Party Time

I'm one of those slightly sad people that quite likes clearing up after a good party and that's what this week feels like. Bleary from a lack of sleep and too much excitement, peering at all the debris, remembering all the glamour from the night before and wondering where to start with the big tidy up.
The rain finally beat us this weekend, we had two lots of wedding flowers being picked up on Thursday and the plan was to spend Friday cutting for the Farmer's market at Midsomer Norton on Saturday and The Tobacco Factory on Sunday. The wedding flowers were fine thank goodness but I could feel the plants slipping into Autumn as we slipped in September, if the sun had shone for any significant length of time I'm sure they would have picked up and given us another three weeks of cropping. As it is they've just had enough of being rained on with no time to dry out in between soakings....except the Dahlias that is...they are loving it. If we could just do a market stall of Dahlias we'd be laughing. Hence sadly no, so we had to cancel our market pitches and decided to finish the season a couple of weeks early.

Words cannot describe how nice that lie in was on Saturday morning and as if on cue just in case we should think about relaxing too much Royal Mail delivered a box containing about 4,000 assorted Spring bulbs which will need planting over the next couple of months. Before they go in beds will have to be cleared and the list of winter jobs is extending daily.

It's a good time to stop and take stock of what's worked and what hasn't over the past few months and realise how much further forward we are now compared to this time last year. Thank god we don't have to put up any more polytunnnels this winter. If I squint I almost think we might be able to get everything weeded, manured, dug, sowed and planted in time for next April.

In the mean time...Dahlias anybody?