Hairy Wagon Wheels

Hi

Another short week as I swanned off to Wisley for another sustainability workshop on Wednesday, this time run by ICL who manufacture some lovely peat-free composts. It was a fairly general presentation highlighting what they did and what products might be in the pipeline that will help everyone improve their sustainable production systems. Although a lot of presentations at these sort of events tends to wash over me as my mind drifts away, I did manage to make some progress with the module compost problems we had been having. I took a little report with me, where I had recorded my findings on the poor germination and growing-on of our slower germinating perennials and showed it to the technical chaps at the event.

They were surprisingly receptive to my rather unprofessional report and were sure that they could make us a module mix that would overcome the problems I had highlighted. (see last week's notes for more info!) There was also a presentation on a compost wetter they have which could help peat-free composts from drying out quite so fast and also assist with re-wetting if they do dry out. Although we don't suffer too much with watering issues on our site, other than battling with the system itself, I know the retail environment isn't always as well set up for perfect growing conditions, so if we are able to add this product to the compost at dispatch it could improve water retention for several weeks in the plant sales areas. Together with the new capillary mats we are looking to insert into all trays next year, we may be able to make plant maintenance as little easier in the hot weather. This is bound to bring on the wettest spring and summer on record I know, but it does future proof us a bit against the climate changes that are happening all too quickly.

We've made a start on tidying the solar panel site over the last week. The whole installation project took several months longer than anticipated and didn't actually finish until late April, by which time we were far too busy on the nursery to finish off the pretty bits. We've now filled the last of the cable trenches and spread most of the wood chips we generated when cutting back the nursery windbreak, under the panels. The strips between are nearly cleared of debris and will then be raked over for chalk-land grass seed sowing, as part of the site biodiversity improvement.

The panels themselves have just been moved to their winter tilted position of 60 degrees which looks very upright. The days are obviously shorter now but I did notice that on a sunny day they are still generating quite close to their maximum output at midday which is a good indication that the more upright winter position is still pretty productive. Unsurprisingly they don't produce very much when it's as cloudy and grey as it has been most of this week, but you can't win them all. It took about 20 minutes to adjust the tilt on all 120 panels, a small price to pay for squeezing out up to 40% more winter output.

It's coming up to wind turbine servicing time and the realisation that we are already 14 years through our 20 years of anticipated output. Where does the time go, it only seems like yesterday I was panicking at the size of the turbines as they were being hoisted up. We should be able to keep generating after the 20 year birthday, but only realistically if the running costs don't surpass the combined income and savings. This is gradually getting more difficult to gauge with pretty low returns for exported power (about 6p per unit) with the cost of imported energy at 29p. If we can use more of the generated power ourselves we can justify keeping them going, but if we export most of it the return is marginal, especially if you have any breakdowns or repairs needing to be done. Now we have the solar and the wind together our imported energy costs are tiny, which is great, but at the same time the standing charge and capacity charge (another monthly charge) have shot up in price. We are now paying about £4,000 a year on these and next year I have been told that the capacity charge alone is going to rise by another £1,500. This means that we will be paying close to £6,000 just to have a supply, before any energy use charges are added. I'm getting very old, everything seems to cost so much these days and Wagon Wheels are so small! 

Wooden box collecting has started

We are already well underway collecting up our reusable wooden boxes ready for cleaning, drying and repair if needed, before they go into winter storage. If you have any ready to go just drop us a line and we will pick them up when next in your area. It may take a week or two to get round but we will get there eventually. We try to put together a good number of collections on each trip as it is always painful sending out the van without any paying cargo, but each tray does cost £10 to replace so it does pay for us to make the effort.

Availability list.

Get ready for late winter flowers by planting our Helleborus range now. Christmas Carol is showing some bud already and H. orientalis Halcyon Early Red has plenty of bud and some red colour too. Cyclamen coum are coming on quickly. A winter and spring flowering form, the first odd flower is already now showing. This selection is a champion winter performer, very hardy and just keeps on endlessly flowering, usually from November through to March and April.

Most other late flowering stock has just the remnants of colour showing, so I can no longer really mark them up as being in bud and flower as I'm not sure how much longer they will show themselves nicely.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy modules

Hi.

