Monday 25 September 2017

Hairynox

Morning all

Feeling very autumnal over the last couple of weeks and the panic is on to get everything potted and settled down before winter sets in. The tunnels are filling quickly and the last half load of compost is due in on Monday so the end is in sight which will be a relief. We have even lit the wood-burner at home a few evenings just to take the chill off, the trouble is it sends me off to sleep even earlier than usual.
Despite the change in season the house martins are still hanging about, hoovering up insects over the nursery and surrounding fields, but it must be very nearly time to move on, we’ve seen a few larger flocks drifting south over the last few days. I’m feeling like I would like to drift away for a bit too, just beginning to flag as the season begins to fade away and getting a bit jealous of all the others gadding off on their holidays.
Picked up a few conkers earlier, couldn’t resist, they just look so shiny and new when they first pop out. Always keeping an eye open for some really good ones, although it must be nearly fifty years since I strung one for battle! Always have a little pile just inside the door as they are supposed to deter spider ingress at this time of year, it reduces my main manly role these days of dealing with intruders.
Building up my arm strength over the last couple of weeks with making up numbers on the potting machine, wrestling apart the hairy pots to feed the continuous demand from the jaws of the machine. The thin smear of latex that holds the pot fibres together makes the pot surface quite grippy and when the pot stacks are packed so tightly they can be a bit of a challenge to get apart. It is quite important for me to look cool doing this task, to demonstrate an air of calm efficiency while maintaining maximum output, but this can be quite tricky to achieve as tiredness creeps in. Earlier in the week I had to disguise a painful industrial accident when the pots refused to separate and my halo slipped. A change in pulling direction and a really big tug resulted in dealing myself a hefty blow to a very sensitive area resulting in watery eyes and that long, deep, abdominal pain 50% of you will know about. Luckily everyone else was concentrating on their roles and didn’t notice the impact while I managed somehow to adjust my position and carry on while gathering my thoughts. My new yoga training came in very handy, a bit of deep breathing, in through my toes and out through the affected area subdued the pain, if you girls can get through delivering a baby with a bit of heavy breathing I was sure it would me help me through this. It did.
Must go, I have a date with a water buffalo burger and 6 hrs of live Blues and Funk at a local farm. Not something I’ve done before so looking forward to a new experience. Have fun.

Availability highlights

Autumn and winter flowering Cyclamen are just coming on line. The Cyclamen coum Cyberia series flower from now until April, showing short and dainty flowers and bud. I can see some bud still coming on the remaining autumn flowering hederifolium types but not enough to say they are ‘in flower’, they have just sold too fast!
The compact and free flower Anthemis Charme are now in bud. They flower for ages.Fresh batches of the ever popular Achillea coming on nicely with new flowers shoots appearing on several colours.
There are a few nice short Nepeta Six Hills in bud at the moment. The dinky little Junior Walker has shoot back after a trim to make nice bushy plants with another flower flush showing. The short Campanula carpatica is in bud again after an earlier trim. Lots of the Asters are busting a gut to get into flower, The mildew free Ashvi, and Asram, now have well developed bud and the odd open flower. We have a fantastic crop of Ajuga in range of leaf colours just bursting to get into the garden. Fresh batches of Euphorbia are looking nice in a range of foliage colours. Bright variegated leaves of the short tufted grass Carex Evergold are looking very neat and smart.

Wooden box returns

We are having a scoot around collecting up any wooden boxes you may have ready for collection over the next couple of weeks so we can get them clean, dried and repaired ready for next spring. So please do drop us a line if you would like us to pop in and collect those up. We should be doing a couple of Midland and more northern runs in the coming week if we can squeeze them in around the orders. We’ve already collected masses of them but there are a few more to come I hope. Thanks.

Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.


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