What a lovely spring day. I just walked past one of the nursery ponds and there was a lot of splashing about as all the frogs took cover, they are very active today in the warm sunshine. I’ve been active too in an exciting 0-0 draw early today in Petersfield. Feeling a bit weak now and very nearly fell asleep in front of the rugby but couldn’t afford the time. It’s a busy day today, lots to fit in with groceries, hockey, availability lists, irrigating, seed sowing and present opening, then later I’ve birthday visitors, turbine inspection and curry, ace! Caroline is looking after me on my big day by disappearing off to see Saints play in another important game still pushing for promotion. Had some lovely presents including the now regular nest-box (I think that’s about six in the last three years, this time it is a very smart sparrow terrace) chocs and beer, and best of all two packs of mixed grill from the fantastic local butchers in Stockbridge.

Had a great day out last Sunday on our over 50’s cup trip to Jersey. Exciting flight with high cross winds making for a lively approach and landing and warranting a round of applause from many on touchdown. I think we were still reliving the plane trip in the first few minutes when we went behind, but we pulled ourselves together and made a good game of it nearly getting it back on several occasions. However it would have been terribly rude of us to win as they had funded most of our trip and looked after us so well, so we were satisfied enough with a good game a nice beer and lunch at the pub. I managed to attract a strip search in airport security on the way out which was a novelty, not something we experience on our trips into Cornwall! I don’t think it was my shifty appearance particularly, just the old man’s back brace I was wearing to hold myself together. Things are building up on the nursery with sales picking up and the potting and pricking out well underway which gets us all in the spring mood.

For anyone visiting the nursery to pick up plants we can now quickly deal with card payments with our new card terminal which means that even I can cope with taking a payment by card. Thankfully I don’t have to remember any pin codes only you do, so I’m much more capable of taking your money than getting out any of my own!

Watch out for 5 planets in the sky over the next night or two, apparently it doesn’t happen often. Check out the Google sky app on a smart-phone to identify what you are seeing.

I’m off to polish up my iron-age cooking stones to impress Brian our visiting archaeologist. Not sure if he will be that excited really but it gives me a buzz when I’ve picked them out of a trench in our field.

Eco News

The wild flower strip we sowed last year as part of the ecological development to compensate for putting up the turbines is looking well established. We will be extending it this spring as it is keeping the willow-herb and bitter-cress weeds at bay and will attract a wider range of predator insects which we hope will help our pest control. We now have our plan set out of predator introductions for the coming season with the first batches going in towards the end of this month when the temperatures get high enough for them to be truly active. Until then we will spot spray any problem outbreaks so that the predators get off to a nice balanced start. This means we need a small pest population for the predators to get stuck into and establish themselves then they can spread successfully and keep on top of things.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries