Hairy consequences

Morning all, 

Looks like we are settling into some more benign conditions this weekend after the wild time we had a week ago. Hopefully it will see a return of some plant sales which fell off a cliff for us last week. I suspect the fencing trade was busy instead, it's an ill wind and all that. Having said last week that we got off lightly, we have still spent a good proportion of the week clearing up and repairing stuff, which did detract again from the plant work to some degree. One of the tunnels that lost its cover needed a bit more structural rebuilding which wasn't planned, but unsurprising given its age. Just about got that done in time to recover it this morning. It wasn't perfect, just on the edge of too windy , but we were in a sheltered spot and used a few extra hands to hold the sheet in place while we fixed it. The sun was out which helped give the sheet a bit of stretch which is always a help in getting some tension into it, and the odd disturbing wind gusts were contained before any rips appeared. All done and it looks ok, quite a relief, especially as we had lifted the entire stock (trays of modules) in the tunnel onto trolleys to help protect it from the elements. We can now get that back down and growing again. It wasn't all doom and gloom as we managed to make a few improvements to the doors and vents in the rebuilding process, which should make life easier in future. An easy spring clean of the entire tunnel was another bonus so it now looks really smart, well, for a
poly-tunnel anyway.

We had a couple more power cuts on the nursery, one of which tripped and broke a circuit trip switch running the 128 LED lights in the lab growth room, which meant an emergency call to the electricians. I was sure we would need a new consumer unit because the other was so old. I suspected that they wouldn't be able to get parts, which is the usual excuse for regular major refits, but luckily they still had some older stock in store and they replaced the trip switch with ease. The house supply didn't come back on until Wednesday morning, by which time all the lager was definitely warm. 5 days without power makes you appreciate the supply when it's there that's for sure. No major disasters, we only have a small freezer, some of which was transferred into the even smaller one on the nursery. No room for the summer fruits picked over the last couple of years which all got tipped into a pot and stewed, or the breadcrumbs saved up for nut roast construction. So we've had a week of stewed fruits and nut roast, up to 3 times a day, successfully keeping everyone at a distance, especially as we had no hot water either! We have the wood burner and oil Aga for basic heat and cooking, so it could have been worse.

Another bonus of the lack of orders this week, was finding the time to fill the 7.5T van with our accumulated card boxes from the coir pot packaging. They don't fit in our normal recycling, but stack nicely on a pallet in large volumes so ECoGen our local recycler is happy to deal with them. That cleared out a nice area in the barn which will help as we get busier. 

Availability list highlights

Please do bear in mind that it is still wintertime so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not big, soft and lush. There isn't a lot of colour yet and where there is some, the plants are disappearing fast. A bit more warmth and we'll get another flush of varieties, I can see the signs of action, some just not quite enough to send just yet.

An eye catching burst of violent pink flowers now showing on the Primula grandiflora Rosea. I don't have a lot of stock of Primula denticulata this year, but they are now in bud.

Primula veris (Cowslip) have bud and the odd flash of very early sunshine yellow.

Pretty dark leaved Viola labridorica are shooting nicely, carrying a few blue/purple flowers and buds. A nice range of Pulmonaria in bud now, running a bit short on some varieties so don't hang about.

Not in flower but always very popular at this time of year, the Alliums and Camassia bulbs are shooting nicely. It's a shame the foliage goes a bit tatty and they are impossible to handle in a pot by the time they flower, as they are both such great garden plants. Good ones for the pollinators.

Blue Muscari showing tight bud on compact neat plants. Scilla sibirica have royal blue colour peaking through. An early spring stunner and selling through quickly.

Our dwarf Narcissus varieties are starting to bud up now and look springy. They won't hang around long, as I try not to overdo volumes of this sort of plant, just in case the weather turns on me!

Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, in both colours and carrying lots of tight bud. Spring favourite the Erysimum's are already in tight bud.

A spring flush of healthy shoot growth on our overwintered Phlox range, all looking very strong. Scaboius Butterfly Blue, Mariposa and Pink Mist think it's spring, with bud on show. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Eunice

Morning all, 

Hope you are all ok after the Big Wind of Friday. Sitting on the side of a hill in a valley facing southwest we feared we were going to be a bit vulnerable, but despite some horrendous conditions, I think we have got away with it reasonably lightly. As the crow flies, if he could get off the floor, we are not that far from The Needles on the Isle of Wight (122 mph) so we definitely faced a good blow, but with a bit of planning and a good dose of luck we are still standing.

I'm touch late with this list, because we did lose power on the nursery for 24 hours, in fact the house is still off. It's only when you are without it that you realise how much depends on that power coming down the line. Even the oil fired kit won't go without the electric controller, so no hot water, central heating, phones (now we are internet run), the list goes on. On the nursery we do have a generator to keep the essential heating systems going but other than that it's a complete shutdown. Luckily we decided not to have anyone in on Friday, so that kept the tension a bit lower considering the conditions. It did get a bit exciting when two of the tunnel covers let go, but a bit of sensible cutting and dragging meant I was able to get the wildly flapping sheets off the tunnels and into some shelter. Then a small tree by our entrance fell across the road which disrupted the traffic, but we quickly cleared that with the help of a neighbours chainsaw skills and the forklift. There is a lot of stuff blown about and a few bits of other relatively minor damage to still sort out but, fingers crossed, that is the worst done and dusted.

Sadly we didn't even benefit from any extra turbine output, the wind speeds were forecast to be so strong that our maintenance company advised us to park the blades, just in case. Then with no power on the grid we couldn't restart them until this morning (they are understandably not keen on us putting power into the cables when someone might be up the pole doing repairs!). They are bowling along again now, so hopefully they will help pay for some new covers.

We whizzed out a few orders early in the week so we could avoid deliveries on Friday and I had in the back of my mind that we could have a thrash at cutting back a big dollop of the last of the crops that are still waiting for their winter trim. Events got the better of us which is a real pain, I just hope we aren't too busy this week and we get time for another go before the spring madness sets in. The forecast looks to be quite breezy and wet at times, which might hold sales back a bit and there will be quite a bit of tidying up for everyone to do after Friday, so maybe we will get that chance.

I should be printing labels now the power is back on but I'm just beginning to wonder if we are going to have to do some emergency decanting of the fridge and freezer this afternoon. There is a tiny freezer on the nursery we can use and the rest we might have to de-thaw and eat. I have already started clearing the fridge where there was a large collection of bottled larger getting too warm, although I didn't get very far through it last night before I fell asleep in front of the wood burner. Too old to cope these days.

Availability list highlights

Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not big, soft and lush. There isn't a lot of colour yet and where there is some, the plants are disappearing fast. A bit more warmth and we'll get another flush of varieties, I can see the signs of action, just not quite enough to send just yet.

Not in flower but always very popular at this time of year, the Alliums and Camassia bulbs are shooting nicely. It's a shame the foliage goes a bit tatty and they are impossible to handle in a pot by the time they flower, as they are both such great garden plants. Good ones for the pollinators.

Scilla sibirica have royal blue colour peaking through. An early spring stunner.

Our dwarf Narcissus varieties are starting to bud up now and look springy. They won't hang around long, as I try not to overdo volumes of this sort of plant, just in case the weather turns on me!

Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, especially in the red, but both now carrying lots of tight bud.

Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. The Red Jep and Pastel Patchwork have tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment.The all time favourite Bowles Mauve are there too but not quite as advanced as the others.

Scaboius Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist think it's spring, with bud on show.

Primula veris (Cowslip) have bud and the odd flash of very early sunshine yellow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy and bare root!

Morning all,

What is going on? Sales are through the roof at the moment, this week we reached levels not usually seen until early March. Maybe the wind and rain forecast over the weekend might slow things up a bit, although having said that we already have a few orders already lined up for despatch. I suppose we have been pretty lucky with the weather, considering the time of year, so I'm not banking on this excitement to be unrelenting until the end of the summer, I'm sure there will be some hiccups along the way.

We did manage to get some other work done too, with another little dabble into some bare-root potting and a bit of a tidy up in despatch were some of the winter projects had been based. With the box making finished and all the new POS boards and pot labels filed away, the debris created could be re-homed until next winter, creating a nice big open space for the orders again. You forget how big these areas are when they get cluttered up.

The high early sales levels have caught us out a bit, because despatch should have been sorted out before we needed the space, but we got there in the end. Now there are just the rest of the overwintered plants to finish tidying up, out in the tunnels. Things were progressing as planned a month ago, but with so much time spent despatching over the last 3 weeks we have fallen behind, so time to add a few more hours to the week in order to catch up.

The irrigation treatment device is settling in nicely, as we get used to how it works and adjusting the settings etc. I still have one annoying leak, but to fix it I have needed to change about 6 parts and I never have the right combination of bits to fit. Pipestock.com must think I'm trying to buy up all their stock, as I'm ordering every other day. Glad to say that in the end the set up will be simpler and easier to maintain in the long run and in theory less likely to leak when we mess around with it. The rainfall water collection project is continuing to gather an expensive collection of parts, but has halted in actual physical progress for a few weeks. One additional feature added was that we picked up a mystery fog horn drifting across the site, which we just couldn't pin down. After blaming the local farmers for running noisy fans or similar, it turned out to be the large drain pipes we had parked under the hedge. On breezy days they act like blowing across multiple bottle tops, producing quite a deep eerie sound.

More delays on delivery of our new big truck meant we have had to have the old one serviced again and the tacho calibrated, as well as pressing it back into service in London, to cope with the delivery volumes. At £100 a day inside the M25, it's not a cheap option and one we had hoped would be well behind us by now. It must be a year since we ordered it, with the initial delivery estimate in October, which was bad enough, but multiple delays later we still don't have a date other than sometime in March. Lack of parts are taking the blame, very frustrating for all concerned.

