Morning all,
Merry Christmas to all. Just got back from the grocery shop and it looks like all hell is breaking loose already. We tend to go in early in the morning and have the shop to ourselves which is just right, but no such luck this morning. Doesn’t everyone else realise that this is our shop and this is our time for a quiet wander round. Lashed out on a packet of crisps and a small pack of smoked salmon as a Christmas treat, so that’s us all set up for the festive break.
Not brilliantly festive weather at the moment and more wind and rain forecast for the coming week, still at least it gets it out of the way before the spring and pushes up the turbine output.
We started consumption of the nursery cake early this year as we are a bit thin on the ground at the moment but we seem to have cleared up most of it already, delicious stuff. The decorations are back up and looking suitably traditionally tacky and well loved, another great recycling success.
Life on the nursery goes on with some great work cutting back the summer grown stock, preparing for the upcoming spring and getting some essential maintenance sorted. Greg has spent most of the last couple of weeks doing some vital but invisible work re-securing the tunnel covers. We had noticed over the last couple of months that in the strong winds the tunnel covers have not been splitting but the mounting rails have been detaching from the tunnel sides instead. This is a new issue for us and turned out to be due to the screws rusting away. I have invested in a large number of replacement screws and Greg has been removing the old ones one at a time and slipping in a new one. Sounds simple enough but with almost 3km of tunnel sides to secure and 8,000+ screws to get through it takes a while. All the oldest fixings are done now and it’s a shame the visible results are not more impressive for the effort put in, but at least I can sleep in relative peace now as the gales batter the nursery. Don’t we seem to be getting a lot of particularly strong weather systems at the moment?
Shortest day today so the evenings will be drawing out tomorrow which means spring is not too far away, hurrah. We are having a big push on the production of stock in bud or flower in 2014 and hopefully the 90+ extra lines in the catalogue will help us fill those shelves with exciting, colourful and quick selling stock. We are off to a great start with the Snakehead Fritillaries this spring. We had given up on these over the last couple of seasons after mega mouse attacks had completely destroyed the crops before they even emerged, but so far we have outwitted the rodents by keeping the pots on trolleys until they emerge and getting on top of the population with a rigorous trapping regime over the whole nursery. There are still a few about but the weekly capture rate has dropped to low single figures which is brilliant.
If you would like to see a quick preview of the new 2014 catalogue try the following link which takes you to a downloadable version or visit our website which has the up to date version;
Short of something to do? Image links for the ultimate in recycled design;
Kirton Christmas tree Mk1 https://www.dropbox.com/s/we5uvz0jf00iw0v/tree%20mk1.JPG
Kirton Christmas tree Mk2, (pre new lights) https://www.dropbox.com/s/kvk5lx2y2tt4k9i/tree%20mk2.JPG
Fab new upcycled wood-store https://www.dropbox.com/s/a2of4jokfgx0mzj/Woodstore%202013%201.jpg
Ok, time to go and brave the crowds again to get my little bit of special shopping done. It’s a bit early I know, Christmas Eve is still a couple of days away but I’m just hoping they haven’t sold out of hoover bags yet. She’s a lucky girl.
Have a great break and hope to hear from you all in the New Year.
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