And we're off........hurrah, opened the doors to the Walled Garden on 1st March and started taking orders for this seasons flowers. It's lovely working with blooms again after what seems ages working with soil, sheds and pots. Although there were many times this winter when I raised by eyes to the heavens and thanked all things good that I didn't have to put up any more polytunnels . Shudder, last year's pain still runs deep.The spring posies (pictured left) are selling well and I'm making abundant use of all the glorious Hellebores in the garden. There's a trick to giving Hellebores a long vase life, but I'm not going to tell you...you'll have to come on one of the courses and find out...ha! Anyway they are a beautiful dark purple and look great with the equally dark and mysterious Green Iris that I've bought in from Cornwall.
It's been a bit strange buying some English flowers in from other sources but I just haven't got enough of our own flowers at the moment to meet demand. Our Anemones are doing well now and the Tulips are budding up to my amazement. I didn't think any of them would cope with the waterlogged conditions up the farm but they seem to have survived so I'll reward them by lifting them in the summer and briinging them down to the more hospitable soil in the garden. The Cerinthe is boldly beginning to strut it's stuff so I'll begin to include it's lovely blue leaves in arrangements soon and as soon as the Euphorbia stops looking so raggedy we can get a nice lime green injection into some of the bouquets...then we know Spring has arrived.
The Sweet Peas are in...phew, I planted half of them at the farm in the tunnel and half outside in the garden. Hopefully this will extend the season by a couple of weeks. I've never grown cordon Sweet peas outside before but I've been told that their colour is more vibrant without the polythene to fiulter out some of the lightwaves....we'll wait and see.
Busy week next week for Mother's Day, Jon and I are off leafleting some Farmer's Markets this weekend to spread our good word and I think we are getting some radio coverage as well so we could be very very busy. Mustn't forget my own mum .....wouldn't that be awful sending flowers to everyone else's mum and not mine!!
We've got our annual Soil Association inspection next week as well so I'll probably spend this weekend checking through paperwork making sure all the T's are dotted and I's crossed (ooops). They're always really nice and usually really helpful. Hopefully next week will also bring some sunshine and warmer temperatures. I'm desperately trying to hold back on sowing too much because everything I have sown so far is sulking and refusing to germinate and I'm chomping at the bit to get going. Hmmm, I'll remind myself about that in 4 weeks time when everything has goine crazy.
