Jen Stuart-Smith

Over the last few weeks I have rapidly learnt why farmers, like my parents and uncles and aunts, are so affected by the weather. In the past I’ve huddled indoors, in a warm house or office and marvelled at the drama and gloom of stormy weather. Now that our livelihood depends on the elements, it’s […]

In the last few days we’ve planted nearly 1000 tulip bulbs – by hand – and a fair few Allium bulbs as well. Highest priority this week were the alliums, which needed to go in earlier than the tulips and were also starting to go a little moldy. We’ve left our Allium ‘Sphaerocephalon‘ in from

The season of mellow fruitfulness continues to be just that. The most exciting fruit in the last couple of weeks was Bek (an Jon’!) baby Rowan… all 8lb14oz of him. He is currently doing his best to make Bek’s maternity leave anything but restful. We have also had a rather fruitful article in The Times

Autumn was always our grandmother Harriet’s favourite time of year. As a Norwegian, who moved to this farm in 1939, she associated it with foraging. Foraging for berries, nuts and mushrooms — and here we are doing a similar thing, collecting interesting things from the hedgerows to go in our bouquets. A couple of weeks

Filming is over — at least the main stuff with Monty Don — and Bek and I can breathe a sigh of relief. The TV experience has been an eye-opener and brought us a few perks, such as our visit to Wiggly Wigglers, but I think we’ll both be happy getting back to what’s important

For those of you are curious about the ‘controversy’ surrounding our photoshoot…The stylist of the magazine usually gets help sourcing flowers from a national flower organisation. It’s probably best not to name it. When she asked them to help with our photoshoot — using only English flowers, and primarily ours — they were really hostile