I hope everyone is well and building themselves up to selling and buying a lot of plants this coming Spring. Hopefully the worst of the weather is behind us now and both the plants and I will start to look happier as the spring sap rises. I reckon that we have now got used to a bit of colder weather as we have geared ourselves up to cope. I certainly am having trouble giving up my second pair of trousers I started wearing during the snow, it’s just so cosy and does confirm, that comfort scores much higher than fashion now(oh no I’m doomed).


We’ve had a very hectic week whizzing about doing orders and setting things up for the spring rush. We have 2 more qualified forklift drivers after they finished their training and passed their tests this week and the eco activity went off the scale (see below)!


Can’t really get through another newsletter without mentioning the terrible trouble in Haiti, the scale of such an event is impossible to imagine. I just think back a week or two, to the fuss made over a bit of cold and snow and the difficulties in travel, water supply and the odd power cut. It does make you grateful that most of our problems and worries are relatively minor to those being experienced over there, but also highlights how easily the whole thing can suddenly change.
Make the most of today, the sun is out here!

I was reminded while watching the news of a very lovely lady, Annie, we know in St Ives who runs an amazing shoe shop. The shoes, made by Jan Jansen, are only sold through 4 or 5 outlets around the world and are a bit mad. Sadly after many years the exchange rate, over the last 18 months, has scuppered the business and she has spent this year selling off the accumulated stock of the past seasons. Although very sad about the shops demise, she was still so bubbly and positive I asked her what her secret was. Rather surprisingly it was that every morning when she watched the news she would have a good cry, which set her up for the day because she recognised how luck she actually was. Mind you she is as mad as the shoes.
Do you feel better now? How about buying some plants!

Eco Update

Big, big week this week, as we went public with our plans for erecting 3 ‘small’ wind turbines on the hill above the nursery. We haven’t actually put in a planning application yet, this is a pre-planning notification exercise to get some of the anticipated questions and excitement sorted out and hopefully some support mustered. We notified the 3 local parish councils and delivered (by bike!) over 400 ‘Dear Neighbour’ letters. I got invited to introduce ourselves and the idea to one council meeting on Thursday, which went ok and we have received some feedback directly already.


Perhaps surprisingly the feedback has all been very positive so far, although it is early days, but best of all, those positive responses have been from our closest neighbours, big and small (by big I mean organisationally (local college), not physically!). I do suspect that any protests will be made via the councils, newspapers and planning departments rather than direct to us. We’ll see.
Anyway, you can find out loads more if you click the turbines on either of our two websites http://www.kirtonfarm.co.uk/ or http://www.hairypotplants.co.uk/ you can even read our ‘Dear Neighbour’ letter and see full details of the planning backup documentation.

At some point this week we will have a specific ‘wind response’ email account running from these web-pages where everyone can let us know what they think, good or bad, and we can then keep them up to date with progress of the project. Obviously we are after any support or input we can get and hope that we can generate a good positive result. Please do bear in mind that those protesting against something, tend to make more noise about it than those supporting it, or are just ‘ok’ about it. Don’t you worry, I will be keeping you all up to date and pressing for your input over the coming months.


I also attended another PLATO Sustain meeting this week inputting loads of data into a mega spreadsheet recording our use of stuff over the last two years (all forms of energy input, transport records, waste and recycling breakdown, company detail (staff, turnover etc) and procurement volumes (for the material items we buy most of)). We are top of the class at the moment on our recycling record with 89% of our waste being recycled (by volume), mainly helped by the fact that we compost all our green waste, of which there can be a lot! We could reduce that further by compacting the waste we do put to landfill but we don’t really have enough to justify it and I suspect it gets quite compacted by the collection vehicle. We are still looking to reduce landfill and are hoping soon to reduce our weekly collection to one domestic sized wheelie bin, not bad for a company employing 22 permanent staff.


Yesterday, I entered our figures into our 10:10 database for our 2009 energy use. It has come up with a calculation of 112 tonnes of C02 produced by the company and given us a target of just over 100 tonnes to achieve by the end of the year. I reckon we are well on the way to achieving that reduction already, despite the cold weather. Check out the campaign website; http://www.1010uk.org/

Please do join in, we are only weenie and can’t make that much difference, but if we can get everyone to think a bit differently and do their bit we can work together to achieve something very positive.


We finished our hedge planting on Tuesday and now have 300 native whips in and raring to go.

Don't forget to do your bit.
Have a good week

PS I will try and contain my excitement next week as I know life is short!