Last weekend, instead of posting on here, I reviewed the month of February as a ‘story’ over on Instagram. I used to compile these monthly reviews regularly and found them to be a great record of the year and a useful resource to look back on as it’s so easy to forget what happens once the season gets rolling.
This week I thought I’d write in a bit more detail about what I’m currently working on here at Floret. Before getting into that though, I should mention that (as you may already know), this week has seen the announcement of the ‘Growing Floret’ TV documentary series, which follows life on the farm as Floret scales up from two acres to over twenty. Since arriving here in January there’s been a camera crew around on a regular basis, but it wasn’t until Wednesday, when I saw the sizzle reel (I think that’s actually the technical term) that I fully grasped what a huge and exciting project the documentary is going to be. It’s to be launched in October so the film crew will still be on the farm through the spring and summer.
The development of the newly acquired land has so many different facets; from scaling up production of cut flower seed growing, to building new greenhouses, trialling new varieties, holding plant collections, developing breeding and selecting programmes, alongside two new books, online courses and the shop. There are so many different elements to the business and the land and it’s absolutely fascinating to watch and learn about all the ways in which the many plates are kept spinning.
Alongside this, the work that I will be most involved in is helping to develop a plan or layout, for the farm; pulling together all the different areas and buildings to help make the entire site function as a coherent whole. This will be a balance between farm functionality (efficiency is a top priority), with aesthetics, as well as habitat/food source creation for wildlife.
Being a newbie here, my initial priority was to gather up as much information as possible about the site; how it’s been used in the past, how it’ll be used in the future, how people & vehicles move between buildings and farm, the weather, sun/ shade patterns and the soil, as well as making sure I get to grips with what Erin and Chris need and want from their land, both now and in the future.
So with a good amount of information accumulated we decided that my first focus should be to hone in on plans for a new cutting garden which will take in a large portion of the original farm. Obviously all elements of the entire site are interconnected, so there’s also been some work planning for things like car parking, a private garden, new hedgerows alongside this, but it’s the cutting garden which will be the first main feature to be brought to life.
Once the cutting garden plan had been drawn up and discussed, I then set out the new garden with string line to show where paths, planting beds and hedges will be situated (the camera crew caught plenty of tangled string moments which may cause some hilarity - read embarrassment - further down the road).
With the new garden marked out, Erin and I walked the site, envisioning how it will work, ensuring that nothing has been overlooked in terms of vehicle access and other such practicalities, whilst imaging the new plants and structures. It feels like we’re almost there now, so in preparation for the farm crew becoming available in the next couple of weeks, my main focus now is to start work on the planting plan. I’ll share more about that soon. Thank you for reading!