For a flower farmer, the ideal would be that everything that you planted would grow, there would be no weather events that destroyed anything, no pest or disease to stop your plants getting to full size and health and you’d sell everything that it produced.

I’m sure that there’s some snorting with laughter happening out there as you read that sentence, because it’s one of those “if only” situations!

BUT, how can you take into account in advance what might be happening to make your equation fail, and what can you do about it?.

First you need to know what Attrition and Wastage are.

Attrition is everything that stops a plant getting to the point where it might make a harvestable crop.

It could be Pest and Disease, Growing conditions or Poor seeds or plants, or Lack of experience, concentration.

Perfect seedlings being given the right amount of light, water, and growing medium.

Wastage is what happens when a flower gets to the point where it is harvestable, but it doesn’t make it off the farm

it could be Poor Quality, Lack of orders, or you may have grown too much, of the wrong thing for the wrong customers

A whole row of Ageratum produces a lot of stems each week. If they don’t all get sold, they are wastage.

Both Attrition and Wastage are bad. They are energy drainers/ time wasters, and they make your work hard, without giving you an end result.

Growing more flowers with less work is the holy grail of flower farming. Making sure you have the right plants for your customers, and that you know what those customer want and how many stems they need from you is the core or our Business of Growing flowers course.

You’ve now got just one more week to sign up, - Registration for the last run of this course with Claire Brown, Carol Siddorn and Paula Baxter closes next Saturday 30th September. - If you want to see what’s included , pop over to our course information here. If you’d like to see the timetable for the modules and therir live zoom calls, do have a look here. If you want to ask any questions to check if this course would be right for you, do email CarolClairePaula@thebusinessofsellingflowers.com