Mum set to open Wirral's first pick your own flower farm

A woman, who started an allotment, is set to open the first public flower farm in Wirral next year. Jen Howarth, 38, who is originally from Huyton, was a complete beginner at gardening when she started her allotment a week before the first Covid-19 lockdown began.

Now, four years later, she is planning to open the Wirral’s first pick-your-own flower farm. The mum is set to join forces with Claremont Farm to open the farm, where visitors can come and pick and arrange their flower bouquets. She hopes it will open in May 2025 but says that this depends on the outcome of the weather. Jen said: “It all began with experimenting with growing plants on my windowsill and I was like ‘Oh my god, I made this grow.’”

The mum later decided to start growing her food for herself, husband Dan and daughter Elsie. Jen, who also runs a baby and toddler class business, applied for the allotment in September 2019 before managing to get a plot six months later. On March 29 2020, Jen started her Instagram account @life_on_the_lot which has since amassed over 26,000 followers.

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Over the last four years, Jen has shared the process of the allotment’s complete transformation with her followers, as well as many eye-catching images of home-grown food and her family enjoying time in the outdoors. She said, “[When we started] we had no idea what it would entail but we were both very enthusiastic about it.”

Wirral Flower Farm is scheduled to open at Claremont Farm in Bebington in May 2025, nestled on a field close to the Farm Shop entrance. Jen added: "Claremont Farm is about a mile away from my house, so that was the idea to start working with them.

"I dropped them a message, told them my idea and they were just really really interested in the biodiversity side of things and how we can help the environment. They've been supportive in starting to get things off the ground so it was a massive backing from them to go in on such a new idea, so it's been an absolute dream come true."

On the Life on the Lot website, it states that Wirral Flower Farm will commit to sustainable practices by creating habitats for insects and animals, using organic growing techniques that avoid the use of harsh chemicals, and providing workshops with a focus on educating visitors on wildlife conservation.

When sharing her plans for the flower farm, Jen said: “We have a massive issue with declining biodiversity across the world because of over-farming and a lack of green spaces.

“Because flowers are seen as such a luxury, people don’t consider their environmental impact like they do with food. Florists don’t question it, and supermarkets don’t question it.” You can book a floral workshop at Wirral Flower Farm for May 2025 at the link here.