on IGrow Blooms go to Ali's Facebook page here.