There's nothing quite like a few days away to freshen you up for the mountain of stuff to do when you get back! This time it was the stock-take paperwork that all needed transferring to the computer spreadsheets. I've just about got to the bottom of the pile now, so just the adding up to do and decide if it was a good one or not.

We had a fantastic break although all too short. We stayed on St Martin's on the Scilly Isles which was very quiet, even during storm Amy. Not quite as manicured as Tresco but stunningly beautiful over the moors and along the white sandy beaches. There are so many tiny hedge lined fields with little patches of cultivation going on, some vegetables, fruit and still some cut flowers, little orchards planted up, the odd couple of cows and a few chickens, but quite a bit just put down to grass. It looks idyllic but it must be a nightmare to find a market for the stuff when it's harvested. The cost of getting anything to the mainland is prohibitive and even the other islands are not cheap or that easy to get to. I suppose there will be the captive holiday makers in the summer, you just make hay while the sun shines, but by now the island was pretty deserted other than our rock and roll music gathering in the one small hotel. We tried our hardest to support the local economy by eating more than our fair share of pig, cow and eggs and washed it down with Cornish ales, but have now had to go on a crash diet to try and restore normality to the waistline. Trousers have definitely shrunk, must be the salty air.

Having been blown all over the place over the weekend the weather has settled nicely again, enough to get the last two split tunnels recovered this week. One done today and another to slip over tomorrow.

I have another exciting sustainability event to attend next week at Wisley, this time put on by the compost company ICL. It is mostly centred around all things peat-free and the latest developments in overcoming some of the current pitfalls some growers and retailers are having. Hoping they have made some breakthrough in the propagation area in particular. This is where we have seen major challenges. Luckily a good proportion of our stock is already produced peat-free by other specialist propagators, or by ourselves, but we have definitely struggled with some of the slower growing/germinating plants. I had initially thought it was something I was doing wrong. We had three different propagation composts which were designed as loose fill mixes to use in our new reusable legged module trays. The vigorous stock was fine but the slower growing varieties looked very sad. Most germinated ok but never grew away, staying small and yellow with virtually no penetrating root growth for weeks on end. As a trial I pricked out some of each into our micro-prop peat-free glue-plugs and they absolutely romped away, making a plant we could pot in just a few weeks, strong growth and deep green in colour they were unrecognisable. In a rather embarrassed fashion I did show one of our supplier reps, who had previously worked with peat-free propagation, the trays with the very sad plants and she recognised it instantly as the same problem she had had. This boosted me a bit in that it wasn't me this time, and with the instant recovery of health when moved into the glue-plugs, perhaps there was an answer out there. Having thought it might be nutritional issues or overwatering my theory now is that the fine nature of the propagation mixes used for efficient filling of small modules, means that the finer particles have a tendency to quickly wash down into the module and clog up all the air pockets. In contrast the glue plugs are held fairly solid and have a very stable structure. To test out the theory I asked our glue-plug suppliers to send us a sample of their loose peat-free mix but with all the finest particles sieved out, so preventing the loss of air holes in the modules. It cost a fortune to get just 70li imported from Holland, it was about £80 just to get it through customs, but well worth it as it appears to have worked. I have a handful of lovely trays of the tricky seedlings, all growing away strongly and a lovely healthy colour. It's still early days but I'm happy I now have a more workable prop compost, just need to bite the bullet and order the minimum quantity of 8 pallets of the stuff! Wooden box collecting has started

We are already well underway collecting up our reusable wooden boxes ready for cleaning, drying and repair if needed, before they go into winter storage. If you have any ready to go just drop us a line and we will pick them up when next in your area. It may take a week or two to get round but we will get there eventually. We try to put together a good number of collections on each trip as it is always painful sending out the van without any paying cargo, but each tray does cost £10 to replace so it does pay for us to make the effort.

Availability list.

Get ready for late winter flowers by planting our Helleborus range now. Christmas Carol is showing some bud already. Cyclamen coum is coming on quickly. A winter and spring flowering form there can't be far from flowering now, the plant frame is there, just waiting for the colour to appear. Liriope muscari is now showing plenty of flowers so summer must be passing quick. Best we have ever had. Two tone foliage of Tiarella Pink Skyrocket looks very smart, buds are just beginning to show themselves. The more standard classic varieties of Aster varieties are now showing bud and open flower.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy comfort

Hi.

Caroline and I are leaving Greg in charge as we swan off for a couple of days away, which we are really, really looking forward to. Hoping the Cornish seas are calm as we travel to the Scilly Isles for, walking, good food, great music and possibly the odd tipple. Looks like we have timed it perfectly for the arrival of Storm Amy! It has happened before, a few years ago, when we got stuck over there due to bad weather. There are worse places to get stranded. Relatively normal or even better service will continue in our absence so don't hold back in getting in touch.

Made the most of the calm and warm weather this week by re-cladding 3 poly-tunnels which had split over the summer. It was perfect weather and they went on beautifully with hardly a moments drama. Usually the moment we unroll a sheet the wind gets up and it all gets a bit too exciting for my liking. Unfortunately we noticed another two had split during the recent cooler nights which tightens the sheets resulting in the oldest ones splitting. Two extra sheets ordered but didn't arrive in time to get them on so we will have to wait with crossed fingers for some more favourable weather.

The last coir pot delivery came this week, another full container stuffed into the barn alongside the 10 pallets of recycled wool capillary matting ordered for cutting up and inserting in the wooden marketing trays next season. Naturally everything arrived at once, together with a visitor booked in for a tour of the nursery. At least we looked really busy for the visitors arrival!

This is our financial end of year so it's out with the clipboards for mass counting and recording what is out there. A general pain to complete, but is pretty vital in planning the coming season. We can see exactly what plants are on the ground and which labels are left in stock, then more accurately order modules for the spring and most importantly decide on plant label quantities for the whole of the next year. Without it expenditure and stock levels can get even more out of control than it already is. I'm leaving most of the plant stock-take to a small team to do over the next couple of days while we are away. A happy coincidence of timing.

Slightly distracted with my shortened week, too much to prepare before departing early tomorrow and too many other distractions. A long opticians appointment this morning relieved the credit card of most of its contents, although the news was overall good for 'someone of my age'. Am I supposed to be reassured by that or offended? Need some replacement reading glasses but that's not a worry, I never manage to find much time for reading anything other than a computer screen anyway. Did a bit of last minute online holiday purchasing, getting a couple of new shirts in the sale. Picked the 'long' fitting hoping to avoid untucking while dancing, this turned out to be a mistake. Everything was perfect except the sleeves were much wider where they fitted to the body. Fine while your arms were down but when lifted the whole body of the shirt lifts like stage curtain revealing a heap of stuff best left under wraps. They've gone back and I'm left with a rather ragged collection of old favourites, but that does mean comfort will rule on this short break.

Wooden box collecting has started

We are already well underway collecting up our reusable wooden boxes ready for cleaning, drying and repair if needed, before they go into winter storage. If you have any ready to go just drop us a line and we will pick them up when next in your area. It may take a week or two to get round but we will get there eventually. We try to put together a good number of collections on each trip as it is always painful sending out the van without any paying cargo, but each tray does cost £10 to replace so it does pay for us to make the effort.

Availability list.

Get ready for late winter flowers by planting our Helleborus range now. Just added a whole heap of different coloured. Helleborus orientalis varieties. Christmas Carol is showing some bud already. Autumn flowering Cyclamen hederifolium is showing great colour. Just a few White left but still looking great. The follow up Cyclamen coum is coming on quickly. A winter and spring flowering form there can't be far from flowering now, the plant frame is there, just waiting for the colour to appear..

Liriope muscari is now showing plenty of flowers so summer must be passing quick. Best we have ever had. Two tone foliage of Tiarella Pink Skyrocket looks very smart, buds are just beginning to show themselves. Lovely new batch of Verbena bonariensis (fairly short), now in bud. The Salvia Lip's series and Salvito's are still going strong, we keep giving batches a trim to strengthen them up and keep them from getting too tall and they just keep bouncing back.

The more standard classic varieties of Aster varieties are now showing bud and open flower. A fab range of the compact Helenium Hay Day series are budding well now, with colour showing. 

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.