To market, to market....

Have had a productive day in the garden and allotment.  Turned over a patch which I'm bringing into cultivation at the plot - so strange to be able to just dig, without needing to go round things or avoid bulbs etc!  Will keep these patches for annuals so that this bare earth approach can be repeated again later in the season.

Found that I (and a generous neighbouring plot) had parsnips which had gone to seed from last year - they make fantastic cut flowers, but the purported coconut smell which on of the #britishflower folk tweeted about on Monday night was not evident. I had a good sniff, but my snoz detected only...well.... parsnip....  Gorgeous flowers though and I have a huge bucketful of them conditioning in the shed overnight.

From the garden I've harvested the first of the roses - had been hoping for more, but the buds are still pretty tightly furled on most of them, so I will just have to be patient and wait for the rosy show to swing into action over the next couple of weeks.

Also picked lots of the smaller foxgloves - I find that the giants are just too big to do much with on a domestic scale of flower arranging. The ammi is looking lacy and lush, so have frothy buckets of this and the deadly ground elder flower - so pretty. Can't wait to use them to make some bunches for my stall tomorrow.  Wafts of gin-scented angelica keep hitting my nostrils, so I hope they continue to smell this delicious tomorrow.

Colour has been provided by sky blue anchusa and the last of the centaurea flowers, cerise flat button-heads of knautia macedonica and some elegant wands of blue iris.

This flower arranging lark really is a labour of love - have spent ages cutting and conditioning this evening and have to get up at the crack of dawn to put them all together into bunches to sell.

And so to bed...