Tag: grow your own

Posted in Friesland Farm

Weather – variable, Flower sales – great, to do list – getting there 😜

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday17th April 2023: I had one of those mornings where all the things that were bugging me just had to be done and there was no putting it off any longer. It’s not that I put them off just that other jobs jump the queue 😂 So this morning I hoovered the boot room and washed down all the side areas, it gets dusty and dirty with the cats and dogs in there but when it’s constantly raining there is no point even trying to clean it because it won’t stay like that for more than ten minutes. It probably still won’t stay very clean but I couldn’t put up with it any longer, then there was the fridge to clean out, things lurking in the back and half used things sitting on the shelves, all clean and tidy again. I managed to smash my favourite tea mug while I was wiping down the side ☹️ so I then had to hoover the kitchen floor which also needs a wash but as the wet just gets walked right in I only want to do it when we have a dry period 😜 I cleaned the bathroom and emptied the wash basket, I also need to wash a few extra things for our holiday, my hat for instance. There were things to put away in their right place things that just get put down somewhere and left for a few weeks 😬 I feel less stressed when these jobs have left my head because they are done ✔️

The weather is cloudy and not at all spring like but that suits me fine as long as it’s not raining though the air is damp with no sun shining through. I have a few flowers to do for customers this week, some today but mostly at the end of the week and then there are Friday flowers of course, they sell quickly most of the time and as the growth season gets under way there will be many more flowers and so many more to put out which will be fabulous.

John bought home a second hand commercial freestanding sink and drainer which we had found locally, we got it all cleaned up (it wasn’t too bad just some grease on a couple of the legs) and go that in the flower hut. They have a deeper sink so much better for getting the buckets in, it is difficult in a shallow sink to get the taller buckets in and get the tap over the top. It will only be used to fill the buckets and give them a swill so didn’t need to be anything too fancy. Flowers being picked up this evening and then I have an online meeting later tonight.

Tuesday: I keep thinking it’s Wednesday 🤷‍♀️ I have flowers to do for Thursday and thought I better get cutting ready for conditioning then realised it’s only Tuesday 🙄 The morning started badly with me waking up with pink eye and then later dropping a box of eggs as I was taking them out to the shed 😝 Maybe I should just sit quietly today 😂 I know I won’t though as the sun is trying to make an appearance, it still feels a tad cold out but it’s only 9am so if it stays out it will warm up to a beautiful spring day hopefully.

It is three years today that Dad passed away, where does the time go and how come it goes by faster the older you get 🤔

I spent a large part of the day weeding, Shelley called in and also got stuck in helping me with the never ending weed harvest 😂 I know you can eat a lot of them and I have made food from them before now but mostly they feed other animals or get composted. I also took some cuttings from a sedum and dug up some campanula seedlings and potted those up, getting free plants for another day is money saving and satisfying.

Wednesday: It is Mia’s birthday today, a whole seven years old, oh to be seven again lol. We will be popping over to see her later after she finishes school.

I am hoping it will be dry enough to get the towels washed and on the line today 🤞🙄 They are just finishing the cycle as I type, I have a hearty beef stew in the slow cooker along with a multitude of yummy veg so once the towels are out I am free to get on with the rest of my day. I will be lifting and cutting flowers today ready for Friday flowers plus a few other orders I have tomorrow and Friday. Once the season is underway I hopefully will have flowers available all week long but at this time of year I concentrate them to the end of the week. This way I don’t end up with flowers I haven’t sold and therefore money wasted.

I got another brew on the go yesterday, comfrey tea 😁 comfrey grows like mad here and so best to make good use of it by steeping it in water for a few weeks. It makes a stinking tea but it is great plant food so worth the effort, sustainable, natural plant food 🥰 Fill a bucket with the leaves, cover with water, cover the bucket (because of the smell) and leave for three weeks then use it at a 10:1 ratio the 10 being water. It has a high nutrient content due to the deep tap root being able to access deeper soils, high in potassium and nitrogen, it can be used as a spray (foliar) feed or watered onto the soil promoting good strong growth and good fruiting/flowering.

Having sung Biscuits praises saying she doesn’t try and get out (famous last words) she has got out three days running the little s**t 😂 The electric tape is up and clicking away so I know it’s on, I think she is literally climbing through the post and rail fencing 🙄 So plan b is put into action 😝 She is fenced off inside the smallest paddock we have so I lure Jack across with the showing of tasty hay and shut the gates at either side of the paddock. I undo the electric fenced off area and let them both roam the small paddock, the hopeful outcome will be that Jack helps to graze it right off and then he will go into the paddock next door while Biscuit stays in the eaten off one. Every now and then we will have to put Jack in there to help keep the grass down as it is growing well now. This is the plan, plans do not always go how they should, watch this space 👀 by the time I finish sorting this out it is lunchtime.

Over to see Mia after school to celebrate her birthday with her. I left the water on in the tunnel while I was away and this year I and using the timer on my watch to remind me to turn the water off again, so far that is working well though I did have to re set it twice while we were out as I had only set it for an hour.

Thursday: A sunny day with a stiff breeze making it feel cooler. I had a busy morning doing flowers, I have some orders going to customers today, some tomorrow and then the Friday flowers and jam jars. It is surprising how long it takes to do them all, it’s after 1pm and I have only just finished having been doing them all morning. Normally I would do them this evening but I have some deliveries to make after the twins have gone home and then it’s pool night for John so I have to squeeze it in-between the two 😝

Friday: Up before the alarm this morning to get things done, flowers needed to go out early for customers coming first thing, the bunches needed wrapping and the jam jar flower needed tying loosely. I was hoping to get it done before the alarm went off and John got up but he decided to get up early too 😝 He had to stand and eat his toast as I had commandeered the kitchen table, once the flower hut is ready this will no longer be a problem. I had early customers coming for eggs and honey to so I had to make sure all those were ready and out in the shed. My day is going to be like that today, I have an appointment at 9 Shelley is coming over around 10.30 to walk through things that she will be looking after while we are away, I have customers coming to collect flowers at other times of the day and I have someone coming to collect lambing equipment I sold online.

The weather was lovely yesterday and today it’s not! Colder and wet again urrgghh there is just no consistency to the weather patterns at the minute. On the sunny days you think ‘ooo Spring has sprung’ and then back to ‘oh it’s winter again’ 😂 it does not make life easy for growing things either, the fluctuation in temperatures in the greenhouse and poly tunnels confuse the plants and seedlings and things growing outside are trying but progress is slooooow. Hey Ho no two years are ever the same so at least we are used to ‘winging it’ 😜 All we can do is try our best.

Locally grown cut flowers, British grown cut flowers, flowers from the farm, Shilton, Oxon

Saturday: Foggy and cold start to the day, it took a good few hours for the sun to burn it off but when it finally did it was not a bad day though it ended with rain and was cold again. First thing this morning we went to town as I needed a good rain coat for our holiday ✔️ then stop to get some shopping ✔️ once home I needed to pick rhubarb and then take that along with flowers down to the pub ✔️ once back I spent an hour or so in the greenhouse potting on plants and then I had the twins for a few hours while Sam and Luke took Mia out for her birthday treat. They were very good and I had them picking all the dandelion heads off the lawn and feeding them to the torts. Then George helped me to dig up dandelions in the pathways, I think he thoroughly enjoyed that especially the great big ones. I seem to have an awful lot of them this year they were growing everywhere and in order to knock them back a bit I needed to dig them up. Not all of them obviously, I have left some smaller ones and I didn’t dig any out of the lawn they can stay and just be mown every now and then. They got hungry and we went inside for lunch and stayed in for the next hour as the sun went in and it got cold outside again. Once they had been collected I was straight back out on the dandelion mission while John cut the lawn. As I said in the beginning the temps dropped and the rain came 🙄 Joping for a half decent day tomorrow 😬

Sunday: It was, for the most part, a decent day 😁 the weather conditions were just about right for me and so I spent most of the time in the greenhouse potting on or pricking out seedlings. John was busy having a bonfire at the back and tidying up. Sam came over with the children, a friend and the friends daughter who goes to riding lessons with Mia. They spent some time grooming the horses then saddled them up for rides around the paddock, everyone, horses and children were very well behaved except Lucie who by all accounts played in the horses water bucket 😂 and then had to strip off because she was soaking wet, you gotta love a spirited carefree child 🥰

We went round to Mums later in the afternoon and we were there when the national test alarm sounded on our phones. Mums went off and then around 30 seconds later mine went off, apparently lots of people didn’t get it at all so it’s lucky it was a test signal and not the real thing 😝 We had a discussion about what exactly the alarm might sound for, we don’t have tsunami, we have fires but nowhere near the scale of some countries, I suppose flash flooding might trigger it but I am guessing the flood would be quicker than the alarm 🤷‍♀️ chemical leaks or explosions might well be on the list but they would be localised as would many threat to life situations such as a gunman on the loose. We concluded that a meteor strike or nuclear attack were what it is intended for 🤔 Which begs the questions, do they know something?

Posted in Friesland Farm

Flower arrangements, Easter weekend & some rather nice weather 🌞

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 3rd April 2023: It’s early and there was a frost but it feels like a typical spring day today, the sun is shining and melting off the frost pretty quickly. I am not sure it will be very warm but it’s not raining 😁 we have now had a couple of days without rain thank goodness as it was getting beyond funny. So it looks like I will be able to get outside and do something useful in the garden, no idea what yet as I haven’t gathered my thoughts entirely. It is also the Easter holidays for the children and a short week as we head towards the Easter weekend 🐰

I quickly whizzed round with the hoover and polish, cleaning is one of the tricky to find moments here 😂 When it’s raining there is no point because animals and humans just track muddy wet feet in and all efforts then become a waste of time. When it’s a fine day I just want to get outside and get on, but I do it for my own sanity, it is nice to have somewhere clean and fresh to come into when you have been busy outside all day. I am waiting for the days when I can get the windows thrown open and blankets and cushion covers out on the line to dry but there is no enough heat in the sun to do the job just yet.

It’s 3pm and I have spent most of the day outside in the garden, weeding and digging up perennial weeds especially stingers. I know they are great for wildlife but for the children not so much, you can guarantee if they trip over it’s always into stingers. I also spent a bit of time putting down weed membrane on the tricky area, I was unable to decide what to do for the best because there are things growing that that I want to keep but other things are failing and the weeds are rampant. So I dug up the bits I am keeping, cut back all the suckers from the apricot tree and covered over with weed membrane. It will probably stay for the rest of the year even though there is asparagus under there, it was usually a bit spindly anyway. Then Charlie and Oscar came so I stopped for a cuppa with them before sweeping off winter debris from the decking and sweeping out cobwebs from the pirate ship. I tried to start the lawn mower but it’s the new one and I haven’t used it before John usually does it so I have no idea how it starts 😂 The grandchildren are having an Easter egg hunt on Friday so I thought I would tidy up the areas that they will probably be looking around plus the jobs needed doing anyway. Inside for a quick sit down before going back out to get more work done.

At 3.30 I looked after Josh and Flo for a couple of hours then while John was feeding the animals and the dinner was cooking I cut the lawn. A good full day today I reckon, its nearly 7pm so dinner, wash up and sit down for what will be left of the evening, pooped.

Tuesday: I went to bed earlier than usual last night as I was so tired lol. This morning it’s a frosty start again but the sun is shining so hopefully another lovely day ahead and I can get a fair bit done outside. I have been holding off planting some things up but I think now is a good time to get them into the ground the trouble is there is always so many other things to do as well.

This morning I signed up to be part of a study group for Cambridge university, it’s a trial being funded by Lupus UK. The study is focused on mental health in long term illness and there are four groups and each will be doing something different, the forth is a control group that won’t be doing anything. I won’t know which group I am in until May but it will be interesting to take part and to see the results at the end. I think that most of the time you are just trying to get by and so are not aware of your mental health it’s just part and parcel of your life and your illness (even if you are stable) it’s not until you fill in a questionnaire and you analyse thoughts that you realise that things could be better 🤷‍♀️ On the whole I think I have a positive mental attitude but there are times and areas when that dips and during a flare it can dip pretty low but luckily I have not had one for a couple of years now (touch wood 🪵)

I spent the morning sorting out plants that had been potted up over winter, some went out for sale, some that never made it went to the compost heap and the rest I tidied up and are nicely stored in the cold frames. That meant plenty of empty pots and trays to be tidied away and sweeping up to do. I just finished when Shelley came with Josh and Flo quickly followed by Sam, Mia, George and Lucie, Charlie and Oscar arrived a little later. The weather was lovely enough to sit outside in the garden and the children had picnic lunch on a blanket. While the children were busy playing Shelley and I got the netting onto the top of the fruit cage and secured that in place, that’s another job done. I am hoping to keep the birds out entirely this year, I can never see where they get in but hopefully this year they can’t and I will have a good haul of raspberries, blackcurrants and strawberries 😋 Lucie was asking me where the strawberries and tomatoes are, I explained that I had to grow them first and it was too early yet 😂 I do love it that their memories will be of eating tomatoes and soft fruit from Nanas garden 🥰 We also saw a herd of large deer in the field next door, they are getting quite frequent as they were there yesterday as well.

Wednesday: I have showered, breakfasted, hung out the washing, put the eggs out, done the washing up, fed the dogs and cats and watered in the greenhouse all before 9am. I am now waiting for it to warm up just a little before going out to pick rhubarb and cut flowers now that there are some ready to cut 😁

I have been thinking about the subtle changes in the flowers and foliage as we move from week to week. I used to think only in seasons, seed sowing season, growing season, harvesting season and resting season which of course all roughly follow Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Since closely watching flowers on a daily basis though I came to realise that there are micro seasons too, they are very subtle changes but they are definitely there. I think I have mentioned it causally before but the more I watch the more I learn, there is a slow decline of early spring bulbs but at the same time slowly growing late spring bulbs and flowers are getting under way, the same can be said for early flowering foliage. I have recently read a book that confirms my observations and the lady that wrote it notes that she can identify three sections within each season. The ancient Japanese apparently identified 72 micro seasons in a year so I really must up my game and watch more lol.

I had a busy morning cutting flowers, prepping them for conditioning and then picking rhubarb, doesn’t sound a lot but it was a good couple of hours in all. Then Charlie arrived at lunchtime with Oscar and I looked after him for a few hours while Charlie went for an appointment. Nursery rhymes, naps (for Oscar not me) and feeding time all went smoothly, once Charlie had picked Oscar back up it was time to sort out the flowers. Making up bouquets and market bunches plus jam jar flowers also takes longer than it sounds but it is never boring 🥰 the smells are amazing and the result of what I have put together at the end are beautiful 🤩 A quick sit down and something to eat before going off to this months flower club meeting.

Flower club was fab, I had no idea what we were going to make the title was ‘tripods and test tubes’ 🤷‍♀️ It was somewhat laborious winding string around canes and test tubes but I think the outcome was great and in my head I was already up scaling it 😂 big rustic branches and tubular vases would would a treat for an occasion I think.

Thursday: Friday flowers are going out a day early this week so I was up early with plenty of jobs to do before getting the flowers out at 8am. I was on a multitasking mission which included getting something out for dinner, using the chop saw to cut wood for arrangement orders, drilling a piece of wood for the Easter tree and getting that set up, making up more jam jar flowers as they sold out quickly, cutting foliage for the arrangements I need to make, nailing the hazel whips to the wood and sorting out the dishes to be filled with moss for the arrangement, meeting customers and handing over their flower orders as well as all the usual jobs. Never a dull moment round here and no two days are ever the same.

I spent a couple off hours in the afternoon putting the foliage in the arrangements that are being collected on Saturday, I can’t do it tomorrow as we have a busy day. The twins arrived for their Thursday session while Mia went swimming, I get them their tea while they are here but George is a bit under the weather and not eating much unless it’s custard or yoghurt 😂

Good Friday: It’s a bank holiday today and we had a day of family fun. After getting the morning jobs done the grandchildren arrived for an Easter egg hunt in the garden which was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. The weather was beautiful, blue skies and sunshine, I doubt it would have been as much fun in the rain! We sat in the garden for a good couple of hours eating hot cross buns and Easter cakes that Charlie made. After everyone left I added the flowers to the arrangements that had been ordered for tomorrow, a quick sit down before getting the afternoon jobs done and the off out for another family party. A farm outbuilding had been transformed into an exceptionally great pub called The Jolly Welshman for my niece’s partner it is his 30th birthday this week, bbq, beer on tap, bar snacks, optics and great furnishing they pulled off an epic feat there. We didn’t stay too late and we’re home by 10pm as the dogs needed letting out but we had a brilliant day.

Oscars first Easter 🐣
Inside The Jolly Welshman which was a farm building transformed!
A rare picture of John 😂
The Jolly Welshman himself, happy 30th birthday Alex 🎂

Saturday: Up and about quite early, it was frosty but again the sun is shining, oh and last night the moon was amazing, full, low and yellowy/orange and it could still be seen first thing this morning too. John did the animals and went off to get feed, I got the eggs sorted and did the last bits to the arrangements that were being picked up this morning. These gave me sleepless nights thinking about how best to do them and I don’t think I will be doing any more 😂 but I enjoyed the challenge and learnt along the way so that’s a win.

The various stages of the arrangements for collection today.

Once collected we went out to a local landscaping centre to look for some plants, didn’t have much luck and only found one that I wanted so we then drove to a garden centre. I found a couple more of the specifics I was looking for but still not all of them, I lost a few over winter and am trying to replace them but it’s proving difficult so maybe I will have to do without them for now. My runner beans were old seed and they are not amounting to anything, I considered buying plants but when I looked at the state of them for the price I decided to buy new seed instead 😜 Half of the plant trays had damping off problems so it didn’t look good for the rest of them in the tray 🙄 I looked at grafted tomato plants too but figured I will wait to see if my seeds sprout and if not there are usually plenty for sale locally. I just feel that germination is really slow this year, not sure why, maybe I say that every year then end up with too many plants 😂

I spent a bit of time in the garden, John fix the cracked fitting on the outside water pipe, we had to turn it back off in the week when we discovered it was leaking but we are all good now. I watered the ranunculus and anemone in the poly tunnel, the anemone are producing well and the ranunculus should start soon. I have plenty of tulips coming to the fore now lol probably too many but that’s better than not enough. Other plants are just starting to put on tiny growth and I am still waiting to see if some have made it or not. One or two of the dahlias are sprouting, they will stay in the greenhouse until the risk of frost has passed and then go out. Some are still in the ground and I won’t know if they have made it for a few weeks yet.

Sunday: Busy, busy, busy day, I have spent most of the day in the garden planting up everything that can be planted, some in the poly tunnel and some in the garden. If we are going to have rain I might as well make the most of the dry day today and the watering in by Mother Nature tomorrow. It was supposed to be sunny and blue skies but that didn’t appear luckily for me 😁 it meant it was a perfect day to be dong whatever needed doing and that included lots of weeding. I did spend an hour or so helping John, he was setting up the water tanks ready to catch the rain that is coming and needed me to help get the tanks up on the stands (easier said than done 😜) I also hoovered out the boot and the back seat of the car to remove the hay from last week 😝 I sowed some runner bean seeds, the ones that I had saved from a couple of years ago failed miserably so fresh seed was needed. I will try harder to save seed this year and make sure I use it the following year instead of leaving it. A few of the seeds I sowed last week are starting g to appear, the dwarf bean, broad bean and peas have tiny shoots in the greenhouse. Indoors the courgettes are beginning to sprout but no sign of the tomatoes yet 🙄 We are away for a week at the end of the month and I need to make sure that everything is under control before I go which is another reason to get as much in the ground as possible. Shelley is very capable at maintaining it all but not so confident with growing and transplanting not on this scale anyhow. Most veg plants won’t go in until I get back and I certainly won’t direct sow anything until I return. After 30 odd years of gardening I can tell the difference between a weed seed and a useful seed but it’s not fair to put that pressure on someone else!

John cut the front paddock with the ride on mower, too short of course 🙄 I did tell him to set the blades high but there is none so deaf as those that don’t want to hear 😬

Posted in Friesland Farm

A lot of rain this week, rhubarb picking begins & birthdays galore this month 🎂

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 27th March 2023: Gosh the month is rattling along isn’t it 🙄 This morning the weather looks promising 🙄 dry and I can see the sun though it is a tad cold at 8am mind you the clocks went forward so it will feel like 7am until we adjust and so will the temps lol. Hopefully it will stay dry we could do with a break from the dank outlook so it feels a bit more like spring.

I picked rhubarb this morning to put out for sale, I love rhubarb season it the first of the home grown crops to become available in any quantity. I then thought the best place to be working this morning in on the front beds as the sun has come out. So I spent some time weeding and also sorting out the supports for the taller plants such as delphiniums, lupin and chrysanthemums. I soon realised I am going to need to start wearing a hat and sunscreen 🙄 that would be way too early for most people but I can already feel the effects of the sun on my head 😒 I have two small problem areas as it is at the minute and if I don’t cover up chances are I will lose the hair and have even more bald spots than I already have. All winter long I mostly forget that I have an issue with the sun 😂 I eagerly await some real sunshine and then can’t spend very long in it without cover 😂 such is life, there are worse things but it’s a real pain sometimes (well a lot of the time really) I retreated indoors to dig out hats have a cuppa and skim through my new reading material before heading back outside suited and booted.

It’s a fine day and it’s best to make the most of it so I have been outside the whole time until mid afternoon. I have weeded, planted up raspberry canes, cut down the pussy willow next to the house and bundled that up for later use, weeded some more (quite a lot more 😝) and cut back suckers from trees. The area with the apricot and cherry tree is a tricky area, the apricot tree sends suckers out all over the place, the comfrey has taken hold as have the stingers and every other weed mentionable. I have the thornless blackberry growing there and some asparagus but I think I have decided to dig up what I want to keep and try to suppress everything else under membrane for the remainder of the year and see if I can regain some control. I have no idea what else I can do with it otherwise, nature is reclaiming it 😂

The temptation is strong to just keep going but I am of an age when I recognise that I need to stop and rest, if I kept going it would be half hearted so better to re charge and do the job properly and besides I need a Nana nap 😂

Tuesday: A totally different day today, raining, grey, dank. I whizzed round and did some polishing, hoovering and tidying away before Charlie came and we went to Witney with Oscar for a quick look round and a coffee. I needed some black shoes for my upcoming holiday, I have to admit defeat to high heels 😂 and go for lower shoes with comfort these days. The problem is the choice is awful, I am pretty sure shoe manufacturers could do a whole lot better than either shoes that feel like planks of wood to wear or glorified slippers 😝 it seems not. Charlie stayed for a while to feed Oscar when we got back and then went home. I had been fighting off a headache all morning but it got worse in the afternoon so I had a lay down and fell asleep, that still didn’t cure it even with paracetamol although it was a little better. I didn’t get anything else done other than make the dinner.

Wednesday: Grey and dank again today, good job I made the most of Mondays weather. My headache has gone thank goodness, it means I can focus on the day ahead. The farrier is coming this morning and so is a delivery of flowers. I had a quick look round the garden this morning the bridal crown are almost ready to start cutting and the tulips just need to put some stem length on and then they should be good to cut. I have a couple of ranunculus flowers emerging 😁 and the snakehead are doing daintily well, I am hoping to get time to practise some vase arrangements this week at some point. On Monday while I was weeding I took a quite a few rooted pieces of Nepeta and popped those into a jar of water. Nepeta (cat mint) was one of the surprises in the cutting garden, it’s abundant once it gets going, cut and come again, it has lovely textured foliage and a glaucous leaf plus it can get quite tall making it one of the best fillers for bouquets and bunches in my opinion, there is the tiny pretty blue flower of course which add to its usefulness and on the nature side of things the bees absolutely love it, win, win.

The farrier came and Biscuit has laminitis ☹️ she has not had it since we have had her though she has had it in a previous life. Gutted that we have blotted our score card, she seems ok with it though, the way she ran around the paddock you would never know 😂 That then meant a scort round to dig out all the fencing stakes, tape and electric and rig up an electrified pen which she will probably remain in for the whole spring and summer 🙄 As we had finished the last of the big hay bales during the cold snap we had to get some more in. Sam took Johns car and went to get a couple of small bales, we now have a car covered in hay 😝

I had a few deliveries due today which all came at various times, I then went out to do a bit of tidying up and burn some rubbish before coming in to make a cup of tea, just about to sit down when another delivery arrived. Shelley called in and so did Charlie with Oscar.

It’s 7.30pm and the rain is ridiculous, it has been raining on and off all day and now belting it down. We lose signal on the tv when it’s really bad, I think the satellite has been there so long it is breaking down. The only reason we have a freesat box is so that John can record programmes as he refuses to pay 😝 it is becoming obsolete technology and I would get rid and pay but 🤷‍♀️

I have a zoom meeting tonight on pruning 😁 always up for learning whatever I don’t already know.

Thursday: Another dull, grey day with the threat of rain 🙄 Getting bored of it now, fat or famine as always! I have a funeral to attend later this afternoon but the rest of the day is mine to decide what to do, governed by the weather of course. We just need some drier, warmer days to pick up our spirits here which are ebbing to be honest.

I managed to miss the showers walking to and from the church but it did rain a fair amount in between. Does anyone else feel that everything is on hold? I just can’t move things forward with the garden at all and there does not look like much let up over the next few days in fact tomorrow looks horrendous 😝

Friday: No change in the awful weather and it’s playing havoc with growing seedlings. I have some in the greenhouse that came through lovey and then pfft, one colder night and they keeled over. This morning after doing Friday flowers I went into the greenhouse to see how things are going. Some successes, some failures but all very slow. I sowed a tray of cucumber, peppers and tomato but I have bought the tray indoors to get going, I am tempted to plug the propagators in just to get it all going but as I have no idea how the weather is going to go long term I am not sure if that is a good idea or not. The problem is with heat I can get good plants under way but when they get to a size that they should be transplanted it could still be cold and then where do I move them to 🤷‍♀️ I have a feeling with all this rain that the outdoor flowers are just all going to come at once so I end up with a glut rather than a slow succession, it seems like a no win situation at the minute.

Tulips are just beginning to flower outside and next year I think I will try growing some in the tunnel, the risk there is mice eating the bulbs, it’s a never ending guessing game 😂

I cut my contorted hazel branch ready for the Easter tree, it needs to dry out a little before I decorate it and get it on display, it has some wonderful lichen on it though which adds to its charm.

Just gone 1pm and ffs it’s hammering down 🙄 I need to walk down to the pub to take some flowers and told them I am waiting for a dry spot 😂 might be a while. I shut the door on the flower shed initially because of the rain then I re opened it and now the rain is blowing in that direction I imagine they will be soaked. Oh our green and pleasant land is green for a reason I know but seriously we have not had much let up for four days now.

Saturday: Well that was a different start to the day, it’s 1st April so All fools day but this was no joke. The whole (pretty much) of the next town along woke up to no water (the irony is not lost on me after all this rain) the messages started first with Charlie asking if we had water, we did and I told her to come over and get some if she needed it. Next I messaged on the family page to say the same as many have young children and babies plus everyone needs their morning brew right 😂 Then the phone calls and messages started for John, being a plumber he was the first port of call for some but there was nothing he could do 🤷‍♀️ It is Mums birthday 🥳 today but she was over at 7.30 to fill up some containers 😂 The social media is going mad with all the questions to which the reply from any utility as always is ‘we are investigating’ 😝 Normally it’s us with either no water, no electric or no internet so it’s nice to offer help to others for a change. What worries me is that people have no idea how to cope in these situations 🤷‍♀️ I have a back up plan for most things here, battery powered lights, a store of bottle water (enough to get us through a couple of days) and solar powered battery charging pack 🙄 though the lack of sun might be the downfall there. I also have water cleansing tablets just in case the water is off for a long time (admittedly that would be some kind of disaster situation) and stores of food that is rotated for an emergency situation. If needs be we could dig a compost loo and rig up an outdoor shower (warmer months only 😝) As I type at 9 am it is apparently all kicking off down at the supermarket over the bottled water! It pays to be a bit of a prepper I can tell you, who knows what is around the next corner.

On the upside it’s nearly 4pm and we have had no rain today yet, dare not speak too soon mind you as the sky looks iffy. We have had a rare day off today, still the usual jobs have to be done of course, feeding, egg collecting but other than that nothing else here on the farm. We have been to town as I needed to get some new black trousers for my holiday, coffee and cake out and then round to Mums to say happy birthday and have more cake 😁 There were plenty of family coming and going so we stayed a longer than planned but it’s nice to have time off.

Sunday: Another dry but cold day though the sun came out in the afternoon there was still a chill in the air. Plenty of jobs done in the morning including some seed sowing and rhubarb picking, John cleaned out the birds and his van 🙄 Then we went out for lunch at our local pub, delicious food at the Rose and Crown, after that it was round to Shelley and Martins to wish him happy birthday and have tea and cake 😁 Back home in time to do the animals and clock off for the day.

Posted in Friesland Farm

1st day of Spring but not much warmth

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th March Officially the first day of Spring but still not much sign of any significant warmth during the day, we have the odd few hours but it is really putting things behind a bit. Having said that I have been busy so all is not lost, this morning I have got three more lots of soaker hose in place. I am determined that this is the year I nail the watering 😂 I rang John as I needed some stop ends for the hose and he couldn’t really get on with his day for various reasons so he came home and connected it all up for me. We tried out one lot which was fine, John went off to do some other jobs and I tried the one in the big tunnel, I got wet 😝 the connectors are all different and one of them just pinged off giving me a soaking 🙄 I have also been sorting out the fruit cage yesterday and today, the top netting has rotted so I got all off, measured up and ordered new. I cut back all the canes from the autumn raspberries as it is now time to do that and checked the summer raspberries. I have lost most of those 😏 the cold weather has killed off a lot and they are one thing that has succumbed also my fig tree and the cherry bush I think. The latter two I will leave for now and see what happens but I don’t hold out much hope. I ordered new summer raspberry canes both the red and yellow varieties oh yes I am not sure my olive has made it either. I have been weeding in the fruit cage and there are a lot of bindweed roots lurking under pots and so everything that comes out of there will be burnt and not go onto the compost heap. I now need to empty all the pots with dead raspberry canes but I want to save the compost providing there is no sign of bindweed 👀 The autumn raspberries are in the ground but the summer ones are all in pots as there is no room to put them into the ground. Hopefully I can get that all sorted before the new canes arrive, I might put some in the ground elsewhere just so that I can hedge my bets each year. This is the time of year to make sure everything is cleared, tidied, weeded, mulched and ready to go because once the growing season starts it gets very busy! More dahlias arrived today, these are a better colour than the others (growers choice) orange and white 🤪 They will probably turn out to be ones I absolutely love but I need a broader colour palette.

It has rained on and off for a large part of the day but only gentle rain in short bursts so not too bad and not cold either so I have worked through it.

It’s just gone 2pm and I am having a quick sit down as Sam will be picking me up in around 45 mins to look after the children while they go to the theatre tonight. At the minute the bus fairs are £2 single to help with living expenses and so they are taking the bus which turns a half hour journey into around 2hrs 😂 Still every little helps as they say 😁 I will be having dinner over at Sam’s so I have got John something from the freezer for him to reheat.

Tuesday: Another grey start to the day with the threat of rain, I guess at least you can call the weather settled 😂

It started of raining but soon cleared up although there were a couple of showers now and then. Shelley came over and we got a relatively big job done in the fruit cage. I have lost most of the summer raspberries (but have some on order) so I needed to empty out all the large pots clean up the compost and refill them ready for the new bare root plants. One of the problems I have in that area is bindweed and it had wrapped itself around the bottom of the tubs so that all needed carefully removing and taking for burning. I think there are around 12 tubs in total, I also disposed of the dead fig and the cherry bush. We had to dash into the big tunnel during one of the showers but we got the job done and finished which is fab. Later on in the day I tested all the soaker hoses I have set up and I have partially set one up in the fruit cage though it needs sorting out and pegging down properly. I also ordered 100m more soaker hose and connectors for the front beds as this (I am hoping) is going to be a big time saving addition to the large areas of garden that take hours to water with a hand held hose. One of the problems is that the beds do not run in straight lines, if they did it would be much simpler 😂

Wednesday: We had a bit of sunshine today 😁 though it was coupled with a ‘stiff breeze’ and when the sun went behind the clouds the breeze was quite cold. Shelley came over again today for a couple of hours to help in the garden, it makes such a difference when you have someone to work with, chivvys you along a bit 😝 We worked on the runner bean area this time and now it is all cleared and ready for planting but that will not be until May. It is also an area heavily infested with bindweed so again everything went to the burning pile and weed membrane re secured. Charlie also walked over with Oscar for a visit and I introduced him to the horses, he took that introduction like he takes everything, unperturbed 😂

I really need to get on with a bit (lot) of seed sowing now, this year I am using coir mixed with vermiculite as a substrate. I have found that the compost quality has deteriorated quite a bit over the last few years and am only using that for potting on. The coir is lighter and the added vermiculite gives more aeration for the roots. Seeds do not need any nutrients until they have produced the first true leaves, they have all they need packed into that little seed case to reach the surface and sprout cotyledon (embryonic leaves) the next two leaves produced are then the true leaves of the plant. Likewise a bulb does not need any nutrients, everything it needs to get to a certain point and only then will need feeding. Coir is a low nutrient substance and so it’s ideal for seed sowing.

Rain in the evening on and off.

Thursday: A tremendous amount of rain in the evening and through the night but a dry start to the day although very windy! I started off early by cutting some pussy willow for this weeks flowers, unfortunately I managed to snip the top of my ring finger while I was at it. Luckily not bad enough to have to get it seen to, our extensive first aid kit had all I needed 😝 After repairing myself I went into the greenhouse to sow broad beans and a few more sweet peas. I had deliveries arriving this morning so was waiting for those when BT turned up to do an annual check on our telegraph pole. They dig round the bottom of it, drill a tiny hole into it, tap it all the way up to the top to check for any rot. It has a good bill of health apart from some minor woodpecker damage 😂 Just as he left the first delivery arrived and I had just dealt with that when the second one arrived. The second one was a bit of a mission, I had bought some old wooden marquee doors from and local company for the workshop. They are the ideal size and perfect for what I want, what I didn’t realise is that I had purchased two sets 🤣 value for money or what but now I have a spare set of marquee doors if anyone wants any. They would make an ideal front to a garden room 😀

A sit down at lunchtime was in order after a frantic hour or so, I have some bouquets to make up this week and also a spring wreath so I will sit and think about those for a while.

I went back outside and cut some foliage and some daffodils, I have flower orders before they even go out tomorrow for Friday Flowers so not sure what if anything will be left to go out 🙄 I need to pop some flowers down to the pub and be back in time for looking after the twinnies. They are growing up fast and are at that fabulous age when conversations are hilarious and entertaining.

In the evening I made up two big bouquets and a couple of Market bunches.

It rained heavily most of the evening and into the night.

Friday: A bright and dry start but I won’t hold my breath as the rain does not look far away. This morning the first job was to make a spring wreath for collection later today and wrap the bouquets for collection as well. I put out the two bunches I had but they were sold by 9.30! The flower side of things has really taken off and at times it can be manic but it’s also fabulous to have that kind of reaction and support from customers. It is only 10.30 but I need a sit down and a coffee, collect my thoughts about the next couple of weeks ahead regarding flowers.

Spring wreath, Friesland Farm Flowers, Shilton, Oxfordshire, Xut flowers, British grown flowers

I did a bit in the greenhouse as the weather is changeable 🙄 one minute sunshine, next it’s windy and raining. I pricked out some scabious and purple tansy seedlings, potted on some gypsophila, cornflower and lavender and sowed some craspedia and snow princess marigolds. Most of the orders have been collected this morning, just one left for this evening, and have plenty to do as Mia, Josh and Flo are coming to stay tonight. I need to fling the hoover round, give the spare room a once over and get some shopping at some point but for now I am having a sit down. I seem to be struggling with fatigue again at the minute, there is always something 🙄 I am ok for the morning then take a bit of a dive, rest and then can get back at it in the afternoon.

I managed to get shopping done just after lunch, John came home and we went to get some goodies for the kids later. I was hoping to cook sausages outside but I am not sure that is going to be possible, I think Mother Nature it is convinced it’s already April with the amount of showers we are having at the minute.

Some of the raspberry canes arrived, I have put them in water and will plant up over the weekend. The soaker hose arrived, I said to the postman, I got this in case we get a drought this year, with the weather as it is at the minute the irony was not lost on either of us 😂

The children arrived and the weather didn’t improve so we had to cook indoors which is a shame but maybe another day. I think they enjoyed themselves, eating, bathing, watching a movie and finally sleeping 😝

Saturday: Josh and Mia were up first shortly followed by myself, then John and finally Flo around an hour later. On the breakfast menu was cereal, fresh fruit, pancakes (with every topping) apple juice and chocolate milk 🥰 Once the parents had collected them I went outside to get a bit done, the three beds in the front now all have soaker hose in place. We bought a y shape hose connector and the hose goes round in a loop, I tested it and it’s going to work really well it will be Sod’s Law that we don’t have any dry periods all year now! I also sowed some seeds in the greenhouse, cosmos, celosia for flowers but also runner beans and peas. I planted up most of the sprouted onion sets, around 36 I think which def won’t last us all year so I may plant up a lot more yet I just need to find somewhere for them to go.

Sunday: More rain 🙄 I know we need it to fill the reservoirs after later summer but seriously 😒 what’s more it’s colder with it today which makes it even more unpleasant. My first job in the greenhouse was to start potting up the dahlia tubers to wake them up. The ones in the front beds do not get lifted and I won’t know until they start to sprout or not if they made it through the winter. The others in the back beds did not get lifted in time and so most of those are lost, it has been a bad winter even for stored dahlias with many people losing tubers. The ones I potted up are new tubers in various colours, pink, red, orange and some white, I think there are 20 in total fingers crossed they are all viable. once that was done and as it’s not sunny I decided to tackle the soaker hose in the big tunnel, one side works fine the other side just keeps leaking at the connection point. I have tried various different connectors and this is the third time I have tried to sort it getting soaked each time I try. The rain and cold outside and getting wet inside just about naffed me off to the limit and so I have given up for now, John tried as well but although he achieved less leakage than me it still leaks. Hosepipe connecters and fittings are the pits they never seem to work well for long even when you replace the washers or if you buy the more expensive ones, I imagine the shares are pretty good for investors as the turnover must be huge keep replacing them all the time 😂 It’s Sod’s Law that every other line I have put in and tested works fine but not the one I want to use right now! I will try again tomorrow and see if I can get it working any better 🤷‍♀️

I spent almost 2 hrs sorting out my plant labels and either putting them into alphabetical order or group order. The flowers shrubs etc are all in alphabetical and the fruit/veg/herbs are all in groups. They are then stored in bags inside a plastic tub. Some of the labels I have had for a good number of years (up to 10) some have become too brittle and I have put those in the bin. I have tried wooden ones but the ink runs in the rain or the pencil disappears and you can’t read them so I use plastic. At the end of the year they are all gathered up if they are no longer being used and thrown into a small plant trough, I then have the task of sorting them all out at this time of year. Some of them can be cleaned off so that I have new blanks but most are written with a sharpie and that does not come off lol. They are used year after year for many years so that is the trade off, when I find something better I will definitely make the change ( I did then order wooden ones as I couldn’t bring myself to order plastic 😝)

Posted in Friesland Farm

Flowers, a bit of work in between & more flowers 😝

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th March: Eeeek it’s a big week this week with Mothers Day on Sunday, by the time I publish this I will have worked with 4/500 stems of various flowers and foliage 😲 and who knew I would absolutely love every single minute of it 🥰 My own flowers are slowly emerging so I still can’t use those but what I will be using are 100% British grown flowers and foliage and not a single stem imported. This is massively important to me, there are lists with wonderfully tempting flowers of all kinds on them, am I tempted, of course I am, would I do it, not a chance. I have been happily connected with British growers and sellers for a year now and each and every one of them is passionate about British grown flowers, sustainability, nature friendly gardening/farming and packaging materials, I have found my tribe 🙌

Why is it so important to me? Well just like food production I think it’s important to know what you are eating, where it comes from and how it was grown/reared and the more I learn the more I know it’s the right way for me. If I can convince a few others along the way then that is a great thing, the more of us on the same road the better off the planet will be.

It is a windy morning this morning, have I ever told you I hate the wind 😂 (many times) it is just that everything clanks and groans around here when it is so windy. My ultimate fear is the roof blowing off, sheets of tin flying around is not something I want to see, they are secure but Mother Nature is fierce as we all know and she can do whatever she wants if she sets her mind to it. It’s not that bad out there but a fear is a fear and not easily shrugged off 🙄 I have a plethora of jobs to chose from this morning, the cleaning needs doing, the bed needs stripping which means plenty of washing (too windy to get it on the line though) the hens at the back need cleaning out and so do the ducks. All the while the week ahead is buzzing round in my head, jobs to do in the flower garden, Mother’s Day flower payment links to go out, Friday flowers, Flos birthday, flower seeds to order, veg seeds I haven’t got yet that I need to order, what to get for dinner later. Another cup of tea before I begin I think lol.

I cleaned, hoovered, polished most of the rooms, changed the bed sheets and put the washing on and by early afternoon sat down for lunch. Charlie came over with Oscar and I looked after him while Charlie went and did her weekly shop. It didn’t go too well, he went to sleep but woke up 10/15 minutes later and I could not pacify him at all 😂 luckily Charlie was not away too long. You think as a seasoned parent you will be able to deal with most things as a grandparent but if you don’t have the milk on tap you are onto a loser 😝

Tuesday: A better day weatherwise though still not that warm and intermittent rain so unless it warms up as the day goes on I am not planning on going outside much. I did check the seedlings and plants in the greenhouse though and things are coming on nicely although we have temps dropping to around -5 again tonight 😏 hopefully that will be it for a while. We need some sunshine/warmth after the rain to get everything growing and the tree leaves sprouting, the buds are there but they are holding off for the time being.

The sun came out and there was a job I needed to do that was in the small tunnel so I figured today was a good day to do that and besides I wanted to get it done so that the tunnel was good to go when the time came. I could have waited for John to do it but to be honest he has a lot of projects on the go already plus the day job so I put my entry level carpentry skills into action. We have wood lying around so I measured what needed, gathered up the wood, got it all sawn to length and put it altogether 😁 I am suitably impressed with myself I can tell you.

Find some suitable wood, screws, saw, tape measure and cordless screwdriver……..
…….and build this 😁 the extra box I needed to finish down one side of the small tunnel 🥰

I just need to line it and fill it with compost, the seep has been cut to size and in the first photo you can see the piece of hose that links the two seep hoses together. I will now be able to attach a water hose to the end and leave it to water itself for an hour or two while I get on with other jobs 😁 ✔️

One of my main aims this year is to get the seep hoses in place beforehand, usually I am trying to lay them when everything has started to grow 😝

Wednesday: We had a frost this morning so it was quite cold over night but not the -5 they predicted I don’t think, the reason I say that is because the puddles were not frozen at 7.30 this morning so it can’t have gone down that low 🤷‍♀️ The temperatures are already up and I think it will be quite a nice day all in all. It is Florence’s 5th birthday today, oh to be five again 🥰 When I was five I was living in Swinbrook and being put on the school bus each morning to go to school in Burford, I can’t imagine that happens much these days 😬

Preparations begin for the Mothers Day flowers, first thing this morning was bucket washing. Buckets for conditioning the flowers need to be scrupulously clean, bacteria in the water is the main cause of premature decay in cut flowers, they are scrubbed with washing up liquid and warm water then thoroughly rinsed and dried ready to go. There will be wrapping to prepare and sundries such as string, raffia and tape to check (just in case I don’t have enough) All the wrapping I use is compostable, even the cellophane is plant based and the sellotape is plastic free 😁

John is at home today working on the flower workshop, I am not really sure what else to call it, I already have the small flower shed in the driveway and studio seems a bit presumptuous so if anyone has an idea please put it in the comments.

I spent most of the first half of the morning sorting out wrapping for the flowers, if I can pre do as much as possible it will save time when I start making up the bouquets. I also had vases to wrap and they are also done and ready to go. Next it was time to go outside and start cutting foliage, the pussy willow is amazing and it has sprouted up everywhere in the ménage 😂 I am thinking I might use this space for growing foliage, seems like a good use as it no longer gets used for the horses. I also cut some of the remaining stems from the willow trees, the stems have now turned a lovely orange colour, I already had some vibrant green stems of a dog wood and I added to that some lilac stems that are still in bud. Then it started to rain and it was quite cold with it so I abandoned that for the time being, tomorrow I will cut some more of anything useful I can find 😁

Went round to see Florence for her birthday 🥳 and eat cake 🎂🥰

Thursday: Drizzle first thing this morning but it feels warmer than of late, we could do with some sunshine though, it would help all the growth along now we have had some rain. It is flower delivery day today and boy have I got a lot of British grown flowers coming 😂 I have also been cutting whatever I have here that is ready. This morning I have cut hellebore and a few anemone, some honey berry that is just beginning to flower and some trailing ivy. I have got lots of flowers to make up in various forms for Mothers Day, bouquets, bunches and grave flowers and can’t wait until the flowers arrive, I have gone over and over the number I will need but as it is the first year I am panicking that I haven’t ordered enough 🙄 Once they are here and I can see exactly what I have I can then allocate some to Friday flowers and for other orders I have that are not Mothers Day related. I will have help tomorrow afternoon and evening, Charlie has offered to give me a hand which is great otherwise I think I would be working into the small hours 😂 I am loving it though and already thinking about things I can do for Mothers Day next year!

Once the flowers arrive they will all need sorting and conditioning, some need different kinds of treatment but basically they all need to sit in water in a cool dark place to take up as much moisture as the stems can hold. The hellebore I cut this morning all have a tiny 1mm line scored right down the stems and are immersed up to the flowers so that they can uptake as much as possible, the anemone just stand in water so you can see that some are more high maintenance than others.

As it often does, everything happened at once, I had a phonecall from Johns business insurance that I was in the middle of payingwhen the first delivery of flowers arrived quickly followed by the second delivery. I needed to get them all in water asap, they smelt amazing and the colours of the tulips were fabulous.

This gorgeous lot will all be turned into Mothers Day bouquets and bunches 🥰

Sam arrived straight from school with the children ready for Mia’s swimming lesson. They came bursting in and were all excited about having a bath a Nana’s, the reason Sam had said they would be having a bath is because they had been playing in the mud at Nursery and were mud splattered everywhere 😂 Time is tight on a Thursday for Sam so factoring in a bath when they get home from swimming is pushing it a bit, a bath at Nana’s was the solution. The question I asked them first is ‘did you have fun playing in the mud’ happy faces and shouts of yes was all the confirmation needed 🥰 I have never known children so happy to be having a bath, Mia on the other hand was mighty upset because she had to go swimming and would have preferred to stay and have a bath with them lol. I bathed them, washed their muddy hair and faces, and got their dinner, at least once they got home they would be ready to go to bed.

Friday: It’s Friday 😁 not any old Friday and definitely Friday flowers day but this time it’s all mothers day flowers. It will be a busy day and I am nervously excited about doing them all 🥰

Blimey 5pm and just finished, that was back breaking work lol, to be fair I did look after Oscar for a couple of hours while Charlie did the wrapping 😝 but still it was a full day of prepping, bunching, wrapping and tidying up. I think I need a nap!

I did manage to get Friday flowers out too which was a bonus. I made up five bunches and they would t all fit in one buckets and touch the water so I put them into two buckets. When I went out later someone had bought a bunch but then put the other bunch into the second bucket and took the bucket as well! I wouldn’t mind but I was really stretched for buckets with all the bunches and bouquets I had made up, I can only assume they used it so the car didn’t get wet and are planning on returning it 🙏

Saturday: I was awake early so got up made a cuppa and went back to bed to listen to a podcast. The electric went off at around 6am but luckily came back on five minutes later, I decided I may as well get up and have breakfast. I have a busy day of flower collections today but I do want to get other jobs done as well. I have asked John to reconnect the mains outside now that we have a mild period of weather coming up, it is so mild this morning I stood outside in my pjs and drank my tea 😁 First though he has gone to the builders merchant to get so bits for the workshop, I asked him ‘while you are there can you buy me some more buckets please’ 😂 builders buckets will have to do for now.

I had a delivery of dahlia tubers arrive yesterday, I have lost most of mine this year because of the cold weather, hopefully the ones in the front beds will have survived.

Oooosh it’s nearly 4.30pm I am on nearly 12,000 steps and my back is aching but Mothers Day flowers are done, collected and I am pooped. I spent half the time weeding in the garden and the other half with customers collecting flowers, it’s been amazing and I have loved every minute of it. Shelley came over with Josh and Flo mid afternoon and we dug up carrots, the kids washed them and then they took them home ready for roast dinner tomorrow, luckily we are invited 🥰 I also sold all the Friday flower bunches from the shed as well as a jam jar, there still some narcissi and daffs left but that is it 😁

On a sadder note the female Turkey, Tedalena, died yesterday ☹️ and now Ted is alone again, to be honest she wasn’t in the greatest shape when she came to us and that was more to do with her breeding than anything so I am surprised she lasted this long, the avian lockdown has not helped matters either.

Sunday: We spent the first part of the morning working outside, I have been weeding and moving pots of plants around, monitoring the seeds I have growing in the greenhouse, watering if necessary. Big Billy the tort has woken up and is moving around, he is still in the greenhouse until he acclimatises and then will go out, Voldertort is not mobile yet. It’s Mothers Day and Charlie and Macca came over with Oscar mid morning for a while, then we nipped off to the garden centre and when we got back Sam, Luke and the children arrived. Once they left we went round to see my Mum and then onto Shelley’s for a roast dinner 😁 Busy day but really lovely.

Lots of plants and trees are just beginning to spring into life which is fabulous, a bit behind this year I think but they will catch up easily enough. I spend a lot of my time looking and wondering exactly where I am going to be planting all the seedlings once they are big enough and trying to weed and tidy areas ready for when that time comes, but there is always so much to do 😝

Well that was the week that was all about Mothers Day flowers, it has been an epic week, I have loved it even though it was pretty full on, I will now spam the blog with pictures 😂

Friesland Farm Flowers Shilton, farm grown or British grown flowers and foliage, bunches, bouquets, wreaths, Shilton, Oxon

And the good thing is I am already getting repeat business 🥰 so something is right x

Posted in Friesland Farm

A new month, a sonic boom 😲 and of course, flowers 💐

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 27th February 2023: Not sure where February went it usually feels longer than that. After getting the eggs sorted and the cats and dogs fed I got on with some cleaning 😝 All the joys of cleaning, hoovering, polishing, dusting, cleaning hair out of the shower trap 😂 You would not believe how many times John tells me that people don’t realise they have to do this, he will get a call because the water is not running away in the shower cubicle and first thing he asks is do you clean the trap 🙄

I have procrastinated a little this afternoon, is it really procrastination if you are listening to a podcast or reading up about something interesting? Or is it an elected, find something gentle but educational to do because I can’t be bothered to exert myself today, exercise 🤷‍♀️ Knowledge is key is all areas and I am one of those who is constantly googling something I have seen or heard but didn’t know about. We are watching the series ‘Gold’ at the minute, as soon as we started watching it I was googling the Brinks-Mat robbery to find out who, what, why, when, I like to know all the details. That’s not a bad thing and it certainly helps when you are watching quiz programs 😂

I did actually sow some veg seeds at the weekend, we are limited to what can be sown now but if you take you hints from your flower garden you will know that lupins are beginning to sprout greenery so peas/beans which are from the same family should be ok to start sprouting in a cold greenhouse, just don’t over soak them or they will rot. The timings of sowings will be restricted to what space you have to move them onto once they get bigger. I think pre sprouting is a fab option at this time of year, just soak the peas or beans in water (drain of any excess) rinse them a couple of days in a row until they begin to sprout (a root will appear first so you know which is the bottom) then pop them into compost to grow on, those that don’t sprout are duds so you can throw them on the compost heap. Also beginning to grow now are alliums, the green leaves are about 5inches high in my garden so I can plant up my onion sets into trays to bring those on, again making sure they are not too wet. Ruby Chard is another I have sown, this is a multifunctional vegetable and so it’s worth doing, not only can we eat it but the torts/Guinea/poultry eat it too (we only have one Guinea left now) so if there is a glut then somebody is happy somewhere. I also have been looking at those who use it in flower arrangements, there is a movement called ‘abstract flower arranging’ that is gaining momentum and uses all kinds of things including fruit and veg. The stalks are a beautiful red colour but if you don’t like the slightly bitter taste then strip the greenery from the stalks and just use that, feed the stalks to the wildlife/pets.

Tuesday: It’s Shelley’s birthday today we will pop round later to celebrate her special day, born in a leap year she was lucky to get the 28th, the Gregorian calendar plays a cruel trick to those born on the 29th 😂 Birthdays are days I stop and reflect and look at the amazing Women our girls are, generally speaking things continually improve for girls and women in terms of equality but it is always a battle. We have three daughters and they were encouraged and nurtured to be strong, capable and independent if necessary and they are. The next generation (granddaughters) will grow up in a different time where things are changing even more but that doesn’t stop me from telling them that they can be anything they want to be, they can achieve whatever it is they want to achieve if they work for it. There is one song that I played and sang with Mia which is a Katy Perry song ‘Roar’ it was a time when she was feeling a little uncertain about the big world she was in especially school and all the emotions that brings with it. We sang the song together and I told her that is Nanas song for her, it doesn’t mean you need to be fierce but that you can be who you want to be with confidence and if you set your mind to it you can achieve whatever it is you want to achieve whether that is a big or a small thing.

I put washing on last night in the hopes that I could dry it today but looks like I miss calculated that as it is fairly damp out 😏

I did a good morning’s work outside doing various things, I potted up some of the ranunculus that have been pre sprouting in the kitchen they are now inside a propagator (unheated) in the greenhouse. I finished off cutting some dead stuff back on one of the bigger beds and then moved into the big tunnel as I was getting a bit cold. In there I planted up some phlox (sherbet 😁) watered the ranunculus and anemone that are growing, the anemone are actually flowering but on fairly short stems. I then had to shut the dogs away so that I could staple gun some bubble wrap around the doors in the tunnel, I could feel a cold draught and anything growing might appreciate an extra bit of warmth instead. I sowed a second lot of sweet pea seed that had pre sprouted, I will keep sowing these in succession every couple of weeks. The sweet peas last year had fairly short stems but I have since then seen the whole plant stem used with great effect so I will give them another go. Seeds I have on the windowsill indoors include antirrhinum, clary sage and sweet peas, we are getting there slowly 😁 Meanwhile John went out to do a small job this morning before returning and getting on with some concreting and we have also had a delivery of materials, the flower workshop will soon be taking shape.

I have flowers to deliver to a customer today and I will also be taking some round to Shelley when we go to see her later for cake 🎂😁

Inbetween doing things I have also done a bit of reading up, don’t ask me why but this question popped into my head ‘will gold be any use after an apocalypse’ I like to know these things 🤪 The answer in case you haven’t worked it out is no, fairly obvious really but I needed to have the definitive answer 🤷‍♀️ Skills, food, building materials etc will all be of value rather than gold. It didn’t end there though because it took me on to an article about billionaire preppers 😲 did you even know there was such a thing. Interesting that they would think that their money would still be of use to employ security etc, when it was pointed out that it wouldn’t they resorted to tactics such as having a combination lock to large food supplies thereby making people do what they are told or those perimeter electric shock dog collars to stop them leaving, sounds like a fabulous work opportunity doesn’t it 😂 There are apparently large self sufficient farms that have bunkers for the wealthy to run to in their time of need (not in the UK as far as I am aware) who is going to do the hard graft I would like to know. It is all very well having the money to buy a place to hide but you need skills to survive and if your money is worthless then…🤔

Wednesday: Is it only midweek 🙄 John went off to work this morning despite having said he will be working at home this week! I have flower club tonight and it’s the first meeting this year, there is a competition as well as a demonstration so I have thrown myself into the task. Safe to say that flower arranging in the conventional sense is not really my forte, I prefer free form or natural rather than triangles and fans 😝 but it does mean that I have to push myself and come up with something I am happy with. So I have spent an hour or more arranging, I made the mechanics last week just to see if it would work and tweaked it the other day so it’s all set to go and enter the competition lol. The title is spring in a basket and I hope I have achieved the brief and even if I haven’t I have done something different and learnt along the way so it’s all good.

Yay I got first prize 😁

It is St David’s day today and all about the daffodils, leeks and being Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 The other day that is creeping up is Mothers Day and this year I am ready to offer flowers. One thing I know is that it is frantic on the flower wholesale market, who knew that behind the scenes there are order dates and lists and then cut off dates for your orders too. I feel I may have slightly overreached on my cut off date which is the 12th but something I have already learnt for next year 😁

Thursday: John was at home all day today working on the workshop while I pottered about doing anything that needed doing. I didn’t have the twins today as Mia was not well so not going swimming. I spent the evening making up the bunches of flowers and a bouquet order for tomorrow.

Friday: Up early to get up and get on, get the eggs sorted and out along with the flowers. Mum called over for a visit and a cup of tea and in the afternoon I went out for tea and cake with Sam and the twins and Charlie and Oscar.

Saturday: One of the reasons John has been home is because he is having to work today, he doesn’t normally do weekends but this is in a building that can’t be worked on during the week.

Around 12.30 the whole place shook, I have felt this once before and was pretty sure it was a sonic boom. I messaged the girls, they hadn’t felt it but five minutes later social media was awash with it so at least I know I am not going mad. Normally it means that jets have been scrambled due to an anomaly in our air space but I guess we will find out in time.

I have been checking on the greenhouse growing and so far so good, some seedlings are beginning to emerge others not yet.

Went down to the local pub for a meal last night, it was lovely, we haven’t been down since the new owners took over so we thought it was about time. I love what they have done with the ladies loo it right up my street, Thomas crapper China and recycled boards on the wall, love it. The food was great too, the fish was beautifully fresh and the batter deliciously light and then there was sticky toffee pudding, always a winner and this one was no exception. Nice atmosphere we will definitely be going more often 😁

Sunday: Colder today and I think it tried to snow a few flakes this morning 🙄 hopefully after this cold snap we will be getting something a bit warmer. Just in case it’s really cold I have fleeced up the trays of tulips, daffodils and allium that are coming up nicely and I also did the same for the anemone and ranunculus in the poly tunnel, I don’t want to lose them at this stage. I cut some hellebore, miniature daffodils and some of the anemone this morning along with foliage for a memorial wreath I have to make today. I also hoovered the boot room, it gets unbelievably dusty with the dogs and cats in there.

Mid morning Samantha arrived with the children and it turned into a busy afternoon. We needed to get a big round bale of hay out to the paddock for the horses so that if it snows they will have plenty of hay to feed on. Even if it doesn’t it is going to be cold and there is not much grass left for them to munch on now until it starts growing again, now they will be very happy. Then as it has been unseasonably dry Sam decided to drag the paddocks, good call really because once it rains the grass will begin to grow and it will be harder to do. Once they had all gone home I had to get started on a memorial wreath that is being picked up this evening, a lovely, natural, seasonal 100% compostable wreath 🥰

A natural, seasonal, 100% compostable wreath by flowers at Friesland Farm, Shilton, Oxon
Seasonal and 100% compostable wreath.
Posted in Friesland Farm

Colder weather, batch cooking & local honey 🍯

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 20th February 2023: The weather is holding so I took the opportunity to do a good mornings graft this morning. I went backwards and forwards collecting and depositing woodchip to mulch the smallest of the raised beds although that still took six full barrow fulls. Next I cut back the two buddliea that are in the shrubbery bed, they are huge and they make an arch where they meet, in order to see down the driveway I need the archway clear so I cut them back to achieve this. The other reason for cutting them back is that they attack me at every opportunity when I am trying to work under them weeding or planting 😂 After that was done I needed to tidy the cuttings so I got the shredder out only that had seized over winter so I had to WD40 it and keep trying it until it freed up which it did eventually. A pile of shredding later and it was past lunchtime so that was my cue to go inside for a cuppa some toast and a sit down, I feel like I have accomplished something this morning 😁 I did a bit more in the greenhouse in the afternoon and then John came home early so I sorted out an early dinner. We went round to Mums for a cuppa in the evening.

Tuesday: Yesterday I delved into the freezers and pulled out items to do some batch cooking today. After getting some washing on and all the usual morning jobs I got two big batches of Bolognaise and mice and potatoes into the slow cookers. They will get boxed up and go into the freezer for another time but I wanted to use up some veg and mushrooms before they went over. Tonight we have some lovely chicken breast but I haven’t decided how we are having it yet. The next project on my mind was something I need to do for flower club next week. My imagination sometimes makes big demands on me and often I fail to deliver but this time I am pretty pleased with the result. I had an idea in mind and apart from a few restarts and some trouble with the hammer I managed to succeed and produce exactly what I was after 😁 No pictures until after the event but I think you will be impressed lol. I was surprised that by the time I had finished it was mid afternoon so I sat down with a cuppa for a quick rest.

I have had a discussion with Shelley about growing as much veg as possible this year as I neglected it last year due to the fact I was busy with the flowers. I then had a message from a friend highlighting the fact that there will be shortages on imports this year due to the bad weather in Europe and Africa especially tomatoes, great that I am good at growing those then 😁 I still find it crazy that we have the ability in this country to grow so many edibles and yet they are imported in huge quantities 🤷‍♀️ maybe once there are shortages people will realise that they don’t need Italian tomatoes or Spanish cucumbers and eat British grown in season 🙄 On that note I am off to check my seed stash and make sure I have enough of everything to sow.

Wednesday: We didn’t eat the chicken in the end as we went to my great nephews to celebrate his third birthday where plenty of food was on offer including pancakes 😁 After the lockdowns you really appreciate being able to get together and the children can all play with their cousins and second cousins keeping family ties alive 🥰

That meant I needed to do something with the chicken this morning and so I have some more batch cooking going on already. A hearty chicken stew in one slow cooker with frozen veg that I grew last year. In the other one there are blueberries and apple cooking down with some honey ready to make a batch of crumbles for the freezer. The apples are the last of the stored cooking apples, all but one of them was any good and so they have done really well to last this long. Going back to potential veg/salad shortages, we don’t eat a lot of fresh produce through the winter, most of what we do eat was grown, processed and frozen back in the growing season. It makes the menu slightly more limited because some produce does not hold its structure but it does mean that we are still eating great produce all the way through to the next lot of harvesting. Rhubarb will be the first to come through and there is always plenty of it so some will be used fresh and some will be frozen for next winter, some of it gets sold and some gets given to family members. If you are venturing into growing your own then rhubarb has to be right at the top of your list, it will be three years before you can fully harvest from a new plant but in the first year you can still harvest a few stalks, the second year even more and the third every single stalk 😁

It is raining today and we really do need some rain, we haven’t had any since around 11th Jan I think when we had days and days of it lol. As it is not a very nice day to be working outside I may even batch bake some cakes. I did bake cakes 3 x date and walnut loaves as healthy as I could make them, I used unrefined brown sugar and sunflower oil but I only had white flour so I had to use that 😏

I felt really tired early evening but I also had a Zoom meeting to attend so I couldn’t really have a nap 😏 Yet again, even though I have been gardening for a lot of years, I learnt something 😁 The speaker was amply qualified having written a book for the RHS on propagation and as I have said before cuttings are a hit and miss area for me. I now feel that I have all the information I need to have good success in this area so watch this space 👀 🤞

Thursday: It was colder overnight than it has been of late and there was a slight frost this morning. I had planned to get a bit done but I had visitors and deliveries and then the twins so in the end not much got sorted. I did spend the evening making up the flower bunches to go out tomorrow though.

Friday: It’s Friday flowers today and I had an early appointment so I had to get everything organise before going for that. Eggs done and out into the shed and then the flowers plus the social media side of it to let everyone know they were available. I quickly sold all the daffodils and narcissi so I had to get those back in ready to drop off locally later. It has been over thirty years since I was employed on the cards in any sense and so one thing I am noticing is that the activity is higher on payday week which I hadn’t given much thought to before now 🙄

British grown flowers and foliage available at Friesland Farm Shilton
Gorgeous tulips in this weeks bunches 🥰

Dave the beekeeper bought some supplies of local honey which will go out into the shed in the morning, it’s nice to be able to offer that produce again.

Saturday: Ooosh that wind is cold, only a week or so ago we were walking up the lane in beautiful sunshine and it almost felt like spring. I just hung out the washing as it is breezy so it should dry but it is cold too. Shelley, Martin and the kids came over just before lunch and spent the afternoon here.

