What a lovely weekend, bright, sunny and springy. I have just had a nice walk round the nursery to check up on things and the skylarks are singing, grasshoppers rubbing legs, frogs croaking and rabbits are unfortunately trimming plants back. We still haven’t really got on top of the rabbit population we fenced in a few seasons ago. The cat keeps on top of most of the young ones as they appear but there always seem to be a few that get away and nibble away in odd places. Usually once the hedge undergrowth and grass gets growing they move onto this so hopefully won’t do too much permanent damage.

The plants are beginning to show signs of the first spring growth spurt which makes things look more positive after the recent cold snap which did knock a few things back. Hopefully seeing the green shoots of the spring will restore a bit of confidence in the customers and we can all get excited about growing stuff all over again.

We got quite excited yesterday with a night out in King’s Somborne village hall. Not a venue we frequent often, I’m not much good at village panto’s, I struggle to let my imagination go far enough to really enjoy that sort of thing! However they hosted a concert by The Wiyo’s http://thewiyos.com/ who are a fantastically talented band from New York we had never heard of before this week. We checked them out on the internet and they were well reviewed, so went to see. There was a sell out crowd of about 150 and they got a very varied show from polka’s and a waltz to rock and roll and bizarre folk. I think the song about ‘mother had a baby and its head popped off’ was probably the most surprising. Overall an evening when it was a good decision to take a risk. Bonkers.

Unfortunately the evening was spoilt at the end by the news that one of our great friends had gone to hospital earlier with chest pains. He is should be OK now as they have fitted a stent to sort out the problem so should be out on Tuesday. We were playing skittles together last Tuesday (could have been the excitement) and he was playing hockey when he felt unwell, so it all feels very close. Luckily he is such a lovely chap with such a nice family that there is lots of support to help and our best wishes go to all for a speedy recovery. Well done the NHS for sorting him out so efficiently and for the other three chaps I know of my sort of age who have had the same op in the last year or so. Years ago the outcome might have been different. On top of one of our staff sadly losing her mother this week it is a sobering time, I’m off for a therapeutic hug under the turbines.

Eco News

A quiet couple of days on the turbines but they are still up there doing their thing when conditions allow. We will really miss them when the leaves come out and we lose sight of them from the house, it’s always nice to see them greeting us with a wave when we open the curtains.

I came across this document last week which goes over the governments current feed in tariff review which is a bit log winded but does have some very interesting graphs and info in it. The current position on the number of solar installations in comparison with the other renewable schemes is included which is surprising. You can see why they wanted to lower the tariff early for solar, it has been taken up on such a big scale. http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Consultations/fits-review/4311-feed-in-tariff-scheme-phase-2b-consultation-docume.pdf

If anyone lives in Hampshire and is short on house insulation check out http://www.insulatehampshire.co.uk/ where you can now get free cavity wall insulation and either free or very cheap loft insulation to top up to the minimum requirement of 11.5 inches. Alternatively contact your energy supplier as I heard this week that some are offering financial rewards for installing free insulation, as the take up was not high enough. Do it if you can, it seems like a really dull purchase but saves money year after year and will save more and more as energy prices continue to rise.

Nature Stuff

No frogspawn at 7.30am on Saturday, but loads by 10.00am. Spring has sprung.

Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries