Now that was a bit more wintery. I must admit we did turn on the central heating on Wednesday just to keep it nice and cosy. We got down to -9C on the nursery thermometer on Friday night and just a degree or two warmer the previous couple of nights. Last night we had a couple of inches of snow but this morning it is mostly slush and it is relatively warm so that might be the winter done for us in the barmy south. Despite the cold we still played hockey yesterday and although I wasn’t particularly looking forward to getting down to my shorts in this weather it was fine, partly due to foam shin pads, padded knee protectors and long shorts covering everything but an inch or two and partly due to scoring twice and setting up the third in a 3-2 win! Unfortunately my goals were not very pretty and the cross that set up the goal was supposed to be a shot but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

The cold weather did slow things up here a bit with a few frozen pipes in the loo’s and mess room but at least the irrigation system should be ok. A few weeks ago we set up the new system with a compressed air fitting so we can now blow out the water in the pipes and spray-lines onto the crop by running a specific programme on the irrigation controller, preventing any pipe freezing damage. Having suffered quite a bit of damage last winter this does give us a lot more irrigation flexibility in the cold season and confidence that we can cheaply and easily safeguard the system. Another step forwards. One new bit of kit I have discovered this winter is pipe heating cable which we had installed under the insulation on all our water inlet pipes around the storage tank and pump shed. It runs on low power electric cable which gently warms the pipe when temperatures drop, the colder it gets the more it heats. Although it does use a little bit of power it is much cheaper than fixing the damage that can be caused by frozen pipes. I will have to have a look at getting the pipe-work going into the portacabins done to help out these vulnerable spots which always seem to freeze up.

Sales were a bit subdued but the timing worked out well. We had been due to get our new van delivered this week, the old one has passed its sell by date and can no longer be used in the new London emissions zone, but it was delayed with some technical problem and never arrived. Hopefully it should be here in the coming week and we can have a play. It is a good illustration of how things move on in just 5 years, the emissions are far less and the fuel economy improved. We have gone with an automatic for the first time, as it is supposed to be more reliable (not a good start so far!) and save a bit on fuel.

Eco News

We are extending our LED lighting trial in the growth room of the microprop lab. The plants are doing really well under the trial lights but the light spread isn’t quite good enough for our narrow shelf heights, so we are going to try a different arrangement where the lights are individually mounted on a ‘string’ so we can spread them out over the whole shelf area. It will be more complicated to install but if it works could mean we can create more production area in the same room, while reducing energy costs for the lighting by 60% and reducing temperature control costs too.

Another example of technology moving forward for the better is the latest developments in air source heat pumps which we use for controlling the temperatures in the lab. We replaced one unit that died in the summer which was about 8 years old with a new unit which has an inverter in it. The running costs fell noticeably for us and the claims of between 35% and 65% savings in energy use looking true. The nice thing about this change is that the units are not just significantly cheaper to run but do the job better which can’t always be said of environmental advances. Basically an inverter changes the way the units work, rather than being on or off when heating or cooling, they make gradual changes adding a little more heat or cooling as the environment demands it. This variable control makes for more subtle temperature changes in the room, less cold draughts or hot winds and reduced energy use. Naturally the cleverer system is more expensive to initially buy but the payback is very quick if it is in constant use.

If you want to start on some environmental improvements where you are, the first steps are very cheap. Read, record and try and understand your energy use, it sounds really dull but it does focus attention but watch out it can get addictive! When I first started I was reading the meter several times a day to try and understand what was going on, but I have got it down to once a day now, well except for the turbine meter of course which gets read a lot when it’s windy!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries