Flower farm update - May 2024

Everything changes really quickly in May. At the start of the month, the perennials are only just pushing out their first growth. The seedlings are still very small. And everything looks bare and wintry. By the end of the month, it’s a very different story.

Everything growing like mad

The hesperis sweet rocket, foxgloves, irises and poppies put on a fabulous show to get things going. The beautiful ranunculus start flowering. And the first sunflowers are a few weeks off blooming. As are the sweet williams - which feels a bit late this year.

Nigella comes into bloom with its unique blue flowers. It’s not thriving for us this year, but is just an astounding spring flower.

The sweet peas seem to grow by about a foot each day. They are the best they’ve ever been this year. Grown alongside the stocks, the smell is amazing.

It’s been fantastic to see this year’s first few bouquets out the door. While we weren’t officially open in May, a few people messaged us with special requests for orders and arrangements. This included a sympathy basket - it’s always an absolute privilege to be trusted with something so important.

Eucalyptus experiment pays off

And some good news. We grew some eucalyptus from seed last year as an experiment. We left them in pots to see if they’d survive the winter and amazingly they did, so they’ll get planted out as soon as we have time. We borrowed an augur to dig the holes (thanks Barry) - what a time-saver - but then got diverted onto other priorities so they’re still waiting to go in.

Irony of ironies, with all the money we invest in the flower farm, my £3.50 pansies are looking fabulous.

Finally got some plants in the ground

We got a lot more of our the seedlings we’ve grown into beds. Limonium (statice), achillea (yarrow), anthirrhinum (snapdragons), gypsophila, feverfew, artemiesia, bladder campion, calendula, chinese forget me nots, clarkia appleblossom, cosmos, matricara (chamomile), phlox, safflower, scabiosa and zinnias.

Investing in more flower beds

We’re extending again, creating another four new beds in the new section we wind-breaked off.

This meant moving the tarpaulin that’s been in place since January further along the field. This kills most of the weeds except bindweed which I have to go through and pull up by the handful.

All our beds are no dig, so we then lay a layer of cardboard - we use pallet sheets - and then add compost on top and plant into that. It’s a challenge to get the cardboard down and bags on top to weight it down before the wind catches it and blows it away. By the time we’ve done a few beds, we’ve hefted hundreds of bags back and forth. And because they’ve been weighting down, the tarp, they’re extremely wet and heavy.

Each 25 metre bed takes about 75 cardboard sheets and 40 bags of 40 litre compost. It’s obviously an investment and, scarily, will take an awful lot of flower sales to pay back.

Irrigation and weedcloth

We then lay irrigation. Normally three lines of drip tape per bed connected to 16mm supply pipe connected to a tank or the mains. We use screw connectors because they’re more robust and secure than the barbed ones. My top tip is to have a thermos cup of boiling water handy to soften the pipes before pushing them onto a connector. See the article on irrigation for more.

And finally for most plants (but not ranunculus, dahlias or sunflowers), we burn holes in weed cloth and pop that over the bed. I don’t like using the plastic, but with one person just can’t keep on top of the weeds without it, and it is reused year after year.

Dahlias go in

We planted dahlias out in three of the four beds. I think there are around 180 in all - and another 20 or so we don’t have room for.

We pre sprout all our dahlias. We start with the first batch around 1 May and keep them in the house. In mid May, a couple of weeks after the last frost date, we do the rest in pots and leave them outside.  We could plant those straight into beds, but slug control is easier in the pots and I like to see them sprout before going to the effort of planting them.

They’re looking pretty happy so far in their new home and we’re managing to keep the slugs at bay. There are thousands of those this year. When you look in the garden at night, it’s like a big slug rave out there.

Seedlings went into the final bed.

Polytunnel still full

May is also a big seed sowing month. We continue sowing hardy annuals and then also sow tender annuals like phlox and zinnias.

In the polytunnel. as the ranunculus die down, we replace them with lisianthus. Always a gamble - they can be a little temperamental.

We still start all our seedlings in there for a few weeks before hardening them off and then growing them on outside.

We sow and grow 90% of our plants ourselves, but occasionally buy in plants, if we’ve had a failure or want a bit of certainty that plants will come good, or want to get ahead of the game with perennials. We bought 12 hesperpis from Waitrose Garden Centre and all but one died. My home-grown hesperis in the same bed flourished so I think it was a plant issue, not the soil or conditions. I emailed them - twice - and they didn’t reply. I shan’t be using them again.

Sunflower experiment

We’re experimenting with sunflowers this year to try and fill the focal flower gap between ranunculus and dahlias.

I’m hoping by planting them really close together, and sowing two seeds to a plug cell, they’ll grow shorter with thinner stems and smaller flower heads. It’s mostly the pollenless Procut varieties - white nite and plum, and there’s a variety called Sunfill green that makes great foliage too. So we’re sowing a few hundred sunflower seeds every week or so.

Our first market

We did Romsey market for the first time on 2 June and are there the first Sunday of the first full week every month now. The first market is always going to be very stressful. Imagine how disapointing it would be if you didn’t sell anything. It’s right next door to Waitrose, and while imported supermarket flowers are notihng like locally-grown and can’t compete on freshness, scent and sustainability, you worry people will compare the price.

We were hoping for a sunny day - no one wanders around a market in the rain. Then at 22 degrees, it looked like it would be too sunny and everyone would go somewhere else for the day, or the flowers would wilt. But they held up really well. In fact a leftover bunch I kept looked as fresh the following day despite being out all morning then left in the hot Landrover all afternoon while we had a pub lunch with my relatives.

Spending the profits

Roger was amazing in helping us get ready. He repaired a rotten step ladder I bought on Ebay, made boxes to transport and display the buckets of bouquets, and made a shelf for the Landrover so we could put the tables underneath and flowers on top. Despite it being his birthday, he came along with no complaints on market day. He does however have a tendency to spend our profits on other stalls and their lovely wares.

In the end, we did OK. The market was great fun and both other stallholders and customers were all really supportive.

The perfect accessories for anyone who loves gardeningMake it stand out

Roger’s brother George is a very talented wood turner. He provided some hand-turned twine holders meticulously crafted in mahogany and we added a 130 metre ball of Nutscene twine and scissors to make it into a gift. The label explains that is made by Butterwood  from a small rural studio in Wiltshire.

He also provided some seed sowing dibbers, some with markings to reflect the most popular seed sowing depths, and some just in inches.

We’re now selling these at the market and on the website.

The unglamorous side of flower farming

Behind every beautiful bouquet is an unglamorous side of flower farming.

Bindweed is our nemisis. Despite laying tarp for six months, it still hangs on. The sun and rain create the perfect conditions for it to grow like mad. I filled buckets of the stuff almost daily and I’m barely stemming the tide. It practically grows while you’re watching it.

Annoyingly, the polytunnel is showing some wear and tear after just a few years. It’s ripped along a few of the folds and just worn through in other patches. Too many to tape over. We’ll worry about how to deal with this in the autumn.

Official opening on 9 June

Once the market was done, we opened officially to retail customers on 9 June. We even have a sign on the gate.

We did a bouquet giveaway to mark the occasion. One of the reasons we love growing flowers is bringing a bit of happiness to the world. It’s impossible not to smile when presented with a bunch of flowers and we were delighted to send some off to deserving people.

Bulb to Bunch | Beautiful, locally-grown flowers, reminiscent of an English country garden, available as bouquets, jam jars, arrangements, in buckets and wholesale.
www.bulbtobunch.com