Category: Raising

Some of the greatest satisfaction you can receive is from raising your own animals and plants. Learn more about growing and raising small livestock, fruits, and vegetables using permacultural methods.

Posted on by — 8 Comments

Covid-19 & The Great Potato Famine of 2020

It all started with Covid-19. Maybe you remember back those long years months ago… back to mid-March? I mean it had to be at least an eternity ago… Right? Back to that time when I naively thought I would exercise each day, cook meals, write content for the website, and film homesteading videos… Back before we knew we would be homeschooling four elementary school kids while working full time… Yeah, that time. Per the usual, I was behind on ordering garden things, and due to Covid panic there wasn’t a seed potato to be found.

DISCLAIMER: Oh, and if you haven’t guessed by now, this isn’t our usual tutorial! I used to write personal posts, then I stopped and went solely to tutorials. Adam has always been straight business when he writes :). While tutorials been great for readers it has made me lose some of my passion for writing content. This is my long winded way of saying, if you want to read my growing potato fiasco it has some salient points about growing potatoes, but most of this going to get drastically off topic. Basically, I’m putting the FUN in Fiasco. A FUNiasco! If you are looking for just tutorials (or don’t like foul language) skip this and hit up my next post.

Potatoes and Covid Continued

So seed potatoes… Yeah, it was impossible to find them in March. With St. Patrick’s being the traditional potato plant day in Western North Carolina I was shit out of luck. At least I had gotten my arse in gear and ordered my seeds early. Panic buying upset the gardening world in a big way! (I’m still wondering what folks did with all those dang seeds.) Anywho, I was still in the early Covid days of actually cooking nice meals and had a really fancy mix of fingerling potatoes on hand. I took a couple of each type and sliced them into seed potatoes planning on sharing my absolute ‘garden brilliance’ with everyone at a later date.

I even made a video :(

Garden brilliance in the form of potatoes never materialized. I went from congratulating myself on a smart experiment to being thankful I didn’t post my plans on social media. Not a. single. potato. poked its leafed head above ground. Weather was warm, plenty of rain, and excellent conditions for potato making. It may have been perfect weather for potatoes but was not the time for excellence in personal growth. We scrambled, as a family, to find a new normal with homeschooling, coparenting, and working full time from home. We got work handled, the gardens planted, school done, tree work scheduled, and a host of other things. But all the other stuff? Yeah… Lets say the quarantine 15 is a real thing and we are still not Youtube famous. Despite that, those damn potatoes should have sprouted.

Was it Easy?

If I make all the above sound easy… IT FUCKING WASN’T. The mind has a way of glossing over stress, and both Adam and I have a habit of just slogging on through things and dealing with the fallout when shit isn’t hitting the fan. Which is why I like to think hardly anyone checked on is during this chaos. People just have the expectation that we have our shit together. Much like, THE BEAR, we just keep going but it doesn’t mean that chaos wasn’t all around:

The Bear aka THE BEAR

Speaking of THE BEAR: I could have done without the goddamn bear that got trapped in the chicken coop. News flash: A bear proof chicken coop becomes a bear trap when you leave the door open. Also, they absolutely will kill and eat a chicken (or three) if it is early spring and nothing else is available. I do not give a single shit what Google says on the matter. And THE BEAR is quite vexing. I live in the city, so dealing with a full grown bear knocking over fences, eating crops, and generally being a giant, furry death machine just shouldn’t be on the docket.

Other problems came along; kids, work, worry. We both had excellent employers that got our butts home in a rapid manner and shifted to remote work in the span of days. At least we didn’t have the hell of trying to figure out how to pay bills during the rest of it.

To be clear our children are absolutely resilient! I am amazed at how they actually did school work while I attended meetings, how they figured out video calls with teachers (even the kindergartener), and are slowly learning how to be bored and deal with that. But if you think for one second they were perfect with it… Throw in night terrors, missing friends, having to explain to teachers the differences in school work and split households, and just a general sense of anxiety. Shared custody is difficult in the best of times and really hard on everyone in the worst of times. All I can say is I hope my children one day read this and realize how PROUD I am of them for getting their ‘kid shit’ done! Cause you are fooling yourself if you don’t think your children have full lives. But as good as they were I always felt like someone… work, husband, kids, or farm was getting short changed.

And let us not even begin to mention I got a promotion during this insanity. If you are already feeling a tiny bit stressed about making sure to be a good employee when working from home, trying to do that while living up to a new title with 10,000 distractions. It will make sure to put work anxiety into HIGH gear.

Oh yeah, and I accidently let half our quail run away. Good times. Good times.

But We Keep Plodding Away

So without potatoes growing and half a million other problems, I moved on to planting the bazillion squash (And other) starts I had under my grow lights. I repurposed the space where the potatoes had been planted and never sprouted. I mean it was mid-May FFS. Time to let it go and move on. Of course right after planting all those squash we had to spend a week dealing with freezing temps that required buckets and plastic on, buckets and plastic off, rinse and repeat while in huge windstorms and pelting rains. I may have gotten in a fight with Adam and cried in the shower after the stress of likely losing all the vegetable starts I had been coddling for three months. We shall suffice to say: Why we lash out at the ones we love the most when stressed, I’ll never know, but at this point in my life I just know it is fact.

Fast forward to the first week in June.

Psych

Nope, fuck that, lets rewind. Because when they put the entire city under curfew and I watched (via live stream) while hearing (in real time) my neighbors being tear gassed. Yeah, I just couldn’t handle it.

The divisiveness when we should come together. The mask versus no mask. The black versus white. The casual cruelty. The fact that I wrote a friend in Canada about the rioting a mile from our home with casual ease. As if these things were okay. Trust me, she called my ass to attention on that matter and asked me what the hell was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I more upset and scared and enraged.

A simple answer: you reach a saturation point.

Also, I think a lot of homesteaders are practical. Our gardens die, our livestock get sick, hours of canning can be ruined by a busted glass jar… Like everything else in life I just tackled it head on. We talked with the kids about covid, racism, economic status, and a host of the world’s ills. Then we set the expectation that we will do better and not worry what others are doing. We will wear our masks and be polite to those that don’t. We will support melanated voices and business with our money and celebrate everyone’s effort toward a just cause instead of judging the efforts of others.

We will plant our goddamn squash over the graveyard of our failed potatoes.

And With That We Find June.

First, most of the plants made it. I still have two really stunted tomatoes and one squash that is tiny from the frost. I lost a few things here and there, but overall the garden seems to be hitting its stride. Despite my warm shower tears in early spring our losses weren’t great. Everything gardenwise is going well except for the flea beetles on the eggplant, and the curl leaf aphids on the apple, and all the usual host of bullshit we deal with on a yearly basis. At least the bear isn’t eating my swiss chard at the moment… And yes, this is a thing.

And our own potato famine? Well it appears to be over because the fun in fiasco is that I now have potatoes in my squash.

That folks is how you make seed potatoes from grocery store potatoes. So now you can finally bask in my garden brilliance all these months later.

Goddamn Gardening Brilliance Right Here

The. Fucking. End. (And summer gardening beginning).

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Seed Saving Chart & Seed Inventory

Whether you save your own seeds or buy them in packets it is important to know what seeds you have on hand and how long the seeds are good for in storage. Like most things here at the Reaganskopp Homestead we have a a Google Sheet for seed saving and seed inventories. I know you all are shocked (#sarcasm). As and added bonus we even made a handy dandy printable seed saving chart too! (gasp… paper?!)

But First: Why a Seed Saving Chart?

So what do we mean by “How long are seeds good?”. Well, seeds are only viable for certain lengths of time. Meaning if seeds are properly stored and then properly planted you are likely to get a certain percentage of healthy seedlings after a certain length of time.

I repeat: Properly stored and properly planted

For example, if I take my saved tomato seeds and keep them dry and cool, I can likely still have good germination after three to four years. That means that if you have half a packet of seeds from last year, that you loved, there would be no reason to throw them out and spend more money this year.

But Why a Seed Inventory?

To get the most bang for your seed buck I combined a seed saving chart with a seed inventory. Why? Because you can think you will know what seeds you have, and how many you have, and how long they are good for, and you will be wrong. Then you will see a deal on seeds and end up with about 50 varieties of cherry tomatoes and space to plant out three. Which is even more exciting because out of six family members only you actually eat cherry tomatoes… Or maybe you won’t because you have control when it comes to plants… In either case, it is good to know what you have and when it expires. It makes garden planning a cinch and if you opt for the online version you can reference it when out shopping for seeds.

But wait there is more!

So why do we also have a printable seed saving chart when we usually focus on non-paper solutions? The Reaganskopp Homestead is hosting their first community seed swap and garden planning session. We partnered with a local gardening/homesteading store (Fifth Season Gardening – Asheville) to host the event. Since we are having an in-person seed swap I wanted to have print outs of guidelines for the seed swappers. We made a printable seed saving guide and inventory to take with us.

Spoiler: It is pretty too!

How do you use the Seed Saving Chart & Seed Inventory?

Both the electronic and paper versions are pretty easy. Log your varieties of plants, how much seed you have on hand, and the year you purchased the seed. The electronic version will calculate the expiration date automatically once you put in the year. The paper version will require some addition. I update my sheet once I have everything planted out, so that next spring I’ll have a complete list of what seeds I have left.

How Do I Get a Copy?

Click the link below and you will be prompted to make a copy to your Google Drive. Make the copy and then run with it. Please note, I only give copy access to the Seed Saving Chart and Seed Inventory. This avoids someone accidentally messing the entire sheet up. There is a tab that has examples of use.

Seed Saving Chart & Seed Inventory (Electronic Copy Only)

You can also get the printable version by clicking below

Printable Seed Saving Chart & Seed Inventory (Printable pdf)

What Do We Ask For In Return?

If you like/use the Seed Saving Chart & Seed Inventory we simply ask that you spread the word about it to others and send in suggestions via comments. Each year we try to incorporate what readers want to see. You are free to use it for personal or business use. Just don’t try to sell it as your product because that makes you a meanie, not nice person.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Quail Versus Chickens: Urban Homesteading

Urban homesteaders who want to add livestock into their rotation are generally limited to small fowl. Backyard chickens and more recently quail (and ducks) are a go to for the small urban homestead. Why? Urban Homesteads usually have one premium: SPACE, and lets face it a goat needs some room to roam. But which is the best choice of livestock? Bring in the great battle royale Quail Versus Chickens for the Urban Homestead.

Couple of things before we get down to Quail v. Chicken!

  1. I’m not adding ducks to the mix. They are an option, but I consider anything that needs to account for water and potentially plumbing to be for a more advanced livestock keeper. (Argue away in the comments)
  2. We are discussing coturnix quail. They are the most ‘domestic’ of quail. There are a ton of other varieties that have more specialized needs than listed here.

Now Down to the battle: Quail Versus Chickens

We are going to look at the following factors:

  • Space
  • Noise/Ordinances
  • Feed/Water
  • Eggs
  • Meat
  • Pet Factor

Quail Versus Chickens: Space Requirements

Goes to QUAIL.

For urban homesteads space is always limited. And if your space isn’t limited then I don’t want to hear about your Shangri-la in the city (#jealous). But for the rest of us working with usually less than half an acre, space matters! I’m just going to call it here: QUAIL WIN

quail versus chicken space requirements illustrated by coop size.
Let us have a visual illustration of the size needed for 13 quail versus 15 chickens…

Space Requirements

  • Quail 1.5 square foot total
  • Chicken 4 square feet (coop) + 10 square feet (run) = 14 square feet (if not free ranging)

Internet wisdom says 1 square foot per quail. I personally would go more in the 1.5-2 square feet per quail. I like space for all of my animals and provide over the minimums for all my animals. I wouldn’t be doing this if I felt like factory farming was a great thing.

In addition to the general space requirements chickens just need more complex accommodations. They need roosting bars, nesting boxes, and run space to move around. Quail need…. A floor and roof? In fact roofs that are much higher than 2 feet (but shorter than 6 feet) can end up potentially hurting a bird that ‘flushes’ and can get up enough velocity. Quail floors can be open mesh or cages can be stacked. I will be honest, my quail have an old small chicken coop with access to wood chips, dirt, a small ramp and coop space (which they use). I also throw in fresh grasses etc, because I like my animals to have a more natural life, when I can. I’m not into the stacking wire cages, but if that works for you, then you do you boo.

One final piece on space: Free Ranging Quail v Chicken

Free ranging quail is just not a thing as far as I can research. They aren’t terribly domestic (even when I handled the little boogers since hatching them). I mean every, single. time. I change their food or water they act likes it is the first time they have seen these objects and they are most certainly harbingers of their impending death. Quail free ranging would equal quail gone.

My chickens have a lot of access to the backyard and woods. I had to put up a small section of bird netting so the would leave the neighbors south facing foundation the hell alone. There was no where else they wanted to sun themselves… but this outdoor time has been great. We get lovely orange yolks, haven’t seen ticks on humans since we let them out, and cut our feed costs considerably during the summer. Also, there is just a real soothing aesthetic to watching the chickens happily scratch and root around the yard. Its like watching a feathered fish bowl. So if you want that free-ranging aspect then consider chickens may be more for you even if they take up a bit more space.

Quail Versus Chickens: Noise and Ordinances

Goes to QUAIL

Oh boy, Quail win on the noise and ordinances (most of the time) for an urban homestead. First noise: Quail ladies are basically silent. Unlike the clucking, chattering, bantering, constant racket of a group of hens quail are soooo quiet. Your neighbors will likely be unaware quail even exist. (Although, I don’t condone clandestine homesteading, the hideability of quail may be a huge factor in strict neighborhoods)

Now for the menfolk! Roosters are loud. Even teeny, tiny bantam roosters are loud (click for proof). I cannot even begin to discuss how much crowing, one rooster can do during the day. In our city, roosters aren’t even allowed (Though I can hear across the street. One of the neighbors does not subscribe to this law). Even if roosters are allowed your neighbors may hate you. Just saying.

Male quail aka cocks (Not making that up folks snickers while typing) call during mating season. Its a metallic sound… I find it pleasant, albeit a little odd to hear in Western North Carolina. The neighbors just thought some odd songbird had moved into the neighborhood. Everyone was a-okay with the quail and basically didn’t know they existed.

I love the pleasant homesteading sound of the chickens, but for urban environments the quail are certainly more user friendly.

Quail v Chickens: Feed/Water

I swear this is not a post touting quail but this one

Goes to QUAIL

I’ve had 13 quail for almost 9 months. I have more concerns I might get mold in a bag of feed than use it all. I buy 50 pounds of specialty high protein chicken food or game bird when I find it. I use a bag every three months? Something around that… They are tiny and they just eat hardly anything.

Same thing with water. A gallon waterer last for days. I’m more often dumping their water because it is gross and poopy than they have run out.

Chickens on the otherhand will gobble food. With 15 chickens we go through almost a 50 lb bag of food every 2 weeks when it is cold and they can’t find a lot free ranging. Don’t get me started on water. I have two five gallon waterers, but only one heater in the winter, so I’m getting water all the time for either thaw or thirst!

Chicken versus Quail: Eggs

Goes to CHICKENS!

Its a harder choice to make than one would believe. I looked at 5 important factors:

  • Time to Eggs: Quail
  • Eggs size: Chickens
  • Egg nutrition: Tie
  • Egg sales: Chickens
  • Eggs per lifetime: Chickens

Time to Eggs

Nothing beats a quail. From the moment they hatch to laying an egg is a ridiculous 6 weeks. I literally could not believe how quickly they feathered and started laying eggs. Chickens start laying eggs more along the 6 month range instead of 6 weeks. Yeah you can find some precocious hybrids that lay sooner, but if you are into anything fancy or heritage it may be longer than that.

Egg Size

Do you want to crack open 3-4 teeny tiny fragile eggs? Well that’s what you have to do when you want to have a full egg and you are using quail eggs. On the flip side tiny eggs do make lovely hors d’oeuvres.

Egg Nutrition

Another one of those surprisingly hotly contested subjects. Some people believe that quail eggs have more vitamins or protein than chicken eggs. From my research that isn’t really the case. They do have different nutrition more B vitamin in Quail more D in chicken eggs, etc. But the truth is they are fairly similar in nutrition.

Egg Sales

Many times you can sell quail eggs for a dollar to two more than a dozen chicken eggs BUT finding buyers is not nearly easy as chicken eggs. I don’t ever have to try hard to sell out of eggs. A quick post in our facebook group and they are all gone. Lots of times quail buyers are a bit harder. If you can find a steady buyer then quail might be a good way to go, but chicken eggs are reliable sales.

Eggs per Lifetime

Quail can lay 200-300 eggs per year which rival any chicken BUT they only lay around two years. Chickens will drop off on the amount of eggs they lay after 3 years but if you don’t light them in winter they can lay a generous amount of eggs for 4-5 years. You just can’t be the longevity over time per bird.

One more thing on eggs. I have started tracking both types of eggs and sales this year so I can compare my results in the future. You can use the tracker I use for free!

Chickens V. Quail: Meat

Calling this one a tie.

Quail are small so you are going to need a number of birds to equal one meat bird or dual purpose breed of chicken. But the time it takes to get a quail to full size (6 weeks) and how many you can fit in a small space it is easy to make up the difference. Cleaning both birds are about the same if you want to maintain the skin. This one is going to be up to personal taste.

Quail Versus Chickens: Pets

This goes to chickens hands down if you want pets. Quail if you don’t.

This is Adam’s pet chicken “Turken”. Only a face a chicken dad could love.

Quail just don’t make pets. I mean if you like a cage of nice exotic birds then they would fit the bill, but chickens can be pets. You may not choose to raise them that way (see the above meat comment) but if you want a friendly animal that can come when called and even wants to be held and hang out with you then chickens fit the bill. Honestly, we have some chickens that are such characters they’ll be allowed to retire, but we have a section of flock that just aren’t pets. It works for us, but each homesteader needs to figure out what relationship you want with your livestock and pick accordingly!

The Final Verdict

You’ll need to pick the bird or birds that work for you. We are lucky enough to be able to fit two types into our urban homestead but I can tell you I kind of wish I had started with quail. I adore my chickens and have had them for years, but having quail would have been so much easier in the beginning. They just do not require the upkeep and care chickens do. That being said you really can’t go wrong either way. Hopefully, you can pick from the above factors and choose a small livestock that works for your urban homestead.

A comparison of chickens versus quail based on important factors for the urban homestead.
Posted on by — 13 Comments

2020 Egg & Poultry Tracker

Example of the new graphs available in the free 2020 egg tracker

Edit: We now have a 2024 Version Available!

If you are a home enthusiast or small farm you will want to check out this year’s annual free egg tracker. That’s right, it is time for our annual update to the egg tracking spreadsheet and this year is a dooooozy of updates. If you downloaded our free chicken egg tracker before then you know we strive to allow for flexibility in how many details you track with your chickens. So you may be excited to hear we gave the egg tracker a brand new update that expanded the same egg size and color, breed, and income/expenses to other types of poultry. Now you can track egg production for your chicken, ducks, and quail!

Updates to the free 2020 Chicken Egg Tracker aka Poultry Egg Tracker

  • Renamed to the 2020 Poultry Tracker
  • Handles leap year
  • Fixed some bugs helpful readers corrected throughout the year
  • Added ducks
  • Added quail
  • Added new summary statistics for better understanding of your best species and egg layers
  • Added new graphs to assist in at-a-glance understanding of your laying flock
  • Added capacity to track new egg colors
  • Fixed atrocious spelling errors that have been there waaaaayyyyy too long
Example of the new graphs available in the free 2020 egg tracker

Highlights of the Poultry Egg Tracker

My favorite change is the new color breakdown donut chart. The colors aren’t glamorous, but you can actually tell which color eggs are your breakouts without reading tiny print.

I also love having a sheet where I can add my coturnix quail eggs along with my chicken egg tracking. We aren’t into ducks yet, but I had Arrowhead Point Farms reach out and show me some of the changes they had made to accommodate their ducks, which got me excited to add both types of poultry. Speaking of… If you are one of the lucky few with Cayuga ducks I added a grey color type into the sheet to track your awesome eggs!

Finally, I spent some time breaking down egg production AND grouping egg production so you can see all your flocks combined or broken out by species and egg color.

What Functionality Hasn’t Changed

You can still put minimal data into the sheet and simply track your eggs. Columns that have to be filled out in order for it to work have been marked with an astrik. Not into tracking colors or sizes? Then just fill out total eggs by color or just total eggs. Only have one species? No problem, just fill out chickens OR ducks OR quail. It will all still work.

One thing I didn’t do this year was make a pared down version of the 2019 chicken egg tracking spreadsheet. I didn’t get any feedback on it or requests for assistance. So either it was really awesome! Or people weren’t using it. If you need a 2020 version of the simple chicken egg tracker let me know and I’ll whip one up.

How Do I Get My Tracker?

Click the link below and you will be prompted to make a copy to your Google Drive. Make the copy and then run with it. Please note, I only give copy access to the Poultry Egg Tracking Spreadsheet. This avoids someone accidentally messing the entire sheet up.

Free 2020 Poultry & Egg Tracker (Copy Only)

If you would like to see an example all filled out you can click this link:

2020 Poultry & Egg Tracker w/Examples (View Only)

If you want more directions on how to use the poultry egg tracking spreadsheet I wrote a guide in 2018. Click the link below:

Directions on how to use the tracker

What Do We Ask For In Return?

If you like/use the tracker we simply ask that you spread the word about the free poultry egg tracker to others and send in suggestions via comments. Each year we try to incorporate what readers want to see. You are free to use it for personal or business use. Just don’t try to sell it as your product because that makes you a meanie, not nice person.

Posted on by — 6 Comments

How to Cut Daffodils for Vases and Flower Arrangements

Cut daffodils make a beautiful flower arrangement.

Throughout most of North America and Europe it is Daffodil time. These bright happy flowers in shades of yellow, white, cream, orange, and even pink centered are cultivated and naturalized throughout these areas. Daffodils are some of the heralds of spring, and frankly always warm my gardener heart, but did you know they also make great cut flowers? Cutting daffodils and conditioning them for flower arrangements is actually easy, but takes a little know how. You know what I am talking about, right? Thick bulbous stems… Gooey clear sap… Can you just plunk that in water? Well, kinda. It depends on your scenario. Do you want to cut daffodils for a vase of just daffodils or do you want to cut daffodils to mix in a flower arrangement? The process starts exactly the same!

Fun Facts About Daffodils

Daffodils are actually the genus Narcissus and part of the family Amaryllidaceae (amaryllis). They are closely related to other spring flowers like paper whites! Because of the beauty of these flowers there are likely more than 13,000 varieties of daffodils that have now been bred by growers. Thirteen THOUSAND! Wow! I managed to pick up some new ones this fall with soft pink centers which was a new color for me. You can find ones with green stripes, glowing orange centers, tiny one inch blossoms. So many options!

Flowers tend to last a long time on the bulb. In certain climates daffodils will bloom up to 6 months. Most climates, the flowers will last 4-6 weeks. This gives you a long color time that can let other later bloomers start to fill in your flower boarders.

If you are wild about daffodils then there exists an American Daffodil Society and when looking for European societies try searching Narcissus or Jonquils as they are often called there.

Daffodils and fresh eggs make a perfect spring centerpiece


How to Cut Daffodils for Vases and Mixed Flower Arrangements

Step 1: Collecting Daffodils

I plant a lot of daffodils. I am a sucker for those mixed bulb packs that go on super sale at the end of bulb season. Which means I end up with a bunch of double headed daffodils. Double headed daffodils are lovely! And fall over in a hot second. I don’t know who breeds them, but come on folks! Can we not focus on a stronger stem as well? I digress, but what this means is that, like clockwork, as soon as I get a spring wind (which is all spring), half my daffodils fall over. Instead of letting the ground enjoy their blossoms I go cut them all.

Simply take a pair of sharp scissors and cut the fleshy stem as close to the base of the leaves as possible. LEAVE the leaves! It is important to leave the leaves on the bulb until they start to turn brown. The leaves feed the bulb and allow you get fresh flowers next year and potentially more bulbs to split or allow to fill in.

Pro Tip: If the flower stem has gotten crimped, cut it at the base anyway. We will process those when we take them inside.

Cutting daffodils that have blown over and bringing them inside is a great way to enjoy their blooms longer
I’m sure the ground is appreciating all this beauty… *eyeroll*

Step 2: Cut Daffodils for Long Lasting Flowers

Take all the daffodils inside. By this point you have lots of oozing stems. This clear sap is important and inflates the stems keeping the flower heads upright. It’s also kinda sticky, messy, and poisonous. I’m not sure why you would try to eat it… but don’t. Just wash your hands well when done.

Daffodils weep a sticky sap that can ruin other flowers in a vase unless conditioned
GOOOOOOOOOOO

Anywho! Because you have a fleshy stem it is important to cut each one at 45 degree cut. If cut flat, the goo (what we will now be calling the technical sap from these flowers because goo is waaaay more fun to type) will tend to seal the cut daffodil stem to the bottom of the vase and not allow it to suck up the necessary water. You can cut them under water, but I frankly just cut mine and quickly stick them in water. It is just very important to not let the goo dry out UNLESS…

Trimming daffodil stems to 45 degrees

Step 3: If Adding Cut Flowers to Mixed Flower Arrangements

So that, goo… The sap can interfere with other flowers in a mixed flower arrangement by basically killing them faster. You can counteract this by sealing the stems with the moisture they have in them. They may not last quite as long, but still maintain flower pretty well, in my experience. They are very wet, fleshy, flowers and contain a lot of moisture that can be preserved. The process of sealing cut daffodils is easy and gets to involve FIRE!

You are going to need a lighter at a minimum and a candle is super useful for processing a lot of daffodils. Stems can be cut flat or at 45 degrees, but need to be at the final height you plan to add them to your vase at. Take the cut end and pass it through a flame till it turns LIGHTLY brown. We aren’t cooking them! Set it aside for a second and make sure it is no longer leaking goo. Then add it to your vase with other cut flowers.

Singe ends of daffodil stems to seal in the sap and make them last in flower arrangements
Do I need to remind you fire is dangerous? Don’t sue me if you get burned!

Extra Tips: For Adding Cut Daffodils to flower arrangements

Crimped Stems: When the spring winds blow my daffodils will usually just curve over, but occasionally a stem will crimp. You have two options for dealing with this issue. You can simply cut the stem above the crimp or stabilize the crimped section straight. You have to do one, or the water from the vase will not make it to the flower head. I have a lot of luck just straightening the stem and supporting the flower amongst the other flowers. However, you can use clear plastic floral straws (affiliate link) to straighten the stem. Cut daffodil stems are usually too large to put in a regular drinking straw.

Uncut flowers: If you don’t want to cut your daffodils you can also make planters for inside the home. Bulbs can be forced but they need 13 weeks or so of refrigeration. In my experience they do not do well when digging them up and bringing them inside, but most big box stores have bulbs ready to sprout potted and in stock. These make lovely centerpieces!

Cut daffodils make a beautiful flower arrangement.
I swear daffodils are just happy flowers!

Scent: Be forewarned, these are technically a narcissus plant. Which means almost all varieties have a scent. I LOVE the smell, but some people are not fans. You might want to sniff a few before you bring tons indoors.

Otherwise, enjoy bringing some sunny spring cut daffodils into your home to brighten these first days of Spring.

How to cut daffodils to make them last in a vase or flower arrangement