Fair trade

This is a gardening blog, not a political one, but it seems sometimes the two overlap.

I've been hoping that a convenient market for my herb and flower plants might be a local farm shop, and having mentioned the idea to the proprietor previously, took a sample selection along yesterday.  They're all healthy, well-rooted young plants, and I would have thought should sell for £1 each - the local DIY chain sells 4 for £5.  My opening suggestion was that I'd be happy to take £5 for the tray - my prospective business associate said £3, on the basis that the plants would probably sell for 75p each.

Mixed herbs for sale

If there was no cost to me to produce the plants, that would still leave the seller with a third of the profits.  That seems a bit too big a cut.  I would expect them to want to make something on the deal, but not this much.  In fact, when I consider that there is cost to me in the pot and compost, plus my time to take and root the cutting, pot it on, clean it up for sale and label it, then deliver to the shop, the deal looks less good still.

The unacceptable face of capitalism, perhaps!

It was left that the shop-keeper would see what price could be obtained for the plants, and then get back to me, but it's a lesson.  If I want a fair price for my plants, I am more likely to get it looking for somewhere I can set up a stall myself - even if it's just a local car-boot sale.  If I choose to sell my plants for just 50p - the price of a DIY chain half-dead reject plant! - I would rather do so direct to the public.  If I can talk to customers directly, give them plant care advice and perhaps an information and recipe sheet, I can provide a really good service, and that will also give me a means of promoting the garden maintenance service.  



Talking about Kevin

I spent yesterday afternoon digging and planting the first garden project I've undertaken for someone else - a former work colleague called Kevin.  Some years ago I misguidedly attempted to turn Kev into a vegetable gardener, persuading him to dig up part of his lawn and plant potatoes.  But the vegetable garden was not a success. 

Seeking a simple hedge-cutting and lawn-mowing project to time, I recalled Kev's garden as being a neat rectangle of grass with privet hedges, so offered to cut the grass and trim the hedges as a trial run for maybe doing this sort of thing for a living.  Kev's email accepting the offer confessed that he had "somewhat neglected my horticultural duties". 

He wasn't joking.

Apocalypse then - Kev's garden before I set to work

So the simple hedge-cutting and lawn mowing became a bit more of a project.  An afternoon cleared the top layer of scrub and brambles - much of which was the overgrown remnants from a previous hedge-cutting, and during the next session the dry waste then went through the shredder to mulch the cleared ground.

Ground cleared and hedge trimmed back - and shredded

I'm planting the site with a selection of trusty, indestructible perennials and enthusiastic self-seeding annuals and biennials which will, as far as possible,take care of themselves and put up a good fight against any weeds that I've missed, as I don't think my 'client' is going to get the gardening bug soon. 

Looking towards the house

There's still about a quarter of the site to dig, and the last planting to do - Digitalis and Crocosmia and some ferns, and the last pile of hedge-trimmings for shredding.  In future, I'd like to add some sage shrubs for structure, and some summer perennials as most of my 'spares' for Kev have been spring/early summer flowering, but the annuals should fill in the gaps.

All being well, the end result should look rather like this...

My herb garden in 2008

"At work"

Another mild October day, and it's been spent potting up plants for sale next spring and sorting out the herb plants that might be sold via the farm shop in a few weeks' time if they continue to make good progress.

Baby cottage garden perennials - foxgloves, columbines, lady's mantle and candelabra primulas
(also available in Latin - see the favourite plants page for details)

It will be great if this side of the business takes off, especially as I'm a bit too close to 50 to spend too many days in the average week doing heavy digging!

The two mini-greenhouses just about squeeze into the polycarb one in the garden, so I now have quite a lot of space for raising cuttings and protecting the tender ones if we get more seriously freezing weather this winter.  Hope not...

Herbs to go - including Vietnamese coriander, tangerine sage, grapefruit mint, golden variegated sage and lavender.

Planning ahead

Busy day on the allotment today, planting onions ('Senshyu' and 'Electric') and garlic ('Germidour').  These are all varieties I haven't tried before, so we'll see what sort of a crop we get next June.  If we get another warm, dry spring, these might do better than the usual spring-planted varieties.

Having planted 12 rows of each (12 to a row), we shouldn't be short of onions, and 30 garlic cloves went in too.  That reminds me - I need to get more 'Radox' next time we go shopping!

It was a brilliantly bright autumn day and the soil should be warm enough to get the onion sets and garlic cloves off to a good start.  So that's the first of next season's crops planted.

Smashing Pumpkins!

Despite a dull summer, the allotment has produced a good crop of squashes and pumpkins this year.

Apart from the butternut squashes, which definitely needed an extra month of sunshine, I'm pleased with the rest, and we should be eating them well into next year.

Another big success this year was the 'Doyenne du Comice' pear tree, which produces about 20kg of fruit despite being small enough that I can pick the whole crop from the ground.  We can't use that many, so I took about half to the local farm shop, and they're going to sell them for me - all being well.

They should be ripe enough to eat fresh in a couple of weeks, but the smaller and mis-shapen ones will be turned into chutney and wine before then.

Getting started...

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved gardening - digging her little patch in her parents' garden, sowing seeds and planting flowers and trees.  As a result she rarely had clean fingernails and often had smudges of soil on her face - so her Mum and Dad called her "Dirty Face".

She did very well with her studies at school and college and passed lots of exams with very good grades.  She continued to love growing things, learning to take cuttings and working with Dad on his allotment.  But when she went to see the careers advisor and she asked for advice about working with plants, she was told she would "just end up working in a garden centre" and was "far too academic" for anything like that!

So she went to Sheffield University, supposedly to study Ancient and Medieval History - but got involved in the Students' Union advice service, and spent the next twenty-five years working in welfare rights and housing advice.  Which she loved, and knew was helpful to people.  But she never stopped gardening...

Then one day she was offered voluntary redundancy, and so had the chance for a complete change of direction...

I'm now in the second half of my RHS Level 2 studies at Reaseheath College near Nantwich, Cheshire, and have just started advertising (postcards in local shops) "Sarah's Plants and Gardening Service". 

"Dirty Face" is back!