Availability list highlights

Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not big, soft and lush. There isn't a lot of colour yet and where there is some, the plants are disappearing fast. A bit more warmth and we'll get another flush of varieties, I can see the signs of action, just not quite enough to send just yet.

Not in flower but always very popular at this time of year, the Alliums and Camassia bulbs are shooting nicely. It's a shame the foliage goes a bit tatty and they are impossible to handle in a pot by the time they flower, as they are both such great garden plants. Good ones for the pollinators.

Scilla sibirica have royal blue colour peaking through. An early spring stunner..

Our dwarf Narcissus varieties are starting to bud up now and look springy. They won't hang around long, as I try not to overdo volumes of this sort of plant, just in case the weather turns on me!

Pulmonaria varieties are shooting nicely after their winter trim. Trevi Fountain, Shrimps and Opal are showing tight buds. Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, especially in the red, but both now carrying lots of tight bud.

Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. The Red Jep and Pastel Patchwork have tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment and the Apricot Twist are looking strong and bushy too. The all time favourite Bowles Mauve are there too but not quite as advanced as the others.

Scaboius Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist think it's spring, with bud on show.

Primula veris (Cowslip) have bud and the odd flash of very early sunshine yellow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy deer

Morning all,

Touch of frost last week but overall pretty mild down here in the barmy south. No sign of a big freeze just at the moment, fingers crossed it just all rolls along quietly. We had our lowest January wind output ever (from the turbines anyway) after our lowest year in 2021, just hoping we recover over the next few months to get back to average at least, I'm not sure we can afford the new electric rates being proposed. We wait with baited breath to see what deal we are offered on our exported power in April, it only gets reviewed once a year and I am hoping to get a bit more than the 5p we currently get, especially with the wholesale price still above 12p. We will see.

The calm weather has prompted continuing higher than usual plant sales, which is great and kept us busy, however, we still managed to hit a wonderful milestone by finishing the box construction and the wooden POS boards for the year. It turned out to be a bigger than predicted job, but great to get it done before the sales madness really kicks off. Hopefully we will have enough boxes to see us through to next winter and I'm sure with some prompt returns we will keep everything rolling. Potting got underway this week with the bare-root strawberries tucked into their pots and I see we are due two more deliveries next week, one of our bare root perennials and a load of modules to be potted over the next couple of weeks. It really must be spring. Whatever happened to that long relaxed winter I was looking forward to?

The new water treatment system is up and running. Initially we had the usual numerous leaks, but they are down to one irritatingly small drip from one joint now, so better than before we started! We will have to wait and see if this investment improves plant quality, reduces the disease losses and the spraying needed to keep disease at bay. It isn't something we will notice over a day or two, we will just have to be patient.

The rain water collection project hit the buffers this week with all the farm team being tied up on ploughing in the nice weather. On the plus side I had a visit from a ground-works chap who is going to finish it all off for us by doing the rest of the digging, trenching, pipe laying, back-filling, block work, and laying of the two concrete pads. Not particularly looking forward to the quote arriving, but it is the only way we are going to get this done before the summer. He can't start until March at the earliest but at least the construction sites are away from our work areas so we can keep out of each other's way.

Having deterred the rabbits last year when they were eating us out of house and home, we have now moved onto a Muntjac deer for a bit of variety. We have started to move some crops into our one fully enclosed production tunnel to try and protect them, but it's not a very economic solution in the long term. It has been spotted a few times over the last month and the munching evidence is now fairly widespread. I saw it this afternoon as it wandered in a very relaxed manor up the back of the nursery and hopped over the fence into the field. Having secured the nursery fence again this winter against the rabbits, we aren't going to be able to deer proof it at this stage, so I'm afraid there may be a stronger deterrent in the pipeline. There are so many of them about now around here, barely a night time journey goes by without one being spotted by the road. New year, new challenge.

Availability list highlights

Most plants are still in their winter dormancy, but there are still a few stars shining out there. The spring bulbs are beginning to sprout with one or two hinting at some colour.

Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not big, soft and lush.

Both Scilla varieties are showing some colour already. Narcissus bulbocodium are looking fab, producing bud and look springy. They won't hang around long, as I try not to overdo volumes of this sort of plant, just in case the weather turns on me! Helleborus niger are still in strong bud and flower, looking like they should.

Pulmonaria varieties are shooting nicely after their winter trim. Trevi Fountain, Shrimps and Opal are even showing tight buds. Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, especially in the red. Centaurea Amethyst Dream showing bud and the odd flash of deep purple colour.

Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. Just the Red Jep has tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment, but the Apricot Twist and Pastel Patchwork are looking strong and bushy too. Scaboius Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist think it's spring, with bud on show.

Primula veris (Wild primrose) and Primula veris (Cowslip) with bud and the odd flash of very early spring sunshine yellow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries