Morning all,

What a lovely weekend as the cold and rain recede for a bit. The first milder day this week saw the main pond suddenly wake up with loads of frog activity although no visible spawning yet. Hopefully this hint of spring will get the gardeners up and going, we could all do with a few green pounds being spent fairly soon.

What a hectic week we had, with loads of stuff going on. Greg and myself went on a day’s training to be signed off as ‘competent’ people, Valentine’s Day gifts went down fairly well, and I lost £1,000 in just a few seconds!

As spring approaches our propagation area get’s going and larger areas need a bit of heat, so we fired up another heater this week which always hurts. On the plus side our oil consumption was tiny over the winter after we installed extra pipe insulation around the boilers and smugness welled inside, only to be rudely punctured this week when we tapped the tank gauge and the needle fell off! Having then dipped the tank we found only a few inches left in the bottom rather than it being nearly¾full, that’s a thousand pound bill materialising with the tap of the finger, ouch. Still at least we didn’t run out and lose plants
instead which would have been more painful. Gauge is repaired and working again and a valuable lesson learnt. Beware the self-righteous glow it can burn.

Invested a bit more in the future this week by training as a Portable Appliance Tester so we can now carry out our own testing once the new kit arrives. The one day course at Sparsholt College was perfect, a bit of technical stuff, lots of practical te sting of appliances and trying out a wide range of testing kits. I have now ordered a really user-friendly tester and two of us are now sanctioned as ‘competent’ to use it. Now we can do our annual checking and sticker application at our own convenience which is great, keeps us up to date and saves us money each year.

Eco-news

After ‘helping’ launch the Winchester Carbon Smart Scheme back in the Autumn by talking about our sustainable developments over the last few years, we have actually got round to signing up for it this week. http://www.carbonsmart.co.uk/carbon-smart-winchester Having taken a quick look at the Carbon Smart website and questionnaire back then I wasn’t sure if we had already gone too far to really benefit from their input. The level of recording they are initially looking at is a bit more general than the level we have got to. This is great for encouraging those who have yet to get stuck in to sustainability, by keeping it simple, but not so useful to us. However the point I missed was that we could get accredited and recognised for our efforts and this I am told is a good thing. Personally I would rather not make too much of a fuss as we still could do more and I still feel guilty that we can’t get it all perfect.

Philips have just launched another design of LED light for growth rooms (TLED lights) which are quite a bit cheaper than the previous model we have on trial at the moment. I think this is partly due to the fact that the IP rating is lower (can’t use them in damp conditions) but they look quite different too. We will now have to trial these as well to check they are ok and hope that they bring them out in a size that will fit our shelving. Electric saving of 60% on the light and reduced cooling too should mean a quick payback but still have to find the cash to invest.

At home the Valentine’s gift of a new showerhead went down fairly well, it was an improvement on the bag of organic spinach! I splashed out on a quite expensive Hansgrohe Monsoon Eco-smart head which draws air into the head and mixes it with the water to reduce water volume without losing effectiveness. Although it does save water the main saving is the cost of heating that water. According to the Greenwise website the average 8 min power shower uses 136 li (cost of 0.463p/li). I have been in our power shower with a watering can to measure the actual output and in 8 mins we now use just 53 li saving 38p/shower, which pays back the head in 156 showers. Two of us makes just 78 days. Mind you our old head was so scaled up we were only getting 90 litres out in 8 mins so pay back will be slightly longer in reality. Chocolate bonus gift worked best! Hansgrohe also do taps and mixers using similar features which can greatly reduce hot water costs elsewhere too.

Nature notes

Frogs are back. Although bit of ice early in the mornings has slowed them up a bit I think.

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Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries