19/10/2026
Week 40 🪱
A productive week with the first bulbs planted, more seed collected, wholesale orders cut and summer crops cleared to make way for winter living mulches.
The second photo shows a living mulch we sowed around three weeks ago. Already looking lush and green, despite the dogs digging bits up and the birds thinking we’re laying on an all-you-can-eat buffet.
I’ve been listening to a podcast about biodynamic farming this week, which got me thinking about how little we share about how we actually grow our flowers. We spend a lot of time thinking about our soil and how best to look after it, so here’s a little insight into what that means in practice. We have a massive w**d problem: sorrel, docks, thistles and plenty of annuals for good measure. Our soil is naturally nutrient-poor, a mix of sand, loam and a bit of clay. Rather than trying to change it, we grow flowers that thrive in the conditions we have, which, thankfully, are also flowers that sell well.
We do almost everything by hand, using push hoes and spending a lot of time w**ding. We also don’t use w**d membrane, something I feel pretty strongly about, so keeping on top of the w**ds is an ongoing battle.
With the risk of heavy winter rainfall (El Niño), we’re sowing cover crops across much larger areas this year. These help protect the soil from erosion, suppress w**ds and improve soil health over winter.
We’re using rye, sown densely to help outcompete w**ds. It can also inhibit the germination of other seeds, so we need to allow around six weeks between clearing it and planting our next crops otherwise they can be slow to develop. There’s so much to think about it makes my head hurt 😅 Thankfully is the brains behind this side of things!
Someone said to me early on that you should be selling every single stem, otherwise you’re wasting money. And whilst I understand the sentiment, I think success can look different for everyone. For us, it isn’t just about how much we can grow or sell, but how we choose to run our farm, the impact we have on nature, and whether we’re staying true to our own personal values and ethics: being kind, doing good and only taking what we need.
