#growerflorist #artisanflorist #homegrownflowers #britishflowers #niflowers #irishflowers
This is my first year growing seasonal #cutflowers on the #DitsyFloral cutting patch and its certainly peak harvest time in the garden. I have a glut of dahlias, sunflowers, zinnias, rudbeckia, scabiosa, cosmos, hydrangea and cornflowers. Armfuls of flowers each time I cut and whilst I’m enjoying the rewards of this year’s garden, there’s no time to rest on my laurels, as it’s time to think about next year. Leaving a few flowers to fully mature and go to seed is all part of the plan, and I spent part of my weekend harvesting these sweet pea pods. This is my first attempt at seed harvesting, so it may or may not work! I’ve popped the seed pods to open a gap to allow air in and then placed them in the hot press to dry out for 1-2 days, then they will be opened and the seeds sorted into envelopes and stored in the garage (cool and dark).
But the main job in the next few weeks is an #autumnsowing, Mr Higgledy at HiggledyGarden highly recommends an autumn sowing of some annuals. The main reason is to get much earlier flowers than sowing the same seeds in spring. The plants will also be bigger, stronger and more productive – yes, yes and yes please! The second reason is quite simply that it saves time in spring – sowing and weeding. An autumn sown bed can be mulched in spring as the plants will be big enough to work around, then it can be pretty much left to get on with it – multitasking #growerflorist!
Fingers crossed the saved seeds germinate! Maybe someday, if I keep up the learning, I’ll be able to stop calling myself a beginning gardener!
Thanks for reading
Elaine x
