Even though it may begin with a photo of beautiful June flowers, be warned this month’s article is not going to be the prettiest read. It is all about the mucky aspect of soil. Running a business like Picked At Dawn, can for the most part be filled with lots of beauty and the flowers in turn provide many moments of creative enjoyment. It all starts with the soil that allows the seeds to germinate and the plants to grow. Soil is the backbone of most things on earth and for a grower without good soil conditions, it becomes extremely hard to produce crops including flowers and food. We will dig deeper into the soil soon but first I feel a little localised scene setter is called for.
I consider myself very lucky on a daily basis to be able to work outdoors surrounded by a very peaceful environment. I have for a long time realised that people such as myself trying to grow a business alongside nature, notice the subtle changes of the growing season, in a slightly more heightened way. The very first break in the soil when a mound of snowdrops appears, the breaking of buds on trees as we head into spring, the first lazy bee stretching into action ready for a busy summer, and the hue of the leaves changing as Autumn creeps in. What being engrossed in this environment also does is bring certain less poetic realities to the fore of my mind. As I write this there are a few days until the end of June but currently, the Met Office are forecasting that this will be the hottest June on record. Last August there was a hosepipe ban In North Yorkshire and since the end of May, the soil in the field has been so dry it has been impossible to plant or even weed without pre-applying water.
The flowing image shows a sad trend in yearly temperature figures, set against an average taking an extreme leap which when you work with nature there is no denying is becoming increasingly noticeable.
This graph isn’t a world temperature, this is significant as it is collated from data collected in Leeds less than 40 miles from this field. This leads to the question of what we do to try and make the best of these increasingly extreme conditions.
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