It’s been a very exciting week at Nature’s Posy; moving in to a new 1/2 acre growing space!
Last year I grew out of the garden and whilst that was fine to get me started I had bigger plans for bigger and better flowers. I needed more space. Thanks to a lucky introduction to a farmer by a friend I started to enquire about land. The first site I visited was great but a little too far away from my house. Thankfully as I was put in touch with another farmer more local to me who had some space that he was prepared to rent.
After a few months of rain making it impossible to get the field cleared we finally had a break in the weather and could get the site ploughed and harrowed.
The first job I’ve done is to test the soil. I could see that its pretty heavy clay, but what I really wanted to know was what basic nutrients were in the soil. My soil test told me that it was very alkaline, had high levels of nitrogen but very low levels of phosphorous and potassium. Nitrogen (N) is great for getting leafy growth, but as I’m a flower farmer I need more! Phosphorus (P) is important for healthy root growth, and Potassium (K) is needed for flowers.
Choosing a fertiliser is going to be really important this year, but I’m also planning to invest significantly in improving the texture of the soil and reducing the pH by adding lots of organic matter. There is an old gardning saying, ‘feed the soil not the plants’ and I’m going to be doing this literally by the truck-load!!
Being a tad impatient though, and having already bought some bare root roses that have started to shoot thanks to the mild weather, I couldn’t wait until my delivery of compost to start planting.
A few bare root roses 
New Beginnings
So here they are! With a small quantity of peat-free compost shipped in with buckets, I have planted something in my field! The first rose bush to go in is called New Beginnings. Call me sentimental, but somehow that seemed fitting!
Keep following the blog to see how the roses, and other flowers, fare over the coming year!