I'm gearing up for my last flowery market of the season on Saturday. It all feels very autumnal with hydrangeas and dahlias in their rich colours, along with hips, haws and other berries.
But just as I'm looking at the end of my market stall year, I'm looking at the start of the next season, planting daffodils and alliums for next spring and sowing hardy annuals in the greenhouse. So far, my cornflowers have been amazing - up and at 'em just two days after sowing!! Calendula, scabious and a grass which is new to me - agrostis Nebulosa - are all zooming along, trying to keep up with their neighbours. Ranunculus which I planted in the greenhouse border are also putting up their first tentative leaves and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a good spring crop next year.
I've got anemone 'Galilee' corms winging their way to me via Royal Mail as we speak; tulips resting patiently til November in the cool, dark garage, and the allotment seed catalog calling loudly to me from the living room. I think didiscus is going to be my new flower to try in 2015 as I fell in love with it at a recent meeting of flower growers when I saw it in the flesh.
2014 has been a good year for Tuckshop Flowers and we seem to have poked our flowery heads a little further above the parapet into the public consciousness. Hopefully all these seedlings that I'm nurturing now will find a good home in a new patch of land in 2015 so that I can grow my business even further.
Picking autumn raspberries at the allotment yesterday, it didn't feel like two minutes since the start of spring, and yet there I was, along with other plot holders, clearing out finished crops and doing the first bits of winter digging.
But before we get to next spring, we have a spot of wreath-making to do over the Christmas period, so I'd better toughen up my hands and keep a beady eye out for wreath ingredients.
