Wow, what a stunning morning. Bit nippy, but bright sunshine and mega white frost on everything. I’m sure Spring is just around the corner and plant sales will go mad after such a long winter. We had a couple of days when the sun struggled through this week and everything lifted, temperature, shoot appearance, everyone’s mood (from happy contented paupers to elated and excited peasants (picture, if you can, the street dancing scenes in Larkford after the discovery of the lost turnip)).

We saw the welcome return of some of our Polish agency workers this week which always marks the approach of spring madness, in more ways than one. They are slightly earlier in, than last year, as we are determined to be even more organised and prepared than usual, getting ahead on potting and pricking-out, label printing, plant prep etc. We have been lucky enough to get back the same star performers as we have had in 3 previous seasons, some coming back from Poland specially to help out. There were even a few hugs, although none for me (I prefer the mysterious, aloof, slightly scary air of a respected leader, or it could be I scared them off with a big hug when they all left last year!).

It’s been a very productive week, lots of orders and pricking out (microprop plants from our lab), a bit of potting, wooden label printing and a new job, label counting. Now we are sending nearly all our plants out in boxes of 12 we have identified a time saving tactic of bundling all labels in 12’s, description labels and price labels. This makes the skilled job of collecting together and distribution onto the individual trays, of the right labels, for each order, really quick. This has always been a potential bottleneck in the despatch process, especially when we get busy, and reduces the possibility of mistakes by some of the less experienced staff. Mind you it doesn’t eliminate the idiot driving the computer (me) where the occasional hiccup of info input may cause the odd problem. Rest assured we are trying hard to get it perfect.

Mr Oki hasn’t yet replied to my stiff note I sent last week, I expect, like me, he is busy getting his hands dirty and can’t find the time to do everything. However his printer is now working very nicely which is the main thing.

Tyranny rules ok

After several years of getting the nursery production into a more organised place, Richard, our production & despatch manager, has decided to spend more time with his new family and reduce his time and role on the nursery, so this puts yours truly back in charge! Ok, perhaps Caroline is really, but she does a great job making me think I have something to do with it.

Since Richard started we have radically changed the nursery production, we have now reached a period when things are much simpler than when he started. By the summer we will have finished with our two big ‘shed’ customers (one went 3 years ago) and the plant range will have consolidated to all 1 litre hairies. Although we will miss Richards daily input, with a small adjustment in roles we are determined to make this a positive change and despite a few jitters on the work-load front, we are sure that this arrangement will work well for everyone. You may well still see Richard about, but the main focus for order enquiries after this coming week, will be Caroline or myself (Derek).

Eco Update

Saw a great water recycling/storage project at Lowaters nursery last week, I want one. Actually we may look into this quite closely, as their payback period was 3 years (with grant aid) and using mains water is very inefficient on the eco front as well as becoming increasingly expensive. Unfortunately it’s another of those ‘jam tomorrow’ investments, but maybe the jam is looking sweeter now (they are bound to see us coming and remove the grant aid just before we do it!)

Very close to putting in planning application for the turbines, ooh tense nervous excitement.

Have a good week