Hairy projects

Morning all,

A very productive week, most of it done in the warm, but with a fluffy brain produced by the end of today! Battled my way through the last of the plant orders for next year, a job I started over a month ago. The numbers are mind numbing and the decisions needed endless when you are looking at over 600 lines, multiple deliveries of each and probably ten different suppliers. Then the whole lot has to be juggled onto a label ordering spreadsheet, along with the current stock of plants and left over labels from this season. I stick in a column for this year's sales for each variety, just to add an extra level of thoroughness and complication and then pluck out a number of labels I think we will use. Then there is the final jiggle to make the total number ordered add up to a multiple of 72,000, so that they fit onto the label printing sheet efficiently. What fun. 

Now I can get back to some more fun planning and spending. I only get a very short time frame to get the winter projects ordered and underway and although some have already started like the new vehicle charger, the new van, new electric car, new potting machine and the wooden box production programme, I have a few other bits up my sleeve waiting for the go ahead. The hairy pot plant themed work-wear is coming along, just need to get the next batch of samples ordered. I know lots of people cover this sort of thing, but it adds another whole level of complication when you try to pick out sustainable items to use rather than just the cheapest. 

The irrigation water collection system should take another step forward this winter but I haven't quite decided on the scale yet. I think we will take a steady route into more investment into water storage, which we will have to fund ourselves, rather than spend £90,000 and maybe become eligible for a partial grant. I saw a very interesting bit of water treatment it this week, which I first saw 8 years ago, it should improve our plant health and resistance to disease so reducing the amount of spraying we have to do. I was a bit sceptical originally but after many years use it had proved itself to be very effective on this particular nursery. A good test was when it broke down this summer the diseases returned and once repaired it all settled down again. We don't do a huge amount of spraying but any reduction will be welcome in labour saving and fewer chemicals being needed. This will be another valuable experience we will have picked up from being part of the NBIS scheme which has served us so well over the 25 years or so we have been members, although the best bits are the talking therapy, which I need a lot of, and the pub lunch. I don't get out much. Everyone in the group is still pretty anxious about what lies ahead and the news of the South African new variant is an added worry, but I'm glad to say Caroline and I got our boosters done today so feeling slightly smug. So many ups and downs. Might go for a lie down in a minute just in case I am overcome with weakness and fatigue. That log burner is beckoning.

Autumn wooden box collections are now just about done

Most of our wooden trays have now been collected up, but if you have a collection of trays ready to go, please do drop us an email and we will call in a pick them up as soon as we are in your area. At a replacement cost now in excess of £10 a box now, we can't afford to lose too many. Just been informed of another timber price rise, so definitely need them back! 

Availability list highlights

Things are getting really quiet now and most plants are looking for their winter rest. There are still a few stars shining out there, but fewer each week. The mild weather is keeping things ticking over at the moment but the coming cold snap might slow things up.

The long flowering Cyclamen coum varieties are coming along with flowers opening already. This coum series we are growing, flowers continuously from September to April given reasonable winter conditions, it is really hardy although the number of flowers open at any one time is more subtle and modest than some of the very showy modern & less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours, Some of the Helleborus niger are in bud and flower already, Christmas has come early. 

Helleborus orientalis are looking strong with the occasional bud showing. A slightly enlarged range from us this year with the introduction of the Pretty Ellen range of a red, white and a pink.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy winter planning

Morning all,

It already seems like weeks ago that we were away, I'm ready for another break already! Got back into the swing of things fairly quickly and started planning some winter projects which is usually quite exciting if not a bit expensive. We are so busy for 9 months of the year producing and despatching plants that we don't get much time to look at investing to improve things and then we get this short little window to cram in all the planning, spending and installing of anything new. This period is punctuated by holidays, Christmas, winter weather and lower staffing levels, so it does have its additional hurdles to get it all done. Last year we fitted in a luxurious new loo block (by horticultural standards) and heating and lighting systems in despatch and potting to make the cold weather work a bit more bearable and hopefully productive. There was a new 3.5t van to cope with all the extra demand, masses of trench digging, drain making, slab laying, remodelling despatch and updating the despatch work benches, it was all go. A government covid bounce back loan did help a lot with all that work and I was hoping that this winter would be a lot quieter, but things already seem to be hotting up to another active winter. We are printing and constructing over 2,500 new wooden trays so that we have enough stock for the spring rush, the old 7.5t van has to be replaced so we are nice and clean on our emissions and our first electric car should be here in the New Year. I have just ordered a replacement potting machine as our old one has been held together with plywood, screws and cable ties for too long and has been moments away from becoming scrap on several occasions over the last year or two. It has been refurbished a couple of times but there is little on it solid enough to hold a repair now so the time has come.

Then on top of all this there is another couple of sustainable hurdles we wanted to jump. One is to increase the amount of water we collect and put into our irrigation system. We have been building quite a bit of the infrastructure over the last 3 or 4 years by hand digging french drains along the edges of all the production tunnels but we have yet to join everything together to actually collect a significant amount of water. The drains have done a great job in reducing the amount of tunnel flooding we get if there is a torrential downpour, but the investment in time, effort and money to join it all up and build a reservoir/sump, install filters, pumps and pipe-work has just been a step too far. There was funding announced this week for farms and nurseries to help fund this sort of investment but as usual it looks like we will miss out. We would have to spend a minimum of just under £90,000 to et a £35,000 grant which is quite a bit more than I had imagined spending and there would be a lot of rings to jump through to get it, if we were lucky enough to get selected. The grant scheme for smaller investments doesn't fit what we want either, so not much help there. The problem is that the amount of money we would save is minimal for the investment made, but the environmental benefit would be great. We might be better off looking at replacing the oil boilers in the prop tunnels and replacing with air source heat pumps, still expensive but a much better financial and carbon return. Decisions, decisions.

Autumn wooden box collections are now just about done

Most of our wooden trays have now been collected up, but if you have a collection of trays ready to go, please do drop us an email and we will call in a pick them up as soon as we are in your area. At a replacement cost now in excess of £10 a box now, we can't afford to lose too many. Just been informed of another timber price rise, so definitely need them back!

Availability list highlights

Things are getting really quiet now and most plants are looking for their winter rest. There are still a few stars shining out there, but fewer each week. The mild weather is keeping things ticking over at the moment but the coming cold snap might slow things up.

The long flowering Cyclamen coum varieties are coming along with flowers opening already. This coum series we are growing, flowers continuously from September to April given reasonable winter conditions, it is really hardy although the number of flowers open at any one time is more subtle and modest than some of the very showy modern and less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours,

Some of the Helleborus niger are in bud and flower already, Christmas has come early. Helleborus orientalis are looking strong with the occasional bud showing. A slightly enlarged range from us this year with the introduction of the Pretty Ellen range of a red, white and a pink.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy return

Morning all,

Back to it after a few days off in sunny St Ives. A lovely break with loads of weather, walking and way too much eating out. Major personal self control required over the next few weeks to try and recover the situation, but well worth it. The increase in taking UK breaks is obviously continuing in Cornwall, we have never seen it so busy in November, even out on the hills the parking was packed out when we usually hardly see a sole. Unfortunately for us a few of our favourite restaurants were closed or on short time opening as they struggled to find staff cover for holidays through the rest of the season. They had been extremely busy over the main season and so just shut up shop for a couple of weeks or longer in their quietest month, so they could all grab a break. I have every sympathy for them and in the end we didn't starve. Glad to say that three new Moomaid ice cream cafes had opened up in the area and we made the most of that! Local ice cream from the village of Zennor just down the road, way too good to pass by un-tasted although a double scoop Shipwrecked nearly finished me off. 

The nursery needless to say survived without us and it looks like lots got done in our absence. Must go away more often. Greg and the team seem to have kept a lid on everything although the list of things to mend seems to have got a bit longer. The house is spotless after being looked after by my mum and the post holiday mountain of washing and ironing is already nearly done after just 24 hrs!

The wind turbines had their annual service last week, with just one hiccup. Looks like one of the generators will have to be replaced shortly. It's not cheap to do but the design is supposed to have been improved for quieter, more efficient operation and a longer life span (this one lasted 10 years), so there are benefits. We had one done before and is does have a marginally better output and so far seems to be running smoother, which should lead to a longer life, touch wood. It will be interesting to see if the current electric wholesale price remains at a higher level that it was 12 months ago, as it would make a big difference to us in a few years time when the turbines have to justify their ongoing maintenance from savings and income alone, without any feed in tariff. I am investigating a few solar panels to add to our energy arsenal as we increasingly turn to electric fuelling for heat and power rather than the alternatives, but it's early days yet.

I will be sending out the updated catalogue and price list as soon as I can get it all together. There will be a 10p per pot rise for next season to try and cover some of our cost increases. I thought a few weeks ago that this was going to be enough, because some of the costs would begin to settle down again after the covid disruptions to world trade, however I must admit to being a bit nervous that this might not happen as fast as I thought it might. With big pressure on wages and labour availability adding to things, we are having to aim at even more efficiency improvements to make it work out right for 2022 and I suspect we are already looking at more rises for 2023. That is a long way off yet but just to let you know the pressures are there, with little scope for many more material cost savings. At the moment 75% of the 2022 price increase will be needed to cover the extra container freight costs for importing the coir pots, which are currently nearly ten time the cost of a year ago! Fingers crossed this will settle down again but it shows no sign of doing so at the moment.

On the bright side, demand is still growing with a healthy list of new sites wanting stock in 2022 so no complaints there. Just need to get the plants grown as efficiently and beautifully as we can.

Autumn wooden box collections are now just about done

Most of our wooden trays have now been collected up, but if you have a collection of trays ready to go, please do drop us an email and we will call in a pick them up as soon as we are in your area. At a replacement cost now in excess of £10 a box now, we can't afford to lose too many. Just been informed of another timber price rise, so definitely need them back!

Availability list highlights

Things are getting quiet now and most plants are looking for their winter rest. There are still a few stars shining out there, but fewer each week. The mild weather is keeping things ticking over at the moment The long flowering Cyclamen coum varieties are coming along with the odd flower opening already. This coum series we are growing, flowers continuously from September to April given reasonable winter conditions, it is really hardy although the number of flowers open at any one time is more subtle and modest than some of the very showy modern and less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours.

Some of the Helleborus niger varieties are in bud and flower already, Christmas has come early. Helleborus orientalis are looking strong with the occasional bud showing. A slightly enlarged range from us this year with the introduction of the Pretty Ellen range of a red, white and a pink.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries