Hairy preparation

Morning all,

Looks like it might cool down a bit next week after another very warm week down south. Sadly we missed almost all the rain over the past week, just a few spots, definitely not enough to satisfy the garden. Hopefully we will fare better next week.

Sales rocketed again this week, not to the giddy heights of a month ago, but a step back up again, probably something to do with being able to find enough herbaceous stock to put on an availability list. We sold out of several lines again but have a few extras to add, so a similar sized list is there for this week. In theory we should see a quietening of demand as we head into the cricket and tennis season, but we usually keep ticking over until the autumn with an ever changing range of stock. Just hoping it doesn't get too hot and knock back demand too far over the main summer period as we do produce stock for sale at this time so the potential for waste still looms over us. It keep life interesting! This week we got seriously stuck into the potting for the coming winter and following spring. Young plants are flooding in, all demanding to be potted asap, it's difficult to know where to start. One good thing about the late season rush of sales is that it has cleared a lot of space in the tunnels, so there is slightly less bed preparation to do before we restock. It's still very warm work in there but it doesn't take quite so long.

We have been noticing quite a few aphid carcases left by the both the predators we release and some coming in from the surrounding vegetation. We have had a couple of quite big ladybird larvae events which have had a real go at the aphids. These must have come in from the wild as we don't release these ourselves, they could be encouraged by the large amount of hedging planted here, or the nearby wild flower strips on the field margins sown by the farm. Wherever they came from they are doing a good job for us.

Our water sagas continue, failing again to get things sorted out. The borehole pump replaced last week got its new starter box on Monday and was up and running just after lunch. That lasted just a few hours. All seemed to be well at the end of the day but by the next morning the irrigation tank was empty and the borehole pump not running. It was Wednesday morning before the electrician could get to us and after a quick trip up the hill he returned rather sheepishly and admitted that he must have knocked the time clock markers, moving the 'off' just past the 'on', so instead of it being available to be turned on by the float switches most of the day, it was only available to be on for a few minutes. A relief that the solution was so simple, but it still cost us another tank of mains water to get by.

The water recycling system sign off due on Tuesday didn't happen after the electricians found a fault on one of our main underground cables caused by the ingress of water over the years. It wasn't a fault that stopped it working but something to do with the earth not quite within the acceptable levels so we have to replace the cable. That will be another day or two with digger and driver plus his mate, cutting through a couple of concrete pads and putting another 80m of trench and armoured cable along our roadways from one electric point to another. Haven't had the estimate yet but I know it won't be cheap. Still, it has to be done so that's that.

The troughs outside the office are looking a treat this year. We lost a few old established plants we have had in there for years over the cold winter, so it gave us the chance to restock with some fresh peat-free compost and a mix of bedding plants to add some summer joy. We had a couple of trays ordered along with the perennial plugs and a couple of extras appeared on a trolley too, so we have quite a mix.

New electric car due to be collected late next week, after nearly two years I can't quite believe it is going to happen. Mind you the salesman was going to send over the invoice once the car was on site with them and we haven't seen that yet. I'm sure it will be fine. Isn't it always?

Availability list.

Our list is making a proper appearance again this week although we are still quite short on some lines so please don't be surprised if there are a few restricted volumes or subs caused by shortfalls in stock. Please don't be tempted to put in big orders for the most popular lines it won't make it any more likely that you will get what you ask for, we will do our best to fulfil where we can, but will be doing some sharing out to keep things as fair as we can all round.

Take care out there

from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy pump

Morning all,

At last a quieter week on the sales front, partly caused I'm sure by a lack of availability on our part but I'm sure the hot weather isn't helping sales much either. We were still busier than this time last year but volumes were half of the week before. This gave us a bit of time for a catch up on the tunnel clearing and potting which was a relief. I can't say we have caught up but it feels slightly less frenetic.

We have a small team in tomorrow to finish off the potting compost which has all but run out and start on the sowing for the overwintered herbs crops. I can't believe we are at that point already but time flies when you're having so much fun.

On the fun side for this week, the rainfall collection project due for completion in early March was all set to finish this week. Sadly yet more hiccups has delayed it another week, one key plumbing part arrived as the wrong part and the new cable replacing our duff one was delivered Monday for installation on Wednesday, but unfortunately got delivered somewhere else. Both sides thought all was ok until the digger driver team arrived and asked where it was! They dug the trench, put in a duct, refilled and left with the cable arriving 6 hours later. Electricians arrived on Wednesday for the final fix and managed to pull the cable through and wire it all in. Potting was underway by this time and we had an interesting day with the power tripping out several times while they sorted everything out. It was all fixed by the end of the day but other than testing that the sump pump worked they wouldn't leave the system live because the joint from one storage tank to the other wasn't complete. It would make no difference to the pump moving collected water into the storage tank but no they were told it had to be tested only when complete so the water collected in the sump remains there and any rain we get over the weekend and early next week will go to the overflow soak -away. Ace. Meanwhile the borehole pump that died last week got replaced on Thursday. Should be good news but naturally life isn't that simple. After pulling out 60m of pipe with a crane, refitting the pump and dropping it back down there, it was discovered that the starter system was faulty and had to be replaced before the pump could be used! They were coming back today to fit it, in theory, but they were unable to get the part in time so it's on with using the emergency and expensive mains backup. There was a silver lining of sorts. Finding the faulty starter unit explained the pump failure, it had burnt out, which had been worrying the engineers and consequently us!  It's a good job it's not hot and dry.

I have to go, I'm late again for a BBQ with some friends. They are used to our chaotic arrivals at this time of year but it doesn't stop me fretting about letting them down.

Hey ho it's only like this for 6 months or so.

Availability list.

Our list is making a proper appearance again this week although we are still quite short on some lines so please don't be surprised if there are a few restricted volumes or subs caused by shortfalls in stock. Please don't be tempted to put in big orders for the most popular lines it won't make it any more likely that you will get what you ask for, we will do our best to fulfil where we can, but will be doing some sharing out to keep things as fair as we can all round.

Take care out there,

from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy stock levels

Morning all,

OK we are now suddenly struggling for stock. I think a few other suppliers have also run out of some lines as we have been incredibly busy with sales at double the usual level for the time of year. We have had several potential new customers knocking on the door looking for stock which unfortunately we have had to turn away to try and preserve some level of supply to our existing set. It adds a whole new level of stress and frustration as it has been a situation impossible to plan for. The manic sales are a great thing to have and I'm sure we will look back and recognise a good season in the end after a sticky start. Sadly we have been unable to react quickly enough with the resources we have, to get enough extra potting done to keep stock levels up, especially after spending most of the week in despatch or on a bank holiday! Hopefully things will quieten down a bit now and we can get on with some clearing and potting and catch up again. It would be nice to feel a bit more in control after such a busy time. I'm sure you are all feeling the pressure too, so keep up the good work, we will all get there in the end.

Desperately hoping this sunny, windy dry spell breaks soon, especially with the likelihood of higher temperatures to add to the fun this weekend. We had a major panic on Monday when the main irrigation tank ran completely dry, not the sort of weather you want a shortage of water! A fault with the borehole pump was to blame, a new one is on the way, to be fitted next week. Luckily we have the mains supply as a backup but it's not ideal and a tad expensive. Might get some heavy showers our way over the weekend which might help. We suspect we had some sort of power surge/blip as at the same time as the pump fault occurring one of the wind turbines tripped out and a small phone charger died. Could be coincidence but 4 years for a pump is not long, the previous one lasted 30+.

Onto some more positive news, our electric car has rolled off the production line in Germany (finished, not rolled into a pit somewhere along the line). It is on the way to the port and by the time all the pre -sales checking and prep has been completed we should get it in the last week of this month. A 12 week predicted wait ended up being 23 months but  I'm sure it will be worth the wait. Now we just need to find the time to go somewhere.

