Back into the swing of Dried Floweriness

This year has been interesting and challenging, with the flowers, sadly, taking a back seat, as we needed to step in to run a café part-time in Sedbergh. Not part of the plan, but necessary nevertheless. Now the café is having a bit of a refurbishment it is time for me to concentrate on my flowers again and to try to bring some order to the neglected flower field, the weeds are swamping some of my low to the ground perennials. Having weeds is not all bad, they have been feeding the soil life, and the nettle seeds are now feeding us!!! (Nettle seeds are very tasty and easy to collect. I posted on Instagram the process I followed).

Given the flowery challenges of this year, including the many plant deaths due to neglect, I still amazingly have blooms in the field. Dahlias, although being nipped by frost in September, are continuing to flower, as are many other plants and so I’m still attending Kendal Farmers Market and putting fresh flowers in the Flower Shed here at the farm. The fresh flower season will no doubt be completely finished in a few more weeks and dried flowers are already being sorted, arranged and photographed ready to sell. The corners of the office and the lounge ceiling are slowly filling up and fill me with a mixture of joy at their beauty and dread as to where I’m going to store them. They really do take over. Maybe next year I’ll have a dedicated space – I can dream!

There will, hopefully, be some lovely photos of my dried flower bridal bouquet, created for a ‘Flowers From The Farm’ photo shoot I was involved in recently. I will put them on the website as soon as possible. The ability to use my SLR camera to accurately capture my flowers is something I need to improve, maybe I need to go on a course or get some lessons? Watch this space for better images, hopefully.

Now off to walk the dog before time in the field and flowers for drying collection.