Monday 24 September 2012

Morning all,

Best not talk about the weather today.

We had a great day yesterday. Not only did Southampton get their first win in the premiership but we retained our 5-a-side football title at the Lowaters Nurseries national horticultural championship. OK I may be bigging up the scale of the competition a bit but we did manage to overcome 12 other teams on a lovely day in sunny Portsmouth. Hopefully they raised lots of money for the horticultural charity Perennial and everyone enjoyed themselves as much as we did. In the spirit of fair play I did my bit levelling up the final a bit by letting in two goals between my legs. I’m not sure what happened, my brain could see it happening but the legs failed to respond. That’s two years and 100% record in all games. There’s only one way to go from here. Retire.

Having had a reasonably active day I undid all my good work by getting home and consuming the remains of an enormous rye fruit loaf I got from the Eden Project on Friday. I just could help myself. Zero self control but delicious. I continued my archaeological research this week, firstly looking up more detail on exciting new Stonehenge discoveries reported in one of the papers last weekend. They have found some huge deposits of very old flint tools and Auroch (huge wild cattle) bones at a site called Blick Mead very close to Stonehenge and carbon dated to 6250BC which is thousands of years before the main construction. The site seems to have been a ‘special place’ over a huge length of time and may eventually help point to the beginnings of why Stonehenge is where it is. For more detail try this Open University web page www.open.ac.uk/Arts/classical-studies/amesbury/index.shtml. We still have so much to discover. On a more local level I am 99% sure I have found the remains of a Bronze Age Barrow in one of the fields on the farm. It is completely flattened by ploughing but thanks to the historical aerial shots on Google Earth it still leaves its mark in the crops most years. I went up there one evening to have a closer look but there was not a lot to see on the ground other than recognising what a lovely final resting place. On the top of a long hill overlooking the local high spot of Stockbridge Down which itself has quite a few Barrows on it. There are also some interesting smaller crop marking close by, another Time Team Project!

Eco news

The local council are launching a green accreditation scheme shortly to try and encourage more businesses to do something about their environmental performance which is great. It still surprises me how much lip service is paid to environmental iss ues rather than any action actually being taken so hopefully there will be some positive response to this initiative. As we have stuck our heads above the parapet and actually done a few bits and bobs on this front they have asked me to speak for a couple of minutes at the launch breakfast meeting on our approach to all things green. I hope they lay on lunch too!

Just getting a bit tense that the huge polar ice cap summer melt means a regular shift in Jet Stream for the coming summers.

Best think about something else. Mmm fruit loaf.

Wild stuff

I could still hear the last group of House Martins chattering away in their nest last night although most have now left for the big fly south. I opened the curtains this morning to see a group of 50+ Swallows passing southwards. Sadly summer is drawing to a close. Despite the crummy weather this year our Swallows and House Martins seem to have done ok, let’s hope they do ok over the next few months and make it back in good numbers next Spring.

As soon as potting is complete we are going to have to do some work on rabbit and pigeon control before they start doing too much more damage over the winter. They are both being a real pain this year, as if it wasn’t hard enough already.

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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