Tulips... and a few 'mentions'

In the last few days we've planted nearly 1000 tulip bulbs - by hand - and a fair few Allium bulbs as well.

Highest priority this week were the alliums, which needed to go in earlier than the tulips and were also starting to go a little moldy. We've left our Allium 'Sphaerocephalon' in from last year and planted another 100 'Purple Sensation' and also some of the funky 'Hair' variety. We'd admired the latter in various catalogues, but were convinced when our wonderful neighbour - who's a Dutch gardener and retired florist -- brought round some of the flower/seed heads from her garden. They are so wonderful and wacky that we just had to get some.

When it comes to tulips we've gone for a mix of luscious colours and also some of the more fashionable Viridiflora and Parrot styles. My fantastic Auntie Mary and Uncle Alan (Bek's parents) came up for the morning, to help plant tulip bulbs and demonstrate the most efficient technique, with one 'dibbing' and the other placing the bulb. It sounds obvious, but when you've got 1000 bulbs to plant, it's worth getting your technique sorted. Once we'd had our masterclass Gary and I spent the afternoon planting the next few hundred. Gary lives in a yurt, not far from our plot, and is a general good egg who helps us with the donkey work when we need an extra pair of hands. It's nice to have good company when you've got a laborious task like this to do, and it turned out to be a very pleasant and productive afternoon.

The other person who deserves a mention is Pip, or Philip, as he is actually called. Pip helped me water-in the Achillea I transplanted the other day, and also helps to keep an eye on our hens... when he's not climbing over, or digging holes, in our huge pile of compost. We may well have to train him up over the coming years to be our gardener's apprentice!

Pip's not the only one digging holes in our plot. Eek. Something has been trying to dig its way out, under the rabbit fence and there were also paw prints all along one of our freshly mulched beds. Could it be a fox? It's a safe bet that where there are chickens, there are also hungry foxes. Thank goodness I remembered to shut up my hens this evening.

All change

The season of mellow fruitfulness continues to be just that. The most exciting fruit in the last couple of weeks was Bek (an Jon'!) baby Rowan... all 8lb14oz of him. He is currently doing his best to make Bek's maternity leave anything but restful.

We have also had a rather fruitful article in The Times weekend section
property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/gardens/article6838802.ece which has brought about some very exciting leads. The first of these was a email from a young entrepreneur called Pete Thompson, who runs Lowhub, an eco-friendly flower delivery service from New Covent Garden and Borough Market. I almost fell off my chair when I read his email. First meeting, over tea and biscuits, looks very promising and could be just the ticket for getting our bouquets out to our urban friends.

Today we ripped out a couple of rows of sunflowers and cosmos, tilled and mulched. Tomorrow a gang of us, lead by Auntie Mary, will be up at the plot, planting bulbs while the soil is still warm and welcoming. It's also just the time to be splitting, dividing and consolidating what we've got. It can be enjoyable wandering around the plot, looking for a specific flower, but for efficiency and simplicity it's good to have things growing together -- either according to species or according to its purpose ie. fillers, main flowers, or colourful foliage.

Yesterday I treated myself to some Erisimum 'Harlequin' while visiting a lovely family-run nursery at Staple near Canterbury. Layham Garden Centre is know for it's roses -- but also its freshly dug -- or 'dug to order' --Erisimums (Wallflowers). We need a few more flowers for early summer and these could work well planted in between the tulip bulbs.

All the latest seed catalogues have arrived, to tantalise us over the winter and there seem to be some fantastic new varieties specifically for cutting. Having just come back from a trip to New England, I'm extremely tempted to get a few chrysanthemums. I never thought I'd say it, as I', not generally a fan of 'mums', but there are some lovely, subtle looking varieties available. They're also perfect for autumn and last well in a bouquet. The Americans seem to be big fans of hydrangeas too. So far we haven't had the best result with our hydrangea plants... but we'll give them another year or two, before they get grubbed up.

Other news: our polytunnel is full of green tomatoes, so tonight turned into a chutney extravaganza. I made so much I ran out of jars...maybe a good excuse to eat it as a fresh 'relish'.

Will let you know how we get on with our planting...

Tiger moths, compost - and family

Autumn was always our grandmother Harriet's favourite time of year. As a Norwegian, who moved to this farm in 1939, she associated it with foraging. Foraging for berries, nuts and mushrooms -- and here we are doing a similar thing, collecting interesting things from the hedgerows to go in our bouquets.

A couple of weeks ago we put together bouquets for Brixton Farmers' market, and added a few blackberries, just to give our urban customers a taste -- quite literally -- of the countryside. Feedback on the bouquets, oh dear, another unintentional pun, was that the blackberries 'made' them. Both the guys and the 'ladies' thought they were a really nice touch. Pretty thorny for me to pick, but I may have to grit my teeth and pick another batch for this weekend's market, back in Brixton.

Although the nights are getting quite cool, we've had glorious warm Autumn days this week. Yesterday I was out on the plot, picking zinnias, dahlias and bits and bobs (see pic) in the sunshine, when I heard a buzzing overhead. I know from an environmental point of view, I shouldn't really enjoy watching a little Tiger Moth bi-plane circling over our flowers, but when it's your big brother taking someone for a birthday flight, I couldn't help but smile. I jumped up and down by my wheelbarrow, waving my arms and calling out like a loony. It did a couple more circles, waggled its wings and was off along the Greensand Ridge, buffeted by the breeze.

The other great excitement on the plot this week was the delivery of 27 tonnes of organic, green waste compost. You got it. Not 27 bags, but 27 tonnes. I convinced Bek that it was cheaper this way, and we would just sell some off to cover our costs. As we're based on a fruit farm, we're used to some fairly big lorries coming to pick up the apples and pears, but this lorry was even bigger. Adrian, who works on the farm, came walking across the yard, huge grin on his face, saying " Do you know what you've done!?" "Have you seen this lorry!?" It took up almost half the side of the plot when it reversed on to tip out the compost. We now have a snake-like pile running the length of the plot. It's already being spread on our beds, and looks wonderful and dark as well as making the place look tidy and well-tended.

Hope you like the pic of the wheelbarrow and flowers. The 'bushel box' has got our great uncle's name on it and is over 100 years old. They make perfect temporary shelving at farmers' markets, and also give us a bit of a nostalgia trip every time we use them.

Good to see we've got another follower of our blog. He looks very much like our cousin Matt from Oz.

Last date with Monty

Filming is over -- at least the main stuff with Monty Don -- and Bek and I can breathe a sigh of relief. The TV experience has been an eye-opener and brought us a few perks, such as our visit to Wiggly Wigglers, but I think we'll both be happy getting back to what's important to us -- growing and selling amazing, different and inspiring flowers.

Autumn is nearly here, and there's a lovely sense of winding down as the plants send out their last flowers and we start to prepare the beds for next year. This week we planted Sweet Williams, so we should have blooms by May/June. Dianthus, the genus to which Sweet Williams belong, have such a glorious scent, a cross between talc and cloves. Some people find them a little old fashioned but the majority of people we talk to like their informal, cottage garden quality and also the nostalgia they induce. We're also putting up a permanent support for our everlasting Sweet Peas. Can you think of anything better than a Sweet Pea that lasts?!

Our new wind break -- or T-Rex fence as our friend Gary described it -- is doing a sterling job protecting the plants, and we're paying for the labour with flowers! Nick Gaskin, just down the road in Marden, has done a brilliant job... and the ladies in his family won't be short of flowers over the coming months.

The farmers markets have been going pretty well, although it seems that everyone is away on holiday -- or just visiting. We got a fantastic reception at Wye Farmers' Market earlier in the month, and have been to Tunbridge Wells twice. This weekend, it's the first ever Brixton Farmers' Market, which should be interesting. Will keep you posted on how it goes.

Controversy

For those of you are curious about the 'controversy' surrounding our photoshoot...
The stylist of the magazine usually gets help sourcing flowers from a national flower organisation. It's probably best not to name it. When she asked them to help with our photoshoot -- using only English flowers, and primarily ours -- they were really hostile and negative. They also refused to help.

They said that they couldn't be seen to be supporting only English flowers, and that a photoshoot using only English flowers would be misleading the reader. As the magazine was going to tell the readers exactly where the flowers came from, either from us or other English flower growers, I'm not sure how we would be misleading them. As Bek said, if it was a promotion for English food, would we meet with the same problem?

It seems that the industry is so dominated by the Dutch... that there is no room to promote our own, British flowers. So, as British/English flower growers go out of business, the Dutch industry just gets bigger and bigger. In an age when we are talking about carbon footprints, and the inability of this country to produce its own food... you'd think there would be room for a few of us 'local' flower growers across the country.

It's not going to put us off. And it seems there are others out there who also want to grow their own flowers. Go for it. Blooming Green isn't out to dominate the market. If we're going to encourage a network of growers across the country, then we have to work together. And if we take a little business from the Dutch, so be it!
That's my early morning rant over. Better go and feed the chickens. They don't give a stuff about international flower politics, they just want their grub.
PS. Just learnt how to upload images! This was taken by our friend Paul Jerreat a few days ago.

Phew...

I have to eat my words. We were rather dreading the photoshoot this week as we didn't think Wedding Flowers magazine really 'got' the whole local, seasonal, flower thing. We felt a little like we were stuck between a rock and a hard place with the TV company on one hand, setting us the challenge of the shoot, and the magazine on the other, wanting us to use flowers that do not represent what we do.

But, the girls at Wedding Flowers were a delight to work with, loved the flowers we brought for the shoot and provided us with loads of funky props and the most gorgeous location...(Georgian London town house with 12 foot sash windows). It was also great to have loads of creative input. Wow! Never have our flowers looked so glamorous. They looked almost good enough for Elton John. We'll see if we're allowed to put any pics on our blog, but if not, you'll just have to check out the magazine in January (March issue, I think).

Not only was is a wonderful day, but it's open our eyes to using our flowers in different, funkier ways. They may be country flowers... but they can do urban chic too!

Next post, I'll fill you in on the controversy surrounding the shoot.

It's go, go go....

Blooming eck, this week has been busy.

On Monday we had a meeting with the lovely ladies at Wedding Flowers magazine in London, to discuss a photoshoot we are doing with them next week. Because of the risk of swine flu, my blooming partner decided that it was best to stay at home in the fresh Kentish air and let me do my stuff in the glitzy London office of Wedding Flowers.

Mark (director) and Caroline (assistant producer) were also there to film the meeting. I arrived at the Blue Fin building with a bouquet from our plot and also a table arrangement, which they had asked us to bring as an example of what we grow. The flowers survived the train journey remarkably well, and Vicky and Andrea were very complimentary, thank goodness. I was worried that they might take one look and call off the photoshoot, or that some creepy crawly might appear out of the petals at just the wrong moment. But all went well and we are due to do the photoshoot next Thursday at the Institute of Contemporary Art in St James's (?)

The other big deal this week has been preparing for our first farmers' market in Tunbridge Wells. We spent all morning picking flowers between the most torrential downpours and thunderstorms -- before stopping for a picnic in the shed. Masses of family turned up, including some cousins from Oz, so there were about 20 of us in all, and loads of nice grub.

Once we'd refuelled, Bek and I set to, putting the flowers together into luscious bouquets. This took us all afternoon, but the finished result looked rather lovely. We've packed them all into the back of the Blooming Green van, with our funky sign, and lots of packaging and will make a very early start in the morning. Am very excited, although curious to see how they will sell.

Other hot news... we had a bouquet order from Oz, to be delivered locally. It's nice to think that we are having a global effect, despite being a mere tiddler of a business.

Next update, we'll tell you how the magazine shoot goes... and whether the floristry world is ready for local, English flowers. We seem to be stirring up controversy already!