Monday 17 September 2012


Morning all,

Another pleasant Sunday on the weather front. Hopefully lots of people will be running down to their local plant centre to hoover up lots of plants. We live in hope.

We have had a quiet week at work with lots of people on holiday. Still managed to get lots of potting done, leaving us with just a few odd crops still to do. The main batch of Erysimum Bowles Mauve cuttings arrived on Friday and then potting the Alliums and other border bulbs is usually the last potting operation of the year and they are due in at the end of the month. It would be nice to say that we can then relax for the winter but we seem to have a pretty long list of things to do so I don’t think we will be bored. One thing we are going to have to have a good look at is completing our Lean Management projects in order to pass our course. We got of to a flying start with these but the pressures of coping with the difficult season and trying to catch up with the potting programme has put them on the back burner for a bit. I’m sure once everyone is back and the potting is complete we will do the training justice and suitably impress the assessors. The first project we did in the potting tunnel has certainly worked well, it is all set out nicely, much tidier and safer as well as hopefully more efficient. The encouraging thing is that the initial improvements we made in there are being maintained which is great.

Feeling a bit let down this week by the disclosures about the Hillsborough disaster of 23 years ago and the long term cover up which I found quite unsettling and the bonkers coverage of some rather nastily sneaky photos of someone topless sunbathing. Kate stole the headlines for at least three days. Now come on boys and girls, everyone has a chest of one sort or another there is no real surprise there and on the whole they are nothing to be ashamed of or shocked by, there must be more important things we could be focussing on. In a week involving the tragedy in Pakistan when 250+ men, women and children were killed in a clothing factory fire because of rubbish safety precautions, shouldn’t we be looking at why this sort of thing might be happening around the world? I wonder if any of the supermarket/multiple buyers will be asking i f their relentless pursuit of cheap stuff might have anything to do with the shortcuts employers might take around the world if pursuit of a sale? Supermarkets are advertising school sweatshirts ‘from £2’ and a pair of polo shirts ‘from £2.50’. Both are 100% cotton. That is astonishing value at the consumer end here and I can’t blame those with limited income taking up these offers but aren’t we going to have to have a think about how these prices are achieved. Take a look at the production cycle, someone has to grow and pick the cotton crop (groundwork, fertilisers, sprays, weed control, harvesting) that will be transported to the processing plant to extract the cotton fibres, spin it, dye it, weave it into the cloth. Then it goes to the clothing manufacturer for cutting, sewing, adding any extras (cuffs, collars, buttons etc), bagging, boxing and crating for transport to the docks. Transport to UK and to central distribution depots, redistribute to stores, go through the retail processes and in theory leave a margin for the retailer. In the UK at minimum wage rates, £2.00 would equate to less than 15 mins work by the time breaks, NI, holidays and sick are accounted for, let alone looking at the costs of any materials or energy involved.

OK lecture time over.

Looking back instead of forward. This week I discovered another wonder of the internet by downloading Google Earth. Better late than never. I have seen Google’s satellite photographs on various websites before and I had a look at the nursery from above this week. I spotted that I could see the outline of some of our iron-age ditches in crop markings in the field above the nursery (to the right(east) as you look at the screen). Having informed our favourite archaeologist Brian Meredith of my findings he said to download Google Earth properly and take a look at the historical pictures you can see on there for even better images. Sure enough the 2005 pictures show even more detail than the current ones (2008). There looks like a small settlement in there somewhere if you look hard enough. Just stick in a postcode and off you go. Our is SO21 2PJ if you want to see the next Time Team project!

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

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