Sunday: I got a good bit done in the garden, I attempted to wash down the outside of the greenhouse and poly tunnel but really I need to wait until we can connect the hose again (once the threat of freezing passes) and then I can hose it off afterwards so I’ll try again in a week or two. Lots of cutting back and clearing up in the torts area oh and I also washed Johns van so that you can tell it’s actually white 😝 Sam and the children came at lunchtime and were here for a couple of hours and then Charlie, Macca and Oscar visited so we have had the full compliment this weekend 🥰

That’s about it for this week, if the weather is ok I will mostly be tidying up and cutting back dead stuff and getting the beds ready for planting up or I can be found in the greenhouse on chiller days mostly just mooching 🤪

Posted in Friesland Farm

Flowers, plants & seeds.

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 13th February 2023: Another reasonable day coming up, not much sign of any sun but it is dry and not freezing which is a bonus. I have a busy morning ahead of me doing flowers, the heart tributes are very popular 🥰 which is just as well because I love doing them. I am not doing Valentines flowers as most of my customers are women and although in the words of Miley Cyrus ‘I can buy myself flowers’ it is mostly men who buy them on this particular day. That is probably stereotyping a little but I imagine the numbers if collected would back that up. Men tend to go for the red roses which as we know are not seasonal at this time of year and so not grown in the UK in Winter, they are all imported. I don’t want to knock it but we really need to change attitudes, in Victorian times it was traditional to give small heart shaped boxes of violets, it would be nice to get back to that. I have a bit of an insight into how some of the menfolk in my family work though and they are definitely mow the grass within an inch of its life and are red rose people 😂 no matter how much I try educating them 🤪 So we have to reach out to those who are environmentally aware and get them to voice their preference ‘how much carbon was generated with those roses being imported’ ‘ I would prefer flowers that are grown here in the UK’ and then of course you have to hope they remember what you told them 😝 Joking aside there has been lots of chatter on social media pages about ‘them and us’ florists that use imported flowers, and growers and florists that don’t. It is not about bashing people for what they do it is about educating them to do it differently and besides I am pretty sure fifty years ago when flowers started to be imported in large numbers those growing the majority of flowers for sale in the UK felt exactly the same, it is just reverting back. A couple of florists with shops are backing the UK flower industry and selling nothing but British grown flowers so it is possible, there are high profile designer florists that are doing the same, we just need more of them to get onboard, after all it is the only planet we have and we need to look after it much better than we have done.

Busy morning so far, first get the ordered flowers done then out to feed the horses hay as the grass has pretty much been eaten off and with no sign of any rain or sun it’s not growing much then sort out printing QR codes for the flowers in the shed to make it easier for payment and then sit down and order some floristry supplies. Trying to remember everything I need to order is key I really should write it down as I go but no 🤪 I already have a slow stream of orders coming in for Mothers Day flowers and I need to make sure I have enough string and raffia, I also need to work out exactly how many orders I can realistically process before I get carried away 😂 By this time it is lunchtime and I am starving but I need to go through messages and emails first to make sure I don’t miss anything.

Seasonal, British grown cut flowers and pussy willow, Flowers at Friesland Farm.

Tuesday: A lovely day, I spent some time in the greenhouse in the morning dividing up plants then a little bit of cutting back dead stuff in the flowers beds. I have to confess that I have also been reading quite a lot, normally it would be reading up on things or learning something new but this time it was pure fiction. I tend to binge read 😂 I won’t read for weeks or even months and then once I start I don’t stop very readily especially if it is a series of books. In the last few days I have just read four, yes four books in a series that is new to me. I am one of those people who resent any interruption while I am reading so intensely too, stopping to do household or farm chores is a necessary irritation though. The only interruptions that are not resented are visits from the children and grandchildren 🥰 And yesterday afternoon Shelley, Josh and Flo came over and we had a lovely walk down the lane and back, it almost felt like it was fully spring (but I won’t be fooled) The kids then helped me fill a large sack of hay and take it out to the horses filling up the water buckets while we were there. Flo is definitely an outdoor girl happily helping with the task while chatting away, Josh preferred climbing things and dragging large branches around 😂

Wednesday: A frosty start but the sun soon came out and it was very pleasant for a good few hours. I did a bit of gardening, one new bed around the side got particular attention, bulbs planted as well as a couple of evergreen shrubs plus cutting back dead stuff and mulching with woodchip. It is only a small bed near the back of the building but it can be seen from the gateway so I thought evergreen would look nice all year round. I planted a skimmia and a lemon and lime nandina 😁 A delivery of ballast arrived at some point during the day and then late afternoon I went for some Bowen therapy which is always something to look forward too.

Thursday: A bit of a dank start to the day today the forecast is drizzle I think. There are plenty of jobs on my to do list but I think I should divide the list into ‘want to do’ and ‘don’t really want to do’ 😂 or ‘want to do but can’t’ and ‘don’t want to do but can’ 😝 I really want to be sowing seeds but I am holding off. The average last frost date range is April 11th – 20th in my location, that means I need to work back six weeks to find my optimum seed sowing date, if I go for a date in the middle of that range it takes me back to March 4th so I am a couple of weeks away from that. The reason for this timeline is that seeds that are sown are generally plants that are big enough to go out in six weeks time, the weather needs to be good so that the new plants do not get damaged or frosted which would undo all the hard work you did in the first place. Then there are the amount of daylight hours needed, the more there are the better the plants will grow, short and strong as opposed to weak and leggy. There are plenty of seeds that can also be sown direct in March and of course you can grow seeds with some sort of heat, even indoors with the domestic heating on but they do all need the light (once sprouted) for strength after all that’s how they produce the energy to grow. I know all of this and yet I am still tempted to get something sown 🤪 but I also know that later sown seeds will readily catch up 😁

I spent the evening getting flowers ready for tomorrow morning as I am off out for the day.

Friday: A busy couple of hours first thing getting everything done and the flowers out for sale, I then spent a lovely day with all six grandchildren and parents at the Cotswold Wildlife Park. This is just five minutes down the road from me and so it is quick and easy to decide if the weather is going to be ok enough for the day. It was a little windy but apart from that it was a great day out, it is a lot of walking and I was impressed with how even the twins managed five hours of wandering round. For anyone not familiar with the park and wondering if it is worth the trip it definitely is, I think it is one of the best value for money parks around. You can literally spend all day there and just about cover everything and there is a lot of different things to do, reptiles, bats, penguins, lions, giraffes, zebras, farmyard animals, train ride, play park and the coffee is decent 😁 I was whacked when I got home and fell asleep mid evening 😂

I am a lucky Nana 🥰

Saturday: Another decent day apart from a strong breeze, I spent most of the morning in the greenhouse which was pleasant and out of the wind. I have sown some seeds 🤪 sweet peas & snap dragons which are indoors on the window sill, I pricked out some sweet Williams that have been growing over winter and sorted out some seeds that I saved from plants last year. I did do a little bit outside that was mostly cutting back dead stuff and pulling up annual plants that have gone over, a little bit here and there will get me ahead.

Sunday: Again the weather is fooling us with its charm, a decent day that was really nice once the sun came out. We did the morning jobs and then went out for breakfast and got on again once we returned. I spent some time in the greenhouse sorting out seeds that I had collected from plants at the end of last year and then a good amount of time in the garden tidying up the cold frame area. This is where I keep plants over winter that I dug up or divided in Autumn, they end up covered in a blanket of leaves and now is a good time to get that sorted as it will start to harbour pests. I did find a bright green caterpillar that had been devouring some small plants 😏 and plenty of slugs and snails, they have all been gathered up with the leaves and deposited elsewhere away from the plants. Some of the plants I labelled up and put out for sale along with the seeds I had packeted up. Shelley, Martin and the children called in for a cuppa late afternoon, they helped Grampy with the feeding and egg collecting and when they left we went to Charlie and Maccas for a roast dinner 🥰

Another week over and a new one about to begin, have a lovely week everyone.

Posted in Friesland Farm

Plenty of hearts and flowers this week 🥰

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 6th February 2023: The temps dipped to below freezing again last night but the sun is out so that makes you chirpy. I jumped in the shower after breakfast and when I came back to the kitchen John told me the horse had got into the front paddock. They are only allowed in there when it is electrified so that they don’t eat my fruit trees that have been growing for five years. I dried my hair in quick fashion and went out to get hay and get the horse back where it belonged, I needed to find a spare rail as it had been broken during the escape to pastures new, not greener as it was all frozen just like the rest of the paddocks. When I got back inside after getting that done I felt my hair, some of it was frozen where it hadn’t quite dried 😂 I was only out there for a maximum of 15 minutes.

Tuesday: Another frosty frozen morning but I was up early to get some tribute flowers done for a customer first thing then once I had done that and then the eggs plus feed the cats and dogs I sat down with tea and toast 😁

I got some hoovering and polish done and then the girls arrived along with Oscar and we went out for a walk. The sun was shining though it was still on the cold side but nice enough. We saw a small herd of around 10 deer in one of the fields, they all stood watching us from afar but you could still make out the stag with his antlers standing proud above all their heads. I think they were red deer, they looked dark in colour rather than pale like fallow deer but we were quite far away so couldn’t be certain. They were definitely big unlike the muntjac that we always see plenty of when we are driving around the lanes.

Natural, heart shaped, 100% compostable, sustainable, tribute flowers.
Natural and 100% compostable tribute flowers for a customer today.

I have another natural heart to make but this time it is for valentines to hang on the front door ❤️

Wednesday: It is like a Winter wonderland out there this morning, very cold but very beautiful. The fog is heavy and white and everything is frozen in time, beautiful frozen spider webs hanging everywhere 😍 The horses were vocal when I took their hay out to them, it was only 7.30 but I am sure they were saying ‘about time too’.

Not sure what I am going to do today, I am hoping the sun will come out and burn off the fog but it’s pretty heavy so I don’t know if that will happen. It is very cold out there so I am not planning on any outside jobs at the minute 🙄

Almost midday and the fog is worse I think 😂 and it is still freezing out there so I have spent the morning working on business posts and ideas for the flowers. I have a few orders coming in which is fabulous but it’s always a good idea to generate future work 😁 My head is buzzing with ideas and I often think about going on a floristry course but I also think that I love having the unrestrained free flowing ability to create things how I want to and not how it’s taught, the jury is still out on that one 🤪

The sun broke through mid afternoon ☀️ better late than never.

I have had some ranunculus corms soaking on the windowsill, I planted some in autumn outside in the tunnels but I kept some back just in case. The mice love to eat the corms and the weather reeks havoc with the foliage so I hedged my bets and saved some for spring planting. I planted them up yesterday into a shallow tray of soil and covered them, they are in the kitchen and hopefully I can pre sprout them before planting out in a few weeks time. That’s the plan anyway, ranunculus are the most beautiful flowers and it would be nice to get a really good crop this year so I am trying everything. I dug up a couple of stinging nettles that had taken hold on one of the raised beds. I couldn’t dig it out when everything was growing madly but I also had a job to cut the flowers near the stingers 🤪 so I have waited until all the foliage has died back and then dug them out. It’s surprising how quickly they become a strong plant very often growing away nicely through winter when everything else has died back. Nettles are of course a good indicator of fertile soil so that’s a bonus but even so I don’t want them there.

Thursday: Not frozen this morning yay 😀 I had looked at the weather and the sun will be out and so I got three loads of washing done so that I could get it on the line a d dry as much as possible outside. I also made two heart bases for flowers that have been ordered for this weekend, working with natural materials mean you never get exactly the same thing twice, that’s what makes them natural and bespoke.

These are the bases that the flowers are then attached to, same material, but two slightly different shapes emerge.

Friday: Up early to get the Friday flowers all arranged, wrapped and then out for sale. Once I finished that then tidied away and got all the other jobs done I just had time for a cuppa before Oscar arrived. I looked after him today while Charlie and Macca had some r&r which was Maccas birthday present.

Saturday: Not frosty this morning 😁 and some average temperatures for the time of year forecast today. Once again after getting all the morning jobs done and putting flowers out for sale I got on with an order for a year that is being collected later. I also did one yesterday that will be going on a door for valentines ❤️

I spent a very happy few hours in the greenhouse 😁 first of all cleaning down the shelving, sweeping away cobwebs and dust, sorting any rubbish and putting things away neatly. Then onto potting up some plants that had arrived at the end of last year and I hadn’t got round to doing. Luckily they are fine and there are actually signs of growth on them all, they are all perennials that will be part of the flowers for cutting. Flower farming is a combination of annual flowers which tend to be quick growing, bright and showy but short lived, perennials which are slower growing but flower over a longer period and of course come back each year. Then there is foliage which is generally perennial (evergreen & deciduous) but takes an age to get to any size which is where herbs come in, quicker growing, perennial and they smell amazing 🥰 Many gardeners grow a combination of all these the trick when you are ‘farming’ them is to make sure you have successional sowings and blooms, easier said than done 🤪

Sunday: Another decent day weather wise though we didn’t get much done outside. A quick food shop first thing followed by coffee and breakfast out, back home to unpack the shopping and get a few things done (I can’t even remember what) John tided up some bits in the front driveway and then once finished we went to the garden centre as there were some seeds I wanted to get (and I also got some I didn’t even know I needed 😂) I could not believe the price of seeds, mostly I save seed from what I grew before but there were a couple of annuals that I couldn’t get seed from because I left it too late. I do have a good selection of collected seed though and I think I might package some to put out for sale. Once back home we sat down for a cuppa just as Shelley, Martin and the children arrived followed not long after by Charlie, Macca and Oscar. Charlie had come to collect a heart that I had made for her for Valentine’s Day, this one will hang on her front door. Shelley and Martin had been over to Diddly Squat Farm, we have been binge watching the second series. Sadly I am not shocked at the way the planners and some of the locals have treated the whole situation. They need to look beyond the fact that he is a celebrity and wether you like him or not he is doing a fantastic job sticking up for British farming. Planning have thwarted him at every turn and the ridiculous situations and procedures that farmers have to follow regarding TB, bird flu, moving dirt from one area of the farm to another borders on hysterical except we know that it’s not funny because farmers are going under. We need to take a good long look at farming in the UK, remember back during the war when the country really needed them and their skills to keep everyone alive well it’s not beyond the realms of reality that the same could happen again 🙄

A heart for Valentines, for the front door this time 🥰
Posted in Friesland Farm

Getting some work done, Friday Flowers & a small disaster or two 🤪

Posted on by frieslandfarm

Monday 30th January 2023: I decided today was the day to start getting on outside well in the tunnels actually. The weather is fair for the time of year and it’s not raining so it seemed like a good idea. I did all the bits that needed doing inside before venturing out to cut back all the chrysanthemums in the small tunnel, they will go back outside once the weather is a little better and I will feed and water them then. In the big tunnel the anemone and ranunculus are coming through slowly, it’s still a bit too cold for them to be doing much but they are making an effort and the anemone have even started to flower although the stems are short. I did some weeding in there as well but in all honesty there was not much to get my teeth into. Onto the greenhouse and that’s when the deflation set in as a mouse has eaten pretty much everything that I had growing 😏 try as I might I cannot keep the mice out of there and I even put things up on racks to try and stop them but with no success. Some tulip bulbs and elephant garlic has been eaten along with seeds and seedlings. I reason with myself that there is plenty that has survived the winter but still it is a pain in the proverbial and a set back. I have decided that I will not do autumn sowings again though as it just isn’t worth the hassle better to concentrate on spring sowings and hope for better success. It is a constant battle against nature and better to pick the battles you might actually win I suppose. It is too early to tell what exactly has survived in the garden yet but I suspect most things are ok, those that didn’t make it will perhaps need some rethinking, do I try again or not bother and find an alternative that will, I think I know the answer to that one 😁

A quick look round the garden areas and I can see plenty of spring bulbs pushing their way upwards, there is a lot of cutting back to do but I am reluctant to start that just yet. Insects are still hibernating and all that dead stuff is providing cover not just for them but for the roots of plants as well, the temptation is strong though 🤪

Yep it was too strong 😂 so I went out and did a good few hours of cutting back dead stuff, I chop a lot of it up and leave it on the ground and I did find overwintering insects, some good, some not so good, for my plants anyway. I had to really force myself to stop, it’s like going to the gym after you haven’t been for months (or years) I am using muscles that have not been used all winter and they were feeling it.

I did go back out and mulch a few pots with some wood chip, I have a peach tree in a pot that has never produced a peach, a couple of small leaved lime trees and a winter flowering clematis which is just about to flower. If I mulch a few things a day they will all be ready to face whatever the weather throws our way 🙄

Tuesday: Another good session outside and I was able to get more washing dry on the line, winning 😁 I spent a good amount of time cutting back, tidying areas and mulching with woodchip. I got the slow cooker on the go first thing with some left over chicken and vegetables so I didn’t have to worry about stopping to sort the dinner later in the afternoon. The temperatures are pleasant for the time of year and I even have to take my coat off now and again when I get too hot. A few more days like these will mean I will be on course to meet spring 🥰

Wednesday 1st February: The weather is looking good for today again, dry and reasonable enough temperatures so I am planning to be outside a fair bit. I need to cut some foliage and anything else I can find as I have flowers arriving tomorrow ready for week end sales. These are grown by a family run business here in the south so although they are not mine they are still supporting the UK economy and hopefully my tulips, narcissi and hellebores will not take too long to appear.

Thursday: A sweet and sour morning lol, we had good wins on the premium binds, sweet 😁 news that the bird flu has jumped species into foxes and otters, sour 😏 the bad news keeps coming, interest rates going up again and water costs going up by 7.5% 🙄 the cost of living is getting higher and higher. The mass strikes are doing nothing but add to the problems, I have no doubt that each strike is for the right reasons but surely anyone can see that there is no way on Earth that all of these demands could ever be met across the board even if the government wanted to (I am not denying that they don’t) It boils down to the fact that the unions are wanting to bring the government down, fair enough but is the alternative going to be any better 🤷‍♀️ I seriously doubt it and somehow, someday the next generation will be paying for it. I guess it is like cooking dinner for a big family, you can please some of them some of the time but not all of them all of them time 🙄

Friday: I was awake early so figured I may as well get up and get on. I woke up and everything I needed to get done first thing was going round in my head so there was no way I would get back to sleep for another hour. I had flowers to organise for the Friday flower launch, four bunches composed, one hand tied for a regular customer sorted, three lots of jam jar flowers arranged. Then it was on to getting everything out to the farm gate and the sign at the end of the driveway, I got cramp in my hands when I was trying to jump it down there 🙄 Once that as done and all the tidying up done I had time for half a cup of tea before shooting off to get blood tests done. Six vials today 😂 as the hospital wanted to test and see why I am getting cramp all the time. I am pretty sure they will come back with no apparent reason and that I am just getting old 🤪 but you never know. The infection I had finally cleared up so there will be no need to drop my immune suppressants, yay. Back home for a cup of hot sweet tea to compensate for all that blood gone and then back on with the day.

It was all going so well and then not 🙄 I had decided to give some flowers away on the Facebook page, a simple question to answer and then names go into a draw, easy you would think. Then hackers started messaging everyone who had commented that they had won, I literally could not keep up with the notifications that kept rolling in from the hackers 😢 I had a mad half an hour or more of trying to delete it all and then change my password, put a message out so that nobody followed the fake links. I hate these people or more likely bots, not only do they damage a business reputation but make the business owner feel like crap. I thought I would do a good thing but it ended up shite so I won’t be doing that again sadly, I found it all rather deflating not to mention stressful.

At dusk John was putting the birds away and I was getting the flowers in when our dog started barking furiously at the roadside. We had a look and a car had stopped because there was a dog on the road, I didn’t recognise it but took it back with me into the yard to keep it safe from the traffic. It actually lives over the road but I had never taken any notice (note to self be more aware lol) We could hear our neighbour calling for it and reunited them, another strange dog episode as she said the dog never gets out, first ours then theirs, strange goings on.

Bunches of British grown flowers and foliage ready for sale for ‘Friday Flowers’ Flowers at Friesland Farm Shilton Oxon
Friday flowers 🥰
Jam jars filled and ready for sale for ‘Friday Flowers’
Jam jar flowers

Saturday: A busy morning first thing with customers coming for flowers, I am so chuffed that the first week has gone so well and excited for the rest of the flower year to see what that brings (no more competitions though 😂) John did the feed run after he had to go and fix a burst pipe that is. In between customers I sorted out the ranunculus corms to soak, some I planted in Autumn and they are coming up nicely in the tunnel along with the anemones. Then I sorted the pots of hyacinths which are just breaking the surface and will be some lovely first flowers for using in various ways. The temps are set to dip low again in the first part of the week, it is still winter I suppose 😏 but hopefully after that they will steadily climb upwards and everything will start to spring into life.

Sunday: A frosty start but the sun soon melted that away and it was a lovely day. I spent the morning in the garden, tidying, weeding, cutting back plenty of dead stuff. I can see new growth coming through on plenty of plants which is fabulous. I checked over the bulbs I had planted especially for cutting and most of them are breaking the surface nicely, one bed is suspiciously devoid of any growth and the bulbs have probably been eaten. Ranunculus are particularly tasty to mice and although I do have some coming up I suspect a lot of them have been snacked on. However I did keep some back and they are currently on the windowsill soaking in water to rehydrate them, they will then go on a shallow tray of soil and be pre sprouted before being planted up. I hope to guarantee a crop that way but you never know. It always seems that the loveliest of flowers is also lovely to every other living thing around 🤪 John has been cleaning out the birds and also working on the workshop area, someone has already asked about using it to teach a bee keeping course so I am thinking it was a good decision though I have yet to work out how everything will proceed.