Phew, what a scorcher. This is all a bit of a shock to the system, it’s been like June out there not early April. It does make everything look stunning in the hedgerows and gardens so hopefully everyone will be enthused and excited about the spring garden projects. I wonder how many out there are asking already about bedding plants? - it must be tempting despite the prospect of weeks of potential frosts still to come. Summer also arrived with the first two swallows spotted on Sunday shooting off down the valley, then on Tuesday our pair arrived and started nesting activity and feeding around the donkey shed, which is their usual haunt. Lots of feel good stuff going on, don’t forget to look up and see it.

Usual nursery activity on the arrival of the sun and heat, fog system goes on a go slow, in need of new nozzles and ventilation fan in microprop weening tunnel trips out, needing a motor rewind. Perfect, so plants and pricking out teams have been wilting all week. In the house the insulation is beginning to get too efficient and we may have to look at a change in tactics for the summer. In theory it can keep the house cooler in summer but not when you’ve got an Aga generating heat in the middle! Whereas before most of the heat leaked away and left us in the cold it is now all retained which is great until the sun comes out. Still at least we have reduced our oil consumption by over 60% this winter, and I reckon it will be more next year as we didn’t get the insulation complete until December.

If I can find time this week we will need to have a bit of a tidy up as we have a team of judges coming round for the local business awards competition. The nursery looks pretty smart, for a nursery, but the judges may not be used to the somewhat primitive facilities we are all used to here. We are in the Green Innovations final and the overall Business of the Year final which is all very exciting. I can’t say I’m brimming over with confidence as they have asked to see our financial results and our business plan. Well the financials are ok, we are showing a marked improvement in the last couple of years after many years of less than impressive returns but the business plan is stored away in the spreadsheet that is my head. In other words we make it up as we go along. Not sure if that will be sufficient to impress anyone with our long term planning! The trouble with doing a written plan, well one of my written plans anyway, is that it is out of date before it’s even finished.

Eco news
I’m in print already. Our copy of South East Farmer magazine arrived complete with the telephone interview I unwittingly gave last week and it’s ok, luckily no picture. http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=w18B3K0j1mJ7&PBID=86ca4d1f-d261-48bf-a7cf-4c10bd9ca517&skip=

After introducing the anti vine weevil fungus (Met 54 or is it 55, can’t remember) as a new bio control this spring we have also got another new introduction to come onto the nursery next week. We have had a couple of aphid predators before among our usual bio control introductions but this is a ready mixed tube of six different ones that cover the control of over thirty different aphid types. We hang the tube up in the tunnel, they hatch, have a feed of glucose syrup on the end of the tube and that gives them the energy to zoom off and start eating and laying eggs in their prey. It’s not a particularly cheap solution at over £18/tube, one in each tunnel, three introductions needed to build up a population but results last year were said to be impressive and it should further reduce any control sprays we use.

Nature ramblings

Swallows in residence.

Newts active and feeding on the tadpoles which are growing strongly. They will soon be grown and getting revenge by eating newt babies. It’s an amphibian eat amphibian world out there.

Wagtails are nest building somewhere but haven’t spotted where yet, it’s bound to be somewhere inconvenient it always is. It only seems to take a day or two, you put a pile of crates down and go to move them and find it, complete with occupants. Then it’s a case of setting up an exclusion zone and hoping for the best.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries