Morning all,

Happy Jubilee to all.

Managed to squeeze in a fantastic street party and barn dance yesterday evening after a hectic day doing yet more improvements to the irrigation plumbing. It was held in Strawberry Lane, Up Somborne just down the road, where we tucked into a hog roast and jelly and ice cream. Delicious. Kept warm and wore off some of the calories at the barn dance which was very jolly. Never quite sure about barn dances myself but once you start it is great laugh, just don’t take anything too seriously!

Bit cool & showery today but not as bad as predicted. I hope Queeny gets some dry spells for her turn on the river this afternoon. With a bit of luck she will enjoy it all as much as she did her day at the races yesterday. I bet she’s looking forward to the concert on Monday, she can’t even slip away early as there are all those beacons to light afterwards. It’s great to see such a positive reaction to it all, let’s hope it keeps gaining momentum throughout the summer with all the fab summer events going on and spills over into a bit of garden purchasing as well.

I got my left handed jubilee hair cut yesterday. My Boris Johnson look was getting hard to manage but a quick whizz over with the clippers did the trick. Luckily my sight is failing and I can’t see round the back but there were not too many ‘whoops’ during the exercise so I don’t feel any more self conscious than usual.

Nursery life continues to bowl along, loads to do and lots of orders to send out. This coming week is going to be interesting with only 3 proper working days in it. We are going to have a small crew in on Tuesday to make a start on things but depending on how things go we may need to extend deliveries over into Saturday if demand is high. Having such a long weekend is very disorientating, I feel like I can get lots done as there are so few distractions , but there is no getting away from the fact that having 20 people not on site for two days makes a dent on the list of achievements likely to be completed this week.

I’m doing a delivery to Eden on Monday so looking forward to that now I have discovered the wonders of their ace bakery. I hope they are baking on the bank holiday. After the last trip we overdosed on breads and scones all week. I will try not to get carried away this time, although I all ready have some other bread orders to add to our own. Great bread and a nice beer, doesn’t take much to please me. Good job, after the career choice I made and after this spring I may have to forgo the beer.

Eco News

Turbines are all going again, touch wood. The engineers arrived on Wednesday as planned in near perfect conditions for taking down the tower and replacing the broken part. Everything was back up and plugged in by the end of the day and the wind picked up instantly to test it out.

Latest batch of bio-controls came in this week. At least the weather is now a bit more insect friendly to help get them get established and keep on top of many of the pests.

One pest we have had trouble with this year is pigeons. They seem to have taken a fancy to the foliage of several plants. Aquilegia, phlox and wild rocket seem particularly popular, over a couple of days they come in and strip off the foliage. It took a while to identify the culprits, we suspected mice and rabbits first but we have now nailed the blame on the pigeon. Now we will have to work on a strategy to combat them.

If you need a fax list please let us know, pick it up from the website or alternately send an email address. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries