Sammie Hall took Flowers from the Farm through an October week , and it ’s clear-cut that no two days ( or week ) are ever the same in the life of a flower - grow line .
Hello everyone . I ’m Sammie Hall of Sammie ’s flower at Kiddal Quarry Farm just outside Leeds , West Yorkshire , UK . I grow flower for retail and wholesale on our home farm animal farm , and I ’m coming to the end of my 2nd grow season here after moving back to England from Canada at the beginning of 2022 .
Writing this at the start of October on a grey and blustery day , a ‘ normal ’ hebdomad has interchange significantly from the acme of summertime . Although I ’ll still be selling fresh flowers for another week before shutting up for a few weeks ’ respite , the quantities and frequency of thinning have throw off off importantly . I still have flowers in the field , such as Dahlia pinnata and zinnias and cosmos and sunflowers and genus Rudbeckia , but the rate at which plants are producing new blossom has slack mighty down , and those that stay on are getting knock about by the wind and the rain . Frosts and fall violent storm will moderately much put a stay to outdoor production later this month .
For the clock time being , I ’m doing a minuscule bit of everything . Still cutting and conditioning and making fragrancy and still thin for a few florists and a marriage ceremony and a harvest festival . But also cutting for drying and get the bunches of partly dry bloom indoors from my dry shed . I ’ve already store box of fully dried blossom indoors , but these needed categorisation , and I ’ve been rehanging the heyday that call for drying for longer , as the cool , moist shed is no longer the ripe place for them , or they ’ll go moldy .
I ’ve spend some clock time this week clear dried flower nosegay and wreaths and peeling honestness , although not as much as I would have like . I screw these job , especially at this time of twelvemonth when the conditions couch me off being outdoors , and my fingers get cold in the glasshouse . I also just make out the originative and musing element of my work . I get laid making matter and seeing other people enjoy them , and I ’ve miss this over late weeks as I rush to get ready for winter .
This hebdomad , I ’ve also started make fall lei , cutting and weaving our own willow , and binding the base with moss to cover in seasonal foliage and berries . I ’ve done some without moss too , making little bunches and tying them onto the root word , but these will dry out faster , and I personally choose the mossed base for the grown wild trend that can be accomplish , although I acknowledge it is less sustainable , but still preferred to haven , something I never use due to its environmental shock .
Also on my jobs leaning , this week has been spending some metre in the greenhouse . My perennial that I ’m not planting out needed potting on , and the last of my biennials postulate planting out . I ’ve been frantically sowing my hardy annuals too , and battle with the mouse that has claim up residence in the nursery and loves to eat on my freshly sown seeded player . And I planted out a tranche of perennial only to dig them back up and convey them indoors because of the slugs , a nemesis that I think might have pass to sleep for the winter or been eat by the ducks , but alas , sadly not .
There are so many other things I had hope to get done this week , admit replanting all those daffodil light bulb that some naughty garden visitor dug up , and moving the perennials that are in the wrong spots , taking cuttings , and doing another last - minute electric light order . But that is the character every week , and as far as I can tell , that will always be the case , as a flower farmer ’s work is never done .
The challenge is to walk by and to do something else with a long list of task outstanding . So , I reckon it ’s important to refer all the things I did this workweek that were n’t flower farming . I prepare and taught a vinyasa flow yoga family , mull over and journaled every break of the day , took peak , coffee , and pastry to a friend who needed support , went to choir and to my Buddhistic group , and attended yoga twice . I spoke to my best admirer , I walked my cad , and I planned a gathering with friends . I scan my Good Book . Tomorrow I will go to an ecstatic dance and for a wild swimming . Managing to make metre for so many activity in one week is uncommon and unsufferable over the summertime when the tripping evening demand many more hours of productivity in the garden . But more balance between work and diddle is something I am continually striving for , and it take away commitment and finding to take time out .
Every week is different . Every season is different . Every class is dissimilar . And that ’s part of the reason I have sex this study . Last week , I made a funeral flower arrangement and organise and ran a Flowers from the Farm meet - up , next week , I ’m attending another Flowers from the Farm event and host workshops and volunteering at the farm . Next month , I ’ll be hosting Christmas wreath workshops and Christmas markets and planting bulbs . Next springtime , I ’ll be set out the seeds I ’ve just inseminate and ( hopefully ) find out my tulip appear from their sleepy-eyed wintertime .
This is a task of unremitting fluxion , of flux with the seasons , of officious days and interminably unfinished lean , of grubby nails and defile blue jean , of lulu and putrefaction , and everything in between . And honestly , despite the highs and the lows and the episodic complaints , I would n’t modify a thing .
For more information : blossom from the Farmwww.flowersfromthefarm.co.uk
