Who else forgot to change the clocks before they went to bed last night, but set their alarm as usual! I was really looking forward to that extra hour in bed too, but it gave me time to do some planning and work before it was light enough to go for a walk. For the next few weeks I'm going to be appreciating that we can get out for a walk again before 7am, but complaining about the dark evenings when we're resigned to pavement walks. But I'll also be trying to make the most of what light we do have before and after work to get some much needed jobs done at the allotment.

Collie Flowers have been "live" for just over a fortnight now and in every possible way it's exceeded my expectations. I've made connections with people online who are like minded and love gardening, I even met someone this morning while out walking Cooper who asked me if we were "Nic and Cooper from the Collie seeds place", they'd just started following us and recognised Cooper's distinctive face. I think that, almost as much as our first order that made me happy about what we've achieved.

We've even had a mention on the radio; now that didn't go quite as I planned it but nonetheless gave us some great exposure. A note for anyone whoever wants to write into a radio show, a beautiful handwritten letter might seem a great idea in your head, but typewritten is more legible!

But more than the orders, the exposure and the online following we're building, Collie Flowers is focussing my mind more on the garden and allotment and making sure I'm spending time in both doing the jobs that are needed. Having spent most of this year locked away planning for Collie Flowers I feel like I'm now striking a better balance between work (day-job), home, family, Collie Flowers and the gardens. I'm also far more focussed when I'm in the garden on what I want to do and getting it done, of course I still spend time pottering, looking and planning but I'm not procrastinating as much as I used to. Which is a good thing as there are quite a few jobs to do before the Head Gardener and Compost Man return from their travels in a few weeks and judge how well I've been looking after things.

The focus has definitely been helped by writing about what we gardeners could be doing at this time of year. As much as the new In the Garden pages are there to be a helpful guide for anyone, I'm going to be using them in part as my to do list! So keep an eye on those pages as they develop for jobs you can do each month to keep your garden growing.

We've also been busy preparing for the future. Christmas isn't too far away and we're going to be launching a few new curated collections for our Seed Tins and Seed Calendar to coincide with the season and also what us gardeners will want to be doing over the first few months of 2023. I've also learned that in retail, planning for Christmas beings in the summer, so I've got a bit of catching up to do as my summer was spent focussed on the launch only, but in just a couple of weeks we'll have something special to share with you.

That's not all we've been doing, Collie Flowers is going physical as well as digital. In just 6 weeks we'll be taking or products to a Christmas Fair and in 2023 we've planned our attendance at a few Artisan and Gift Markets that are local to us. We'd really like to see some friendly faces there, so if you're in the area, or fancy a roadtrip do come by for a bit of gardening chat and maybe to stock up on your seeds for next year.