Frome Farmer's Market, another successful day and no Robin's nest dramas this time.

Sumersettle down in the back there . . . . .

Frome Farmer's market this Saturday and hopefully no repeat of the Dr. Doolittle-meets-Swiss Family-Robinson fiasco of Keynsham a fortnight ago (actually, what would happen if they did meet? Maybe at a Disney re-union . . would they have anything to talk about, or would it be stilted and uncomfortable? Maybe Lassie could break the ice and introduce people?) Anyway, as I write this looking out down the Wellow Valley; all the signs of mid-June are there; rich and complex verdant greens, swallows and swifts Torville-and-Dean-ing about, flashing Cow Parsley, Meadowsweet in the ditches, diesel fumes from a grid-locked A37, Police helicopters, sirens, the sky orange with flames, sheets of gray-black rain tomb-stoning across the sky and desperate, wet, hungry people on the news. yes; it's Glastonbury weekend again. After sullenly watching Si, Jacks, Nath, Nettie and Rose convoy off the Rank in the sunshine earlier, I wished we were going too. . . . but, as the hinges rattle and the trees bend supplicant eastwards in the fizzing wet gloom, for now, I'll take the hot bath. And while I'm fast asleep in the early hours, dreaming of pulling nettles and magic jet-packs, they'll be there; dancing in the mud with Nuns dressed as Ladybirds and the Welly-sellers will be ecstatic . . .
JP

Definitions of fiasco on the Web:
A hand blown, round bottomed bottle, wrapped in wicker generally associated with Chianti. Not generally used today because of their expense.
nickgardner.wordpress.com/food-dictionary/
debacle: a sudden and violent collapse
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Happy Solstice

This morning we tumbled over the top of the year and can now begin to relax and enjoy, quite literally the fruits of our labour.

Dyrham Park goes organic!

The gorgeous National Trust property, Dyrham Park which is found on the northern flanks of Bath has asked us to provide them with a regular supply of blooms to adorn various rooms throughout the house.

The house staff felt that it was important that the flowers they used were similar to those that would have been gathered from the gardens during the 18th and 19th centuries. These are exactly the kind of flowers that we grow, relaxed, informal country garden flowers. We will also be able to reflect the season as different flowers become available throughout the year.

The National Trust, as an organisation is actively committed to reducing its carbon footprint and in developing projects that can enable people to learn about adaptation and efficient resource use. Their "Small Steps, Big Change" project encourages staff, volunteers, members, visitors, schools and community groups to 'green up their acts' by using their daily decisions to make the small steps which together make a big change.

Congratulations to the staff at Dyrham for taking their small step.

BOB at Keynsham Farmer's Market

I know this should really be a photo of our stall at the farmer's market yesterday but somehow we managed to corrupt the photos as we were getting them off the camera. This it such a shame as the stall looked brilliant. This is the mock up that I did in the shed on Friday to make sure I had enough buckets, flowers and things to put them on.

What an ace day, the sun was shining, our market colleagues were welcoming and friendly and all the Keynsham folk were really lovely. Things couldn't have been better really, we sold lots and lots of flowers and what was really pleasantly surprising was that some of the flowers that I thought wouldn't do well were really enthusiastically received. English Marigold Calendula officinialis was a good example of this. I've sown and planted almost a whole bed full and to be honest I thought they would just be too bright and unglamorous to appeal to flower buyers....how wrong I was. They looked fantastic when arranged into small bunches with the lime green Euphorbia and the purple Atriplex with a dash of pink Strawflower and everybody loved them, so they've won a reprieve and I'll henceforth show them a little more love. Talking of the Pink Strawflower, they are so wonderfully prolific (and I suspect they are only just getting going) that I'm picking at least 100 a day and bunching them in 20's to dry. None of the florists have been particularly interested so I only took 25 bunches just to decorate the stall. Everybody loved them and one bride to be was so enamored that she took 15 bunches to decorate the ends of the pews at her wedding next weekend. I bet they'll look beautiful, really simple and old fashioned.

The best thing about being at a market is being able to talk to people and it was great to feel the support for locally grown flowers that haven't traveled half way around the world and also see how much people LOVE Sweet Peas. There is something about this flower that turns people inside out and reminds them of being a child. It must be something to do with the way memories are triggered by the senses, particularly smell. There was much reminiscing about grandparents' gardens.

The drama of the day couldn't have been more "Farmer's Market". Whilst I was setting up the stall at about 8.30am, Jon was unpacking the trailer and heard lots of tweeting. After some investigation he realised that there was a Robin's nest with three young chicks which was tucked away in the frame of the trailer. The chicks and the nest had miraculously survived the 8 mile journey from Radstock to Keynsham and were all calling for their breakfast.

You can just about make them out in this photo. Poor Jon had to drive them back to farm and unhitch the trailer and hope that Mrs Robin wouldn't have given up on them in their absence. This left us with the challenge of getting our table back at the end of the day as it doesn't fit in the Landrover. Fortunately, we discovered that another stall holder Dominic, from the very tasty Chocolate Workshop is coincidentally based at the farm just up the road from us and he was kind enough to help us out.

When we got home, after we had unloaded our flowers and counted our takings for the day we waited to see if the chicks had survived and were still being fed by their mum.

Yay, here she is!

Jo x

June Blooms

Here's a jug of Sweet Peas, Corncockle, Cornflowers, Gypsophila and Acrolinium that we wrapped for a birthday bouquet yesterday.

This year I've had to grow more annuals than I would like, because although they are very generous and prolific in their growing habits many of them have a fairly short vase life. This is easily extended by removing any dead flower heads as they go over and a vase like this should last for 6 -7 days before being relegated to the compost heap.

Being Soil Association certified means that I need to grow most of my perennials from seed which means I'm sowing seeds that I would otherwise probably never have tried. This is having some really satisfying results, I was puzzling over a seed tray without a label which Charlie had knocked over months ago but had been put to one side to see if anything survived the trampling. I was thrilled to see a tiny little Eucalyptus gunnii had emerged which was one set of seedlings I hadn't expected to see for a while. I've also got Sage, Hyssop and Rosemary emerging which I would never have thought of growing from seed.

I've realised I'm a splurger when it comes to buying seeds. Chiltern Seeds have such a fantastic catalogue and website that it is so easy to get tempted. I've just ordered my biennial seeds for next year so as well as Sweet Williams I also wanted to try Alexanders (Smyrnium oluastrum) which is a lovely architectural wild flower often found near the sea and that led me on to a variant called Smyrnium perfoliatum which is similar but where the leaf encloses the stem and then to another variant, although a different genus, called Zizia aurea or Golden Alexanders.

Another thing I'm going to try by seed are some ornamental alliums, they are great as cut flowers with their blue spheres. All these seeds will need a period of cold known as stratification so iI will sow them in the polytunnel and then after about three weeks they will be moved to the bottom shelf of our fridge for about a month and then back to the cold frame (which isn't actually built yet).

These are sweet little flowers, I've bought the seeds from the Organic Gardening Catalogue as Acrolinium but actually their proper name is Helipterum roseum. They are incredibly prolific and last ages and ages in a fresh vase arrangement. They also dry beautifully and as I'm cutting about 60 a day at the moment the shed rafters are already beginning to look very decorative with drying bunches. I think these would be really pretty flowers for a simple country wedding, you can just imagine them threaded into bridesmaid's hair.


The Ammi majus is almost flowering now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some sunshine this week to bring them on for our very first Farmer's Market at Keynsham next Saturday. I'd really like some more Euphorbia to take aswell but alas that seems to be settling in slowly. I hope we have enough flowers to make a really pretty stand and I really really hope that people want to buy them.


One last picture of the red cornflowers. I initially wasn't convinced of Centaurea cyanus "Red Boy" as it just wasn't blue enough but Jon absolutely loves it so it's gone up in my estimations . A number of florists have also made encouraging noises about this one so maybe we'll keep it on the list for next year.

Jo x

June - oh . . . . !

After a few weeks of working away, seeing the field yesterday was incredible. It's teetering on the second week of June and we haven't been mugged by weeds or doused with failure, or at least if we have, I haven't felt the effects, having been swanning around paradise in Llandeilo all week.

JP x