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.