Saturday 17 March 2012

A lovely drop of rain this morning to freshen things up. Hoping it will have stopped by midday as I have my first game of hockey of the day. Normally two games in a weekend finishes me off but two in one day is madness in my physical condition. I just struggle to say no and late last night when nephew Tom phoned to ask if I could take his place as he had had a better offer (only vague details involving university, games and social eventing) and I hadn’t the heart to refuse.


I hope Mothering Sunday gives you all a boost to sales, there was certainly plenty of activity in the Waitrose flower and chocolate dept’s this morning. Things are definitely picking up on the sales front after a lovely weekend and a bit of rain over a couple of days hopefully will reduce concerns about impending hosepipe restrictions.

Although we do work in a great industry which has lots of potential positive aspects I found parts of this week a little less than idyllic. We get quite frantic on Mondays after a sunny weekend, the orders flood in and we have to start sorting out order collation and delivery. The last thing I needed was the news that the men’s urinals were not emptying! I spent the next rather tense day and a half dodging between the office and underneath the loo block. I will spare you the detail but it was one of those jobs where just about everything that could go wrong did, no standard pipe fittings and no easy access. Anyway it’s all sorted now but the attraction of running your own nursery did take a dent. On the positive side I can now end the week flushed with success.

We had a brilliant time last weekend, after a birthday curry with a few friends and an ace present of a shiny new archaeologist’s trowel on Saturday, we went on a walk around Stonehenge on Sunday. The weather was stunning and the walk fascinating. It was led by Brian who is a very enthusiastic and imaginative archaeologist and he walked and talked us through all the latest discoveries about the famous ancient site. Most of the new info has only come to light over the last few years or even months and is summarised in a new book about Stonehenge coming out next June. We visited the newly found Blue Stonehenge (2009) which is down by the River Avon. This is where the Welsh Blue Stones that make up the original inner circle of Stonehenge were first originally erected in a circle before being moved to the existing site. The site of Blue Stonehenge was found when ‘The Avenue’, a track/processional route that goes from Stonehenge, was traced back to the River Avon. The remains of the holes left by the stones and a few bluestone chips were discovered next to the river and matched by laser mapping to the shape of the stones now at Stonehenge. There is nothing much to see other than a privately owned unmarked tussocky field but it was quite exciting to be there none the less. Then we had a sandwich on the Cursus which is another odd marked area believed to be another processional site in full view of Stonehenge. It is about 3km long and 100m across and is marked out with the remains of a ditch and bank and predates most of Stonehenge by 500 years. A few months ago they discovered two big pits believed to hold two stones near each end of the feature. When mapped on computer they were found to relate to the large Heel Stone next to Stonehenge and aline exactly to midsummer sunrise and midsummer sunset when viewed from the Heel Stone. Google on ‘Blue Stonehenge’ or ‘Cursus pits found’ for more info but watch out for the bonkers sites this sort of subject attracts! I wonder if this discovery will change the midsummer focus at the henge, as this summer’s event will be the first since the discovery.

Eco News

Finalised and ordered the basic bio-control programme this week, with 7 predators coming in on a regular schedule to do their bit against a wide range of pests. We also have a couple of bio-fungicides and bio-insecticides which use funguses to attack specific pests and diseases. It’s early days in this field but progress is accelerating at an exciting rate as more effort is put into chemical alternatives. The drive behind this progress isn’t wishy-washy beardy-weirdy hopes, but a commercial need to combat the resistance to chemical controls building up in the pests and diseases. Hopefully we will all benefit from these new approaches in the long run.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

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