Everything's coming up roses for Fife farmer Alex Nelson

The Courier

15-05-2025

There are few things nicer in life than receiving a delivery of flowers through the front door.
If these flowers are grown and packed in Scotland, even better.
Fourth generation dairy farmer Alex Nelson is doing her bit for flower growing in Scotland.
She runs a peony rose and dahlia business at Easter Upper Urquhart Farm near Strathmiglo in Fife.
Alex explained that more than 85% of cut flowers sold in the UK are imported.
She is, therefore, proud to be able to supply Scottish-grown, seasonal flowers under her brand name, Jack Blooms.
In 2014, following a degree in geography at Aberdeen University, Alex, the eldest of four girls, came home to work on the family farm with her mum and dad, Ben and Susan Jack.
The farm is a traditional mixed enterprise, with dairy, arable and sheep.
Although Alex had always helped out during holidays, there was a lot to learn. The herd of 350 Holstein cows is milked three times a day by a team of three dairymen, with help from relief milkers.
It's a 'flying herd', meaning all the replacement heifers are bought in and the cows are bulled with an Aberdeen-Angus, with the calves being sold to finishers.
It is also one of the Glasgow Vet School herds and the farm team works closely with staff and students, learning from their expertise.
Meanwhile the students learn from the Jack family's dairy system.
Alex said: 'Dairying is very intense, it is relentless work seven days a week, 365 days a year.'
The family also run 1,000 cross ewes, which lamb outside in May, with the help of local contract shepherds. The Suffolk cross lambs are finished on grass and turnips alongside bought-in Blackfaces in time for the Easter market.
As if she was not busy enough, and with her 2020 wedding postponed due to Covid, Alex was looking for something else to do during lockdown.
Her grandad, Colin Grahame, grew prize-winning dahlias, so she decided to put up a small polytunnel and, with lots of Facetime instruction from Colin, she started growing flowers to sell locally.
From this inauspicious start, Alex thought it would be interesting to grow flowers commercially on a field scale. She settled on peonies because they are robust flowers which cope well with the Scottish climate, can be grown outside and are perennial.
There is also a well-established market for the flowers with retailers.
Alex said: 'I really wanted to have something within the business that was mine, from idea to implementation. I did a lot of research and decided peonies were a great diversification to add to our farm calendar.'
The initial peonies were planted in 2020, with the first small harvest in 2022 – too late, unfortunately for Alex's 2021 wedding to Angus Nelson.
It has been a steep learning curve since then, she told us.
She has, with the help of skilled workers on the farm, developed a planter and picking rig and also purchased a second-hand processor, which sorts the flowers into bunches of five, with equal length stems, ready to be transported south to the distribution centre.
Alex continued: 'We usually start picking around the second week in June for 10 to 14 days.
'But there are so many variables with the weather – every year there is a different challenge to meet the tight specification.'
She employs local people on holiday from school or university to de-bud and pick.
'One of the great things to come out of this is giving young people the opportunity to work on a farm,' Alex said, adding: 'This has led to some coming back to help with milking or other jobs. I am very proud of my young team.'
Most of the flowers are transported to a packhouse in England, where they are distributed to various retailers, but in 2023, Alex developed her Jack Blooms boxes.
She said: 'I wanted to add value, but also to create a brand and a more luxury arm to the business.'
The flowers are picked in bud and packed, 10 stems at a time, in boxes before being posted out to customers who order on her website. Because they are robust flowers which happily survive several days without water, peony roses are ideal for this market and can be pre-ordered from May 30.
The dahlias, however, are best sold at local farm shops and retailers.
Alex took a break from growing dahlias when her daughter, Sibella, was born last year but has recently been cleaning out her tunnels to plant some more for this season.
Managing a toddler, dairy farm, staff rotas and a flower business keeps her very busy.
But she is showing no signs of slowing down and at the time of writing was planning to travel to Norfolk to pick peonies and see if she can find ways of improving her business.
She said: 'Growing flowers in Scotland extends the season for home-grown UK flowers, so the demand is there.
'In the future, I would like to try out different varieties to find out what is possible to grow successfully in our climate.'