Why oh why!

There are days when I wonder why. Why oh why! In many ways I have the best job in the world, but it's not always idyllic and it's certainly not challenge free. And last week was definitely a 'why oh why' week.

I think May is prone to weeks like these. It's a transition month when everything for June and July looks very small and unpromising, and yet the spring flowers are coming to an end and there isn't a huge amount in flower. (Thank goodness for those peonies!) When the weather is very unsettled (something we're going to have to adjust to) and compost is unreliable, the anguish is amplified! And the slugs. Oh the slugs. It can be so distressing.

Experience tells me that everything will be ok, which it will. But there’s still worry, frustration and a lot of hard work going on too... When summer comes and we have oodles of beautiful flowers, these days will fade into the distance. I will rant less about germination rates and slug damage.

I don’t want to go on about the challenges, as you’re all quite rightly interested in the flowers but ‘just the pretty flowers’ leads to an unbalanced view of what it takes to make a business from growing flowers. There’s an assumption that it’s possible to do it around a full time job, it’s not physically demanding, or that they’ll ‘just’ sell because you’ve grown them… Somehow people think it’s easy(!) It feels important to try and communicate the challenges beyond the blue gate, sometimes, as well as the beauty...

-Harriet x