Month: May 2024

Monday May 13th 2024: It has been busy and I have got totally lost in the blogging, no idea where I am at 😬

The last week has seen some fabulous weather, lots of sunshine which we really needed, a bit too hot for me to work in at times but I am not complaining as it was nice to feel warm. We had some amazing photos of the Northern lights after a G5 sun spot thrust magnetic forces out into the atmosphere, I did take a phot early in the evening but it was t as very good one and then I went to bed and missed the real show 😂

I spent a lot of time gardening as you can imagine, early mornings and then some evenings, missing out the afternoons on the hottest days. This weekend just gone John has been helping on the garden, tidying and weeding areas that I just never manage to get too and he has made an amazing transformation, just a couple more areas to go 🤪

With the sunshine came the flowers, they are coming out everywhere and I am cutting daily, flower sales are steady but with as many as I am cutting could do with a few more. Not that they get wasted because I either dry them or use them for practice work (which is always a delightful distraction)

This morning the weather has cooled a little, a welcome break for me because it means I do not have to be careful and can just plough on with outside jobs. I have a workshop coming up at the weekend and so really wanted to have an organised looking garden for the show around, nobody wants to see weeds and debris everywhere although in a working garden there are plenty of both. My first job this morning after the usual jobs was to cut some herbs for drying. Mint and oregano are both in the dryer as I want plenty of dried herbs for the winter this year. It is not so urgent for herbs like rosemary, bay and thyme because they are evergreen and can be harvested as required but I will do a small amount of each just in case we have deep snow or very cold weather and it’s easier to grab a pot than go out and cut them.

Then mid morning I am off to another Flowers from the Farm meet up in Minster Lovell at Abi’s flower farm, Ivydene 🥰 Love a flowery get together where no one is bored of talking about flowers 😂

I will try to be a little more on the ball with the blog this week 🤭

I had a fabulous couple of hours talking all things flower related and Abi’s flower farm is particularly amazing, she is a fabulous grower and very neat and tidy with it 😊

Tuesday: Oscar day, all the usual activities took place, reading, playing, sleeping (Oscar not me) eating, crying, more playing.

Wednesday: The weather is partly cloudy at the minute so I had ample opportunity to get out and do some outside work, plenty of clearing and weeding to be done at this time of year.

Thursday: An early start with the cutting this morning, I have lots to cut and lots to get ready for the weekend, orders, Friday flowers and a workshop on Saturday morning. It was an absolute pleasure spending about two hours cutting everything that was ready to be cut. I got lots of hoeing done and even some planting.

This is the time of the year to begin thinking about next years spring bulbs, yep if you don’t pre order them now then you run the risk of not getting the type you want. It is also the time to think about ordering any seeds that will need sowing in June and July (biennials) and any seeds you might want for an autumn sowing. There is no time to rest lol and we also have an exciting thing happening in the UK this week. You may or may not know of Floret in the USA, well for many years growers in the UK have admired from afar the range of zinnia available over there 🥰 This week for the first time they have arrived for sale in the UK and I imagine it will be a mad scramble to get them, it will be a bit like waiting to get those sort after tickets 😂 I for one will be in the queue trying very hard to purchase a packet or two or three or maybe four!

Then a delivery 🙄 now I did say I had got to the stage where I can’t really fit any more plants in unless I extend, well this was a delivery of dahlia tubers 😂 The reason being that they were on sale and who can resist a bargain, so I now how to find a place to plant 10 more dahlia tubers 🤪

Friday: Busy day today, well I say busy but the first couple of hours was getting my hair done then a quick coffee and lunch with Shelley who picked me up.

But it has been a busy few days with the flowers, everything seems to come all at once lol, I had a random person in the area looking for flowers and found me on the internet, a chap who phoned and asked if I could do a buttonhole for later that day and then a phone call from the states to order a celebration bouquet for a local couple, I have my regular orders to get ready and also get ready for the workshop ladies as well as Friday flowers which sold out and so I need to find time to cut and condition some more to go out 🤪 I love it 🥰

It obviously was a busy week because I totally forgot to publish this one 🤪

Thursday 2nd May: Today is the first time I have had time to sit and type the blog 🙄 I had a busy run up to the weekend with lots of flowers to get ready for delivery or collection on the Friday. One of the retirement homes I supply was having their first birthday celebration and I had bouquets and jam jars to get ready for that as well as other individual orders. When I delivered them on the Friday preparations were in full swing with staff blowing up hundreds of balloons 😊 I had great feedback from the home and it is a great feeling to be able to supply locally grown flowers to a local business 🥰

Monday was a day to catch up on jobs that we couldn’t get done at the weekend as we were away plus our new internet connection was finalised and so I had an engineer here for a few hours.

Tuesday was Oscar day and this week we were finally able to get outside for a part of the day. It was windy but it was dry and sunny and Oscar loved playing in the paddock with the dogs, he had spent the weekend here with Charlie and Macca who stayed to look after the place while we were away and by all accounts thoroughly enjoyed the outdoor life.

Wednesday was a lovely day weather wise, dry and sunny for most of the day and so I spent the whole day outside. Because it has been cold and wet up to now I have not been able to move any plants on and get them into the ground. It was May 1st and so I took the plunge if I didn’t do it today I had no idea when I would be able to do it. So I planted up around 100 different plants, I also managed to get some of the staking in place and mulch but I still have some to do. I will have to keep an eye on the temperatures overnight but I am fairly confident that all will be well.

I was still outside when the first spits of rain came, John arrived home from work and so that was then end of my outside time. It began to pour down and I was for once grateful because it meant everything had a good watering in, in fact it continued to pour down overnight and into the next morning 😂 with thunderstorms and lightening to boot.

Thurdsay: As it was wet first thing I decided to get a couple of invoices done and sent off and then onto cancelling BT 😊 That is easier said than done! One of the only times they want to actually speak to you instead of directing you to an online option is when you want to cancel. I called the number, found the option number for cancelling, pressed that and it said ‘please hold’ then went dead 🙄 I tried it a few times before getting peed off and rang the general customer service line, the chap was very helpful though and I have managed to cancel both the broadband and the landline. Our line has been terrible ever since the cock up they made a few years back when we lost our number of over 30 years and they could not get it back for us. I weighed up the pros and cons but they were mostly cons to be fair. I only kept the landline because it was a hard wired connection that would be useful if all else went down, now they are changing to digital it no longer matters. Our digital line from them (copper wire) is shocking, intermittent and has interference which means the line is not clear on the phone and the internet is constantly dropping out. I am convinced that somewhere along the line there is a cross over, on Fridays the connection is much worse and it is no coincidence that the line it got muddled up with is a rental property that is mostly occupied at the weekends 🤷‍♀️ just a thought of mine but it was such a cuffuffle that the engineers could not work out at the time it seems the most logical answer because before that we had no problems for 10 years!

Anyway move over BT and hello to Wurzel 😊 a local company specialising in rural broadband, I communicate with the actual people who do the installation and who I can call or message if I need help, not a call centre where one department has no idea what the other department can or is doing.

I think it is the beginning of tricky times ahead for large corporate companies that take your money but don’t give you the service you should get. It is more about making money than providing a good service and people are getting tired of that. I read a report on a national flower online delivery service, they have made a loss of 100million in their last year. Some of it they put down to consumers cutting back but I think it would be fair to say that the local flower growers have had an impact on that too judging by the record increases of British flower growers and suppliers. If people are going to spend their hard earned money they want a decent service with decent materials that are fit for purpose not something that is banged out and marked up for profit making purposes.

Turns out the weather wasn’t too bad in the end today and so I spent the first half of the day in the greenhouse potting on and the second half of the day in the big tunnel and outside, mostly weeding. I stopped when my knees were wet and my gloves were so wet that taking them on and off became tricky 😂

John came home mid afternoon as he had a dentist appointment and then on his return I sent him back out to buy a sack truck from Screwfix. It will make life much easier because at the minute I am dragging heavy crates full of spent bulbs or chrysanthemums around and I am past the age when that is an easy task 🤪

Friday: Wet lol. I had flowers to get ready for farm gate sales, not many because I don’t get many buying flowers like that but it’s great to put them out for those that do want to just come and grab some. I had flowers to get ready for my regular orders too and after that I decided to give the flower room a clean and tidy. Things just get put down and left and it always needs a good sweep so it was the perfect day for that.

Saturday: It started off with fog! What the heck, fog in May 😂 but it soon turned into a fabulous sunny day even though the forecast was for downpours 🤷‍♀️ We went off to make flower deliveries first thing and then back to make the most of a great day. Yesterday we picked up a brand new sack truck, we have an old one that really is ancient, heavy cast wheels and a wood wormed frame isn’t the best for manoeuvring 🙄 and though I do have this new found respect for old tools I really needed something lighter and easier to use. I have plenty of crates full of bulbs or flowers that always need moving and I usually have to drag them to where I want them. Now I have the sack truck it is sooo much easier and I am not getting any younger, so once those were all moved I got on with the rest of the gardening, I planted up over 200 gladioli, some in a crate and some in the ground, 100 more ixia, 100 had already been planted in a crate last week, 25 star flower and 25 different gladioli (can’t remember what now) I had weeded and tidied and planted right up to mid afternoon when it got too hot would you believe. It is a joy to see the sun but for me too much is not good and although there were clouds there were not enough for me to carry on outside, I did have a hat on but I could feel my skin begin to crawl and that’s a good sign that it’s too hot for me. I could do with some cloudy dry days that are warm enough but not too hot 😂 not too much to ask is it. I would get up earlier in the mornings but at the moment it’s too chilly first thing though there will come a time when I am out there at 4.30am and loving the cool of the early mornings. John meanwhile was busy burning the fencing we took down in the front paddock a couple of months ago, the wood has been too wet to burn before now. Then he was onto grass cutting, all the rain we keep having means the grass just keeps growing and this year we are aiming to keep on top of it a bit more.

I also let Biscuit out into the paddock with Jack today, she has been great in her little pen and her feet must feel good because she was running around and very happy to be let out. Jack joined in with the frolicking, I never tire of watching the horses when the get moved to new grass, they tear around running and jumping for joy, then there comes the obligatory roll 😂 It was a new paddock for Jack but I think he just got caught up in the moment!

I came in for a sit down once I got too hot, I think I earned it, I have been constantly busy all day.

I ordered some more dahlia tubers yesterday, why? Do I need them? No not really 😂 Do I have anywhere to put them? No no really 😂 Then why? Because it is dahlia sale time and there are bargains to be had 🤪 Most are half price now so it makes financial sense to buy them when they are cheaper doesn’t it 😬 I will find a space somewhere lol.