Well, well well… the time has come for what has to be my least favourite task in the flower farmers calendar. Yep, this past week has been spent trench digging for our spring bulbs.

The past couple of years i’ve been working from my former site in Haworth and I quite literally slipped a disc on the hilly terrain trench digging. In 2018-2019 I had a similar experience on my first growing site in Hebden Bridge. This year feels a little (only a touch) less arduous than previous years as we’re investing time in to our own land which seems somewhat more fulfilling. But mostly due to the welcome assistance of my husband Jonathan, who came to my rescue last year too when I had to rest up in bed for 48hours as my back recovered (whilst entertaining a clingy 1 year old Magnus - i’m sure you can imagine how that played out).

Whilst tulips aren’t a particularly profitable crop, especially with the increasing costs from the bulb breeders (rightly so I no doubt), they do bring great seasonal joy and mark the start of the growing season here in the UK. For this, I wouldn’t be without them. I would, somewhere down the line, like to read more about the process of producing bulbs from seed. However, I imagine to be a lengthly process deeming it unscalable at our capacity, it might make for an interesting investigation one year in the future.

We’ve been creating the trenches in stages of approx 1.5m x 3m, which is manageable to do in half a day or so. This space will house perhaps 400 bulbs in total. I’ve not gone too wild this autumn with around 1200 tulips, 300 narcissus, approx 500-600 alliums and whatever else of muscari and hyacinth. It’s about my capacity whilst cultivating from the walled garden and dependant on demand for 2024 I may decide to scale that up by planting in the flower field (which is approx 2/3rd’s of an acre). I tend to find that when I’m desperate to get my first flush of spring sown annuals in the ground the tulips are usually still flowering, but i’ve planned with this in mind and we’ll have 7 beds which are 1 metre x 6 metres readily prepared so I don’t have to rush the tulip season to an abrupt end next year. Here’s a little visual guide of what we can look forward to in spring and early summer…

Last week I made a start by getting some of our hardy annuals in the ground, with the others waiting patiently in the cold frames. First to be planted out have been the Erysimum (wallflowers), Dianthus Barbatus (sweet William), Hesperis (sweet rocket) and Campanula (Canterbury Bells). I do still have around 60 Campanula plants left over, so i’ll spend an afternoon walking around the land finding homes for them in the hopes they’ll reseed, spread and be self sufficient for years to come.

In other, more exciting news, the start of the rose garden is coming together beautifully. It’s become a real obsession of mine collecting various garden varieties, all in those soft ethereal shades that we love. 42 bare root roses will be planted in total here this winter and as we gradually move to cultivating from the flower field at the end of next year, the walled garden will continue to develop it’s collection of roses for years to come.

I have so much to say about this process and all the beautiful varieties we have in-store for our brides and florists in 2023, so keep an eye out for future updates. But for now, here’s a little peak of what you can look forward to soon…

I’ve written before about my endeavours with tulip planting which you can read here.
If you’re a florist or local business and would like to receive wholesale flowers from late April then please email hello@honourfarmflowers.co.uk for more info.