Tuesday is Flower Day
For the longest time some things in life “just are” – chicken, cheap T-shirts, a job in the Federal Parliament – until one day the backstage curtain is jerked aside and we never look at that thing the same way again.
When I first heard my partner use the phrase “The Poisonous Gift” for cut flowers I did a double take – not flowers? Not innocent, romantic, beautiful, delicate, fragrant flowers? Surely not.
Despite being around farming most of my life flowers were just flowers – in my mind they just sort of grew semi-wild, bathed in soft focus 70’s light in meadows, where they would be gently plucked by apron-clad florists carrying cane baskets – there was possibly even romantic classical music playing in the background.
The needle was abruptly ripped across my classical record when I learned most of our flowers are air-freighted into Australia from Columbia, Peru and Kenya, and because they aren’t classified as food, there was no limit to the amount of pesticides and herbicides that could be used in growing flowers.
Suddenly picturing my loved ones taking a big sniff of a floral bouquet made me feel simultaneously queasy and uneasy.
Florists and flower farmers, the ones most exposed to dangerous agro-chemicals, have, in the last few years, brought a natural flower farming movement to life in Australia.
Like organic farming the aim is to work with nature, to celebrate imperfection and difference and create a fair and safe product.
This Tuesday, for the first time Fair Food are selling flowers.
Claire from Cherry Road Flower Farm in Red Hill (that’s her in the pic above) is a regenerative flower farmer growing sprayfree, seasonal bunches of cosmos, zinnias, daffodils, tulips and snapdragons.
Her bunches (also pictured above) come wrapped in recyclable paper and fastened with a compostable sticker and if you leave a jar out with water in it, we’ll pop your bouquet in it when we deliver your Fair Food order,
This is an important bit – at the moment we’re only delivering Claire’s flowers on Tuesdays.
So choose Tuesday as your delivery day and Claire’s flowers will magically appear “in stock” in the webshop and then on your kitchen table or mantlepiece or loved ones arms.
You can find Claire’s Flowers here
Come sing with Carl
If you can see yourself singing in an urban market garden with a man who loves nothing more than getting the music out of himself and everyone around him in the most joyful way possible then you’re in luck!
On the first and third Saturdays of the month between 10-11am, national musical living treasure, Carl Pannuzzo, is leading an informal community choir at Joe’s Market Garden.
Bring your voice, a bag for some local produce and something to calm your wildly beating heart for all the beauty you’re going to be creating.
And speaking of flowers – you can also pick your own flowers at Joe’s Garden on Saturdays.
Have a great week
Chris
