Nocturnal meanderings or checking the daffodils on a stormy night in February

I had made enquiries last year about having a stall at some local farmers markets and chosen the markets that I wanted to sell at.  One of my tasks was to obtain signage and  business cards to put on the stall as part of my selling procedure.  Vistaprint was my art platform of choice.  I must say it was not at all difficult as I thought it would be.  In fact, the most difficult part of obtaining my sign was collecting it.   Click and collect has been my delivery method of choice  for several years now, up to this point it has been the most stress free way of obtaining purchases.  One of the reasons I chose Vistaprint is that they offer a click and collect service.  So I successfully created my poster and ordered it to be delivered at a local post office.  I received the notification from Vistaprint on time  that it had been delivered and on that evening I excitedly made a trip to the specified post office to collect it.  Thankfully, the post office was empty when I arrived, and the customer assistant was very helpful. He took my name and began searching for my delivery.  I did my best to help by explaining it would be in a poster sized package either rolled or flat. Unfortunately, whilst he was searching, a  queue was beginning to form behind me, and I could feel the frustration oozing from the now growing crowd.  Still, he perservered, until at risk from being dismembered by several members of the rapidly growing swarm of people jostling behind me, I asked him to serve the waiting customers.  Thankfully, there were some people in the queue who took pity on me and so began a discussion regarding the potential whereabout of my poster, all the options were considered, had it gone to another post office, had it got lost on the way, had somebody stolen it (not sure about that one, not very likely)  until the service assistant  pulled out a huge box  and blithley said, “oh, I have got this box addressed to Fifty Foot and Climbing Cut Flowers”  “that’s me”, I said, “but that’s not the name you told me” he said “yes, but the company is Fifty Foot and Climbing” said I.  The queue behind me started to cheer as I red-faced exited the shop with my errant poster. 

Part of my reason for starting this blog was to talk about growing and cutting my flowers.  I enjoy the selecting of seed, the growing, the cutting, I enjoy the conditioning, the arranging into bouquets, getting ready for market. I also enjoy talking horticulture to any and everybody.     I had planned the plot to give me flowers for sale come February, specifically daffodils, but I knew that I had to offer something a bit different.  so began the research into different daffodil varieties that might be suitable.  I had planted all the earliest varieties that I knew of, and luckily, the weather had been mild enough in my area that I had a few ready for Christmas to give as Christmas presents,

I recorded the number of blooms that each daffodil provided and the best foliage to put with each bouquet.  the arrangement was well received, so I knew that I could go ahead and commit to planning for a local farmers market.

I knew that I wanted to aim for 20 bouquets to sell and how many blooms and the amount of foliage that would be required.  I had planted the daffodils last year and I had plenty of interesting foliage to supplement the blooms.

 

I knew that the plain green foliage that I had available would be good enough to sell, but I needed to be able to offer interesting variegated foliage as well and ensure that the daffodils looked good enough to sell.   

I was still working full time in my day job at the time of my first market, so any gardening in January or Febuary and even into March is necessarily achieved either at the weekend or in the dark before I leave for work or when I get home after work, but it is still dark.  I am very lucky, my partner is very supportive and he had installed nightlights in my  garden last year so that I can see after dark in the garden. 

So as is usual after  Christmas during January the weather deteriorated dramatically, it felt as though I should be building an ark instead of trying to grow and sell flowers.  I took to nocturnal wanderings in my now nicely lit garden covered from head to foot in waterproofs just to check on my daffodils and make sure they were not suffering too much from the wild blustery wind and torrential rain.  I had staked them securely, but even so I had to bring them in to a more sheltered spot.  I eventually had to pick the daffs that were planted in the  ground as they were suffering too much from the biblical storms.  But by the time of market day they were to far gone to take them to market unfortunately.  On the weekend prior to the market I spent an hour or so picking foliage in the rain, by the end of the session my fingers were beyond frozen, thankfully getting my hands around a steaming cup of coffee soon sorted them out.    My lovely neighbour even asked if i was ok as she had seen me outside checking the daffodils at 530 in the morning.  But she is so kind she even offered me her flowers to sell.    Anyay come market day I arranged the bouquets,  which I felt were good enough for market.  I spent the day before cutting and conditioning. 

I had made so many lists of all the things that I would need that my lists were on lists.  I  was very nervous as I  loaded the car, which did not take as long as I expected and I set off.  The market that I chose is not very far away and was a very good learning experience of the problems I might encounter.  Everybody was very complimentary about my bouquets

The only problem I encountered was the card reader.  I had done a practice run with my partner but at the beginning of the market day, I was so nervous I left my brain at home and it did not catch up with me until after the doors had opened. I frantically called my partner, who shall now forever in my head be called Chill.  Bless him, he calmed me down, and  then I  decided that I would not worry about the card reader. I had had a chat with other stall holders, who divulged that they mostly took cash. As is often the way, soon after I stopped worrying, the card reader began to work, then Chill turned up and told me that the bouquets looked like florist bouquets.

 which boosted my confidence considerably. From then on, everything went smoothly, and I had a lovely morning.  I did not sell all my bouquets, but then I was not expecting too, this particular market was all about learning for me. I gave the left over bouquets to a local care home.