From field to front door
People are often intrigued by life on a small island and wonder what it would be like to live and work in such a remote and small community like St Martin's. Of course different people experience island life in different ways and we can't begin to speak for everyone but we can give you a flavour of what a typical day at Churchtown Farm looks like.
A short commute
All of our team live on the small island of St Martin's where the longest possible commute is only 3/4 of a mile to the farm. Just over half the team live in accommodation provided by the farm, most of them in our purpose built staff house, just a stone's throw from the main farm building. By 8am most people have arrived on foot or by bike, the office is up and running processing orders and the packing area of the shed is being set up with boxes and crates of flowers ready wrap your flowers. On busy days in the winter the packing shed springs in to action at 7am to make sure we can get enough flowers away on the morning post boat.
Our team work across the farm so the person you speak to on the phone or who answers your email might well have packed, graded or even picked your flowers.
In the fields
Our field team also start at 8am. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they head out with their pockets full of elastic bands ready pick. As you can imagine this is quite hard physical work, especially in the winter months. The flowers need to be picked at just the right stage. Too tight and the immature buds won't open, too open and flower's vase life is reduced. Once picked the flowers are brought into our cold store before being sorted and graded.
The journey to the mainland
Once the flowers are packed, they're put in post sacks, weighed, and taken to the quay to meet the post boat. The boat comes twice a day, once mid-morning and then early afternoon. The exact time has to vary because of the tide. The boat takes the post to the larger island of St Mary's from where it takes a short 15 minute flight to Land's End airport and joins the mainland postal system. Flights are sometimes disrupted by poor visibility or storms. When this happens the post is transferred to the passenger ferry or the freight boat. We keep a close eye on the weather and work closely with the Isles Scilly Steamship Company and Royal Mail to make sure that flowers make it to the mainland in good time.
In the afternoon...
...attention in the packing shed switches to grading and sorting flowers picked on our farm and those that have come in from other island growers. We aslo need to make sure we have a good stock of boxes made up ahead of packing the next day.
The office is right next to the packing shed. If you call or email you can be sure you'll be in contact straight away with a real person at the farm who knows all about our flowers as is very well placed to help you.
And all the other jobs
As well as picking there are plenty of other jobs to do around the farm to make sure we grow top quality flowers. There is also our small beef herd to look after, general maintenance, and trips to the quay to make sure we pick up and deliver all our incoming and outgoing freight. Everything has to come in and out by boat so we could be picking up anything from toilet rolls to a new piece of farm machinery. We also have two holiday cottages so in the summer there is extra cleaning and gardening to do to ensure they are well maintained. By 5pm most people are heading home, one person stays on for an extra half an hour to take any last minute orders and make sure the office is kept clean and tidy.
The Churchtown herd
We have a small beef herd that has two jobs - conservation grazing for the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust and improving soil health in our bulb fields. They are pretty chilled and low maintenance, living outdoors all year round but of course we still need to do welfare checks.
Getting a tractor off a boat
Everything we need to run the farm has to come by sea and we have to collect it from one of the two quays on St Martin's. Obviously some things are a little easier to deliver than others. Big deliveries take a bit of organising, including getting the weather and tide just right.
BIG sends
Christmas and Mother's Day are really busy times for us, with thousands of boxes of Scilly flowers being sent as presents. To deliver so many flowers how we work changes a bit. We need more help to get all the flowers packed so some packing is done on St Mary's. Instead of putting the flower boxes into post sacks they're carefully stacked onto pallets and travel to the mainland on the freight boat. The boat takes a little longer than the plane but the flowers are transported in the boat's cold stores to keep them fresh.
Enjoy the flowers
Flowers are delivered by the Royal Mail a few days after leaving the Isles of Scilly. All the flowers we send are selected as they are robust and travel well. They opened up a little during their journey and will benefit from being trimmed and put in fresh water as soon as possible. In the box are easy to follow flower care tips and flower food to maximise vase life and enjoyment. Despite our best efforts very occasionally sending fresh flowers through the post does go wrong. If you ever have a problem please get in touch so that we can put any problems right.