We passed our Plant Health inspection this week which is always a relief. Checking our sticky traps and stock for invasive critters in all 36 tunnels is quite a task but luckily we seem to have most pests under reasonable control at the moment, despite the variable weather conditions over the past months. The vast array of predators released every 4 weeks must be doing their job even if we can't see them out there. In the past I have been quite tempted to put out more yellow sticky traps as they seem so effective at attracting the bugs but the danger is that we may also catch the predators. So we just put out just two in each tunnel as part of the monitoring programme rather than as a curative technique. We do use more of the red sticky traps above those plants susceptible to leaf hopper which doesn't have any specific predators available to effectively knock them back. It isn't perfect but it gets quite a few and suppresses numbers fairly effectively. We do also put extra lacewing larvae in these crops, which are a generalist and quite aggressive predator which will have a go at them.

Availability list SUSPENDED FOR PERENNIALS.

Demand for perennials and herbs has been huge over the last four weeks and this past week has suddenly cleared a whole load of lines. The perennial list in particular was already shorter last week and has now got to the point where it is not worth putting a list together at all. The number of lines shown would be very short and I know how it goes, everyone will pick multiple trays of the favourites and we will instantly run out of those.

We do have quite a bit of stock available in smaller quantities which isn't worth putting on the list for exactly the same reason as above, but I can usually slip those into the orders where we are making a yummy selection ourselves.

We are assuming things will quieten down significantly over the next few weeks when compared with the last few weeks, so hopefully the stock will have some time to recover to more normal levels to tempt those summer sales.

Perennial orders will be our selection only for the next couple of weeks or so.

For the next couple of weeks we can only realistically offer to put together orders of our own selection from the stock we have available. We are happy to take some guidance on lines not required as part of the order make up. Just let us know how many trays you require and we will do our best to put together an attractive selection. We put together orders like this for many customers already, so the idea will be familiar to many of you already.

Herbs are also a bit short in range and may head in the same direction if demand remains at current levels, but for now there is still a list available. If you chose to take our own selection of herbs you may well get a few lines included that are not currently in this week's list which could be a bonus!

Best wishes  from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy Hurry

Can't stop and chat tonight as I'm already late for Caroline's birthday dinner down at the farm. It's a week late but last week was so nuts it was impossible to sort anything out. This week was only marginally quieter but only 4 days long which has made it another challenging week. One driver has only just made it back from a very long day out, stuck in all sorts of traffic chaos and another is still 'missing in action'. I haven't had a call to go out and rescue him yet which I have to do on occasions when he runs out of tachograph driving time. Fingers crossed he makes it back or I might miss my meal out and starve!

The usual collection of disasters lining up to add to the fun of the week. They came to fit the electrics to the water recycling to find that the circuit they were going to hook into was short on one of the phases due to an ingress of water over the years. This means they were able to fit all the bits but not power it up. We now have to pay for another trench to be opened up to bring the power in from another junction box, digging up the newly repaired track where they put in the drains! Hey ho, we will get there in the end.

The electric car due in 3 weeks, four weeks ago, is now due at towards the end of June. It is officially 'in production' although I will believe it when I see it. We found out through the finance company who were chasing the garage for an invoice. Can't give up on it now, we seem so close, although I just had an offer on a Polestar for delivery in 3 weeks which is almost tempting.

Great here is Phil, he has made it back and I can now make a hasty exit. Hopefully I won't miss too many courses. Have a fab week.

Availability list highlights.

The perennial list is getting a bit short on numbers at the moment due to the excessive demand for stock. but numbers should recover fairly soon especially now we are at the end of the 4 day weeks for a bit.

Batches of all varieties both perennials and herbs are selling through very quickly, so the weekly list will change a lot from week to week. Always best to try and use the most recent list for your order otherwise there maybe a few shortages. If your weekly list doesn't come through just ask and I will try and send it again. The initial sending is via MailChimp but I know some computer systems will sometimes decide I'm junk and cut us off. If this happens I can't reinstate you myself onto MailChimp but I can send you a link so you can reinstate yourself.

The first batches of the hardy Osteospermum Tresco Purple have a nice flush of bud.

Phlox paniculata are upright and strong and starting to produce bud. A great overwintered crop in a good range of colours. A batch of super strong Sedum Autumn Joy, a great one for the pollinators later in the summer.

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.