April is one of my favorite months at Red Dog! I love seeing baby plants pop up all over the farm and watching green tulips come into their arrays of colors. While the rest of the year we are working hard to bring a lot of food to the tables of our community, tulip season is a moment for appreciating inedible beauty. I’ve learned a lot about tulips in my three seasons here at Red Dog. This year, we are growing 26 different varieties that range in color, shape and texture, and each ripens in their own unique way. We harvest tulips twice a day in order to capture them in the perfect moment when they are just beginning to open. I’ve gotten familiar with each variety and the subtle signs to look for to know when it is their time. For some it is a bright edge of color, while others puff up or unfurl their outer petals. It is a joy to get to know this unique plant and its growth patterns, noticing the weather and how one sunny day can trigger a cascade of color in the fields.

As I’m moved by the shapes of the ripe tulips on my kitchen table, I marvel at the way this plant has captured the hearts of humans for so many centuries. The term “tulip mania” is used to describe when an economy is influenced by prices deviating from the intrinsic values of goods, and it comes from the Dutch Golden Age. In the 17^th century tulips were brought from the Ottoman Empire to Europe and quickly became a coveted luxury item due to the intensity of their color. Specific varieties of bulbs infected with a mosaic virus took on beautiful patterns of lights streaks on dark backgrounds and particularly caught the eyes of the wealthy. A speculative market grew around contracts for future tulip bulbs and prices skyrocketed. In the peak of the mania, single bulbs were selling for more than ten times the annual income of a skilled artisan. While the market quickly crashed and contracts were abandoned, I smile at the legacy of this influential flower.

In these modern times, tulip bulbs are expensive, and so at Red Dog we take great care to ensure that each flower is harvested in its prime to bring our customers joy for many days.  We store our tulips in a dark, extra cold, cooler so that they won’t open up until they are sold. We take our tulips very seriously here, yet I often find myself laughing at the incredible shapes and colors that these strange plants produce. I hope you enjoy your tulips this week and encourage you to take home a variety you haven’t before. You may be surprised by what emerges when they open up!

~Viv