Freesia

End of bulb season

The end of April marked the end of another season of selling  the freesia bulbs. Once again if I had several thousand more I could of sold them as well.

Using the auction sites as my selling platform has been my most successful venture and I think this year I will concentrate on getting as many bulbs to a bigger size and forgo the selling of flowers. The flower side was fairly successful as well but it is a lot more labour intensive and with the economy still in a recession, it is a very fickle market and rather than stress myself out I will concentrate my efforts on the nown success.

I have several other ventures in the making in the greenhouse so over the next couple of years there will be quite a few changes but my freesia bulbs with still be there.

Brenda

Early end of flowers

The freesias were very late flowering this year and as we have had a very warm spring many of the flowers all flowered at the same time giving a shorter season.

I must admit the greenhouse did look beautiful with an abundance of flowers but as most of the florists in New Zealand will tell you the economy has had a flow on effect and it means a lot less flowers have been purchased.

Unfornately flowers are at the bottom of the chain for household expenses so I certainly didnt sell as manyu as I should of but I will now nurse the bulbs along and hopefully have a better season with selling the excess bulbs.

Brenda Baker  Livinrural

After a very poor start to the season with a severe drought , then incessant rain bringing about continual low light  my flowers are in full bloom and looking really beautiful.

I have a lot less bulbs this season as I really thinned the trays out at the start of the season and it seems to be paying off as there is less competition for nutrients etc  for each plant.

The season is very short this year as the low light meant  the first blooms didnt appear until the second week in September instead of the middle of August and now that the spring temperatures are getting warmer the freesias are flowering rather quickly.

The first few flowers had some boytritis but i got on top of that quickly and I dont see any sign of that any more.

I should have enough flowers to sell until the end of this month then I will shut off the water supply to encourage die down

Brenda

Daily maintenance is an ongoing job but extremely necessary for the health of your plants.

I try to weed out 25 trays each day but  it is slow work being very important to not disturb

the root system of the growing bulbs.

I have increased the frequency of watering  putting the meter down to 2000 . Once the cold weather really sets in I may have to lower this further as the light hours decrease.

Nutrient is having to be added manually  as one of the solenoids has become very unreliable and occasionally will dump more nutrient into the water than what it is set for. To much nutrient has as many problems as not enough so to be on the safe side I will add manually for the meantime.

The leaf growth dosent appear to be as prolific as last season , but as the plants are looking healthy and are still free of thrips there isnt any cause for concern.

With the warmer than usual autumn temperatures

I am getting really good growth with the freesia.

My red and yellow plants are showing the best growth

but it wont take long for the other colours to catch up.

I have started putting some nutrient in the watering system

and next week I will look at increasing the rate of nutrient feeds.

We are nealy into winter and as yet I havn’t seen any thrips

on the greenery but its just a case of being vigilant and checking all the time