Nursery News

2012-02-06T19:51:00.000Z

Now that was a bit more wintery. I must admit we did turn on the central heating on Wednesday just to keep it nice and cosy. We got down to -9C on the nursery thermometer on Friday night and just a degree or two warmer the previous couple of nights. Last night we had a couple of inches of snow but this morning it is mostly slush and it is relatively warm so that might be the winter done for us in the barmy south. Despite the cold we still played hockey yesterday and although I wasn’t particularly looking forward to getting down to my shorts in this weather it was fine, partly due to foam shin pads, padded knee protectors and long shorts covering everything but an inch or two and partly due to scoring twice and setting up the third in a 3-2 win! Unfortunately my goals were not very pretty and the cross that set up the goal was supposed to be a shot but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

The cold weather did slow things up here a bit with a few frozen pipes in the loo’s and mess room but at least the irrigation system should be ok. A few weeks ago we set up the new system with a compressed air fitting so we can now blow out the water in the pipes and spray-lines onto the crop by running a specific programme on the irrigation controller, preventing any pipe freezing damage. Having suffered quite a bit of damage last winter this does give us a lot more irrigation flexibility in the cold season and confidence that we can cheaply and easily safeguard the system. Another step forwards. One new bit of kit I have discovered this winter is pipe heating cable which we had installed under the insulation on all our water inlet pipes around the storage tank and pump shed. It runs on low power electric cable which gently warms the pipe when temperatures drop, the colder it gets the more it heats. Although it does use a little bit of power it is much cheaper than fixing the damage that can be caused by frozen pipes. I will have to have a look at getting the pipe-work going into the portacabins done to help out these vulnerable spots which always seem to freeze up.

Sales were a bit subdued but the timing worked out well. We had been due to get our new van delivered this week, the old one has passed its sell by date and can no longer be used in the new London emissions zone, but it was delayed with some technical problem and never arrived. Hopefully it should be here in the coming week and we can have a play. It is a good illustration of how things move on in just 5 years, the emissions are far less and the fuel economy improved. We have gone with an automatic for the first time, as it is supposed to be more reliable (not a good start so far!) and save a bit on fuel.

Eco News

We are extending our LED lighting trial in the growth room of the microprop lab. The plants are doing really well under the trial lights but the light spread isn’t quite good enough for our narrow shelf heights, so we are going to try a different arrangement where the lights are individually mounted on a ‘string’ so we can spread them out over the whole shelf area. It will be more complicated to install but if it works could mean we can create more production area in the same room, while reducing energy costs for the lighting by 60% and reducing temperature control costs too.

Another example of technology moving forward for the better is the latest developments in air source heat pumps which we use for controlling the temperatures in the lab. We replaced one unit that died in the summer which was about 8 years old with a new unit which has an inverter in it. The running costs fell noticeably for us and the claims of between 35% and 65% savings in energy use looking true. The nice thing about this change is that the units are not just significantly cheaper to run but do the job better which can’t always be said of environmental advances. Basically an inverter changes the way the units work, rather than being on or off when heating or cooling, they make gradual changes adding a little more heat or cooling as the environment demands it. This variable control makes for more subtle temperature changes in the room, less cold draughts or hot winds and reduced energy use. Naturally the cleverer system is more expensive to initially buy but the payback is very quick if it is in constant use.

If you want to start on some environmental improvements where you are, the first steps are very cheap. Read, record and try and understand your energy use, it sounds really dull but it does focus attention but watch out it can get addictive! When I first started I was reading the meter several times a day to try and understand what was going on, but I have got it down to once a day now, well except for the turbine meter of course which gets read a lot when it’s windy!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2012-01-30T19:10:00.000Z

Looks like a bit of cool weather this week which is just fine with us. Better to get winter out of the way in January than deal with it in April. Hopefully it won’t be too bad as I know it can get a bit stressful for some, no matter how much the kids love it. Hopefully it will knock out a few more pests which have had it too easy so far this season.

Unfortunately, but not entirely surprisingly, the cooler weather is timed perfectly with the start of the microprop lab pricking out work, so the boilers are on and the lights programmed to get them off to a healthy start. At this time of year we can get big problems with humidity in the heated tunnel and associated problems with disease which have been tricky to deal with. The temptation in the cold is to seal everything up to prevent the expensive heat escaping, so we have a double skin on the tunnel and all the draughts reduced to keep it cosy, now I understand more about water content held in air after attending a seminar on a house plant nursery, we can manage the resulting humidity much more efficiently. The key is that cold air holds on to far less water than warm air, so the warmed air in the tunnel gathers lots of moisture which condenses on any cooler surfaces giving rise to the disease growth and transfer issues, but by occasionally flushing out the warm moist air with cold dry air (because the cold air can’t hold onto the moisture) you remove the water laden air. Then it is just getting the balance right between the occasional flush of cold dry air and keeping the heat loss to a minimum. We use the lights to extend the day length so that the plants are active enough to grow away in their new tough nursery environment after years in 21C and 14 hrs a day under lights in the lab.

Lots of whittling got done this week as we completed one of our winter jobs of repairing all the broken wooden trays that were returned through last year. It looked and sounded like a scene from Santa’s workshop with our own busy pixies and their little hammers tapping away. We have spares for any unrepairable tray sides so very few are beyond putting right, we also remake the inserts up from bits of the broken one’s and we have a few spares for those too. So don’t be embarrassed about sending the odd casualty back we can always do something with it and please bear in mind that careful/tidy stacking the empty trays does help reduce damage. The repairs didn’t take too long and we now have another couple of pallets of strong reusable trays to use again. The wooden tray return idea is working nicely for us, it may be less convenient than the throw away trays of the past with having to collect, clean, dry and repair them, but after the initial painful investment they are now beginning to save us money too. The reduction in waste we have to deal with now is a bonus and hopefully you will have noticed how much less material ends up in landfill from our deliveries compared with some others.

I widened my retail experience this week with my first trip to IKEA in Southampton on Thursday night (only opened 3 years ago). No I don’t get out much. It was a bit overwhelming for such a quick visit. The scariest bit was the multi-storey car park and especially the spiral ramps which had obviously been constructed on the same flat pack principle as all of the furniture. As we drove home we started to recognise IKEA show rooms through people’s windows, so it must be as popular as it was rumoured to be. Naturally the one item we went for was out of stock. We will go back for a proper look round one day. The meat balls looked good.

Eco News

We used our first borehole water this week to apply a bit of irrigation. It worked really well, the new pump set produced a very consistent pressure even when we turned on multiple lines, so this summer looks like a less stressful one for all those trying to water in the potting. The key to this was a more energy efficient pump selection. The two variable speed pumps adjust output to the demand so there isn’t the constant on/off scenario with big pressure vessels etc as we used to have. Not only is the supply more reliable but the pumps use 30-50% less energy which should quickly pay back the extra cost. By controlling our water use we are able to keep daily consumption below 20 cubic meters for most of the year which we can take from the borehole and we are looking to top this up with some harvested rainwater in the future. The neighbours will now benefit from a higher pressure supply, as we will only be using a fraction of our previous mains usage and the water company will no longer be wasting treated pressurised drinking water on plant production.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2012-01-23T11:33:00.002Z

Just a quick one today as I can’t sit still too long this morning. I over did it a bit this week and my over-eating and lack of exercise has caught up with me. After collecting, moving and splitting a load of logs last weekend ready for next winter I felt a bit stiff. Rather than holding back I tried to keep up with a couple of youngsters on the nursery during the week, helping shift and spreading tonnes of soil and a bit of road-stone as we finished off tidying up the turbine sites. Naturally I still attempted a game of hockey yesterday and although I didn’t play a whole game as I was substituted quite quickly when it became obvious I could do little else but imitate a slow moving pregnant goose. I am now dosed up on muscle relaxant and need to move gently about on a regular basis to prevent complete seizure. Oh to be 30 again.

I am hoping to attach a couple of images to this note of the new tray insert we have been working on to make the watering of our hairy pots quicker and easier. The shallow tray provides a slow draining pool of water allowing the compost more time to absorb the irrigation overspill. The tray corners are open so the water does get away after a few minutes preventing the pots from sitting in a permanent puddle.

There is also an image of the new collection of POS boards we have had made. They each explain a little more detail about the whole hairy pot thing to give more depth to the whole hairy story. It has taken us a while to identify the right style of POS to use to create a complimentary, informative and good value effect and we feel we have pulled it off with these free boards. They simply fold into one of our display boxes which effectively act’s as a picture frame. You can simply lean it on or close to your display, or insert a hook or two and hang the box in an appropriate position.

Eco News

It has now been six months since the turbine were plugged in and as expected we fell just short of anticipated output. The wind forecast was about right but the one turbine with the sensor problem meant that we fell short by just under 2,000 units. At this time of year that is about 6 days wind, so not bad. Mind you will are still waiting for the first FIT payment so payback hasn’t really started yet.

Having tidied up each of the three turbine sites this week by topping the levels back up to ground level, I can see that they should look nicely established by the summer. The hedge plants we cut back to get the foundations in are already showing signs of rejuvenating so they will quickly grow back towards the towers and I’ve got a nice chalk wildflower seed mix to re-sow around the rest of the foundation area.

The water system is up and ready to go, the borehole pump is now running the right way, the leaks are sealed and all the time-clocks and heat protection are all more or less in place. Now we need to save a lot of water to pay for all the new equipment and work done to install it. If only horticulture paid as well as electricians.

We planted some more native hedge plants this week in small clumps around parts of the nursery that are a bit far from other natural habitats. We are hoping that we might get more overwintering of natural predators nearer the tunnels.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-12-24T10:13:00.000Z

Just a quick message to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a jolly festive break.

It continues to be very busy this end, getting things sorted for the winter and attempting to get through the list of jobs to do that were left for the long winter period when we have loads of spare time! We have got through a few of them but spring will be here in a couple of weeks and most of that time will be spent doing Christmas stuff. I’m looking forward to my annual Christmas shopping trip in a couple of days, there’s nothing like a bit of pressure to get things done! Why don’t they just move Christmas to a quieter time in the shops? It would be so much nicer. Mind you it sounds from the TV reports that there may be no-one in there when I go anyway.

All the Christmas decorations are up here. We ran our usual competition for the best decor in the style of Blue Peter and I must say the standard was well up, or should that be down, to the usual level. Hugh won with a very tasteful window decoration and Jamie was runner up with his food contribution, shepherd’s pie! My nativity scene which took minutes of my valuable time to put together, was the equivalent of the UK in Eurovision and received nil point in the judging, must try harder.

Our old homemade tree is all decorated again up in the house, so we are ready for all the fun to begin. As we are expecting guests we are considering turning on the central heating, it is Christmas after all!

Eco News

After a quiet November for wind, December looks to be recovering well so far. The storms early in the month kept things moving although we are finding that the turbines tend to be more productive in steady moderate wind conditions rather than in the more erratic storms. We have not quite caught up yet with the anticipated output, due to a sensor problem on one of the turbines, but our continued success in reducing consumption has meant that we are generating more than we are using.

The trial of LED lighting in the lab growth room is going well so far despite initial concerns that the light distribution on our closely spaced shelves didn’t look brilliant. The Phillips units use a combination of red and blue lights, selected specifically for plant growth. They look bizarre, dark and not very plant friendly but the growth under them is really good and may be even better than the old fluorescent tubes. We will continue with the trial until the summer when we will make a decision on expanding their use. They are expensive to install but with potential savings of over 60% on energy use they could save us loads as we do have a lot of them.

Novembers figures on electric use are still encouraging, a saving of 4.5% on 2010 and 36.82% on 2009. If we include the turbine output in the figures that brings it down to 26.65% and 51.50% savings for the same periods. For 2012 we should be in generating surplus all year with the turbine contribution, which will help offset our heating and some of the transport carbon output.

Please enjoy lots of sprouts and parsnips to keep the wind speeds up.

Have a good Christmas and New Year, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-11-30T19:06:00.000Z

What a lovely bright spring morning, primroses in the garden and grass growing away well. What is going on, this time last year we were getting cold and snowy. We haven’t even put our central heating on yet, although that is mainly due to all the insulation and the wood burner we put in last autumn, smug, smug, smug. Actually the insulation didn’t get finished until nearly Christmas so we have still to see the full benefit of a whole year’s savings but it looks good so far with our heating oil consumption nearly halved for the last year, although the cost per litre went up hugely (over 30%). It has turned into one of those frustrating situations that we have ended up with a similar bill despite the investment and we just have to hang onto the fact that the bill would have been much higher if we had done nothing. It reminds me of the time we bought a very expensive automatic price labelling machine to stick the prices on the pots going to one of the multiples. The theory was that the kit paid itself back out of the labour savings over a few years but what happened in practice was everyone else did the same and the customer demanded a lower price because the production costs had fallen. In the end we effectively bought the machine to keep the customer and we got no extra profit to pay off the cost. You live and learn.

We have just got back from our annual break to sunny St Ives. What a fantastic couple of weeks, warm, mostly dry, lots of visitors came to stay and plenty of healthy outdoor activities were undertaken. There are now so many more people taking a break at this time of year in the area and most of the restaurants were open and much busier than previous years. We had some fantastic meals, a couple of special treats in our favourite (Al Fresco’s) on the harbour-side and some delicious more modest treats in other spots. We even managed Sunday Lunch at the Gurnards Head (as recommended in the Sunday Times) followed by an Italian in the evening. Needless to say I put on a little extra ballast, just the 9lbs (not a record), and we are now on a strict winter vegetarian soup regime to get back in shape for Christmas. It was worth it.

One thing I like doing on holiday is to stretch sides of me that don’t get much exercise the rest of the year and this involves taking a bit of the art scene which is so active in the area. Tate St Ives is always a challenging place to start and this year was no different with their current exhibition ‘The Indiscipline of Painting’. This was a collection of abstraction painting from 1960 onwards which can be a struggle to get to grips with for a simple nurseryman from the country. I have to go on the guided tour first to get an idea of what is going on but with that extra input I always find something of value to take away. Mind you it didn’t help me in the Exchange Gallery in Penzance where there was an exhibit of a young man in a just a loin cloth crouched in a large dog cage with a muzzle on. He was going to be in there for 5 days but there was no way of really getting to grips with what the intention behind it was. Then there are all the deep intellectual questions you want to ask but can’t, are you going to wash over the 5 days? Or are they after creating more of an atmosphere by day 5. Are you feeding through a straw and how about loo breaks? Have Health & Safety at work assessed your working conditions? Back to reality I think with bills to pay and a winter to get through before another exciting Spring starts in January.

Excitement on this week with one of our long serving youngsters slipping away to a new exciting life in Australia with her young man, and our longest serving young lady Elaine reaching an astonishing age (because she doesn’t look it). Loads of cake all round, bang goes the soup diet.

Eco News

The solar FIT rates are changing more or less as I expected and although there are a lot of complaints about how quickly the large reductions were brought in I feel sure that it is the fair thing to do. The rates of return on the investment were getting silly as the price of the panels fell and I have heard rumours already that the panel costs are set to reduce further especially after the FIT readjustment dates pass. This will hopefully take the jumping on the bandwagon element out of the solar industry and get back to a value and service approach. I have already heard from one business who are still looking at solar as an investment because even after the changes the rates of return are likely to recover to sensible levels very quickly.

Turbines had a quieter period with the rather slack southerlies we have been getting for the last few weeks. Did ok yesterday!

Cornish nature notes

Spotted; 6 Common Cranes (bizarre sight in UK field), Desert Wheatear, Marsh Harrier, Bittern, Cough, Great Northern Diver.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-10-31T09:47:00.000Z

Morning all,

Big numbers this week. Population of 7 billion by next week, 49% income increase for top business directors and 50% cuts in Feed In Tariff payments for new solar panel installations.

There is a popular belief that history repeats itself but a rapidly expanding and enormous population is going to be a new challenge to all over the coming years. It’s a situation that not many have faced up to yet but there must be some major redressing of resources if it isn’t to all end in tears. I wonder if that is part of the reasoning behind the hoarding of the obscene amounts of wealth by those at the top of the business pyramid, because they can see tough times coming. It is difficult to morally justify the top directors income rises when the rest of the population and I suspect many of their own employees are struggling to make ends meet. I would like to think that the money won’t bring them satisfaction and happiness and guess that they haven’t noticed the shallow and selfish action they have taken or just don’t care, which is sad. If it makes anyone feel better many of the directors I know in smaller businesses struggle to take home the minimum wage for the hours they put in. Mind you that might be something to do with knowing a lot of people with nurseries! Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not particularly envious just a bit frustrated and worried that the system doesn’t seem to be set up to cope well with future challenges. I see Carlos Tevez was fined two weeks wages (£400,000) for his misunderstanding with the Man City management, are we on the same planet?

Meanwhile back on earth we installed our trial LED lights in the growth room this week. Just red and blue lights which look very odd but the plants are supposed to like it. We could save 70% on our lighting energy use but we have to be sure they will work with us first. The theory looks brilliant, but the practice is never that simple. Fitting them was very easy but we seem to have an issue with the distribution of light across the shelf due to the fact that our growth room shelves are so close together. We are returning to the drawing board with Phillips to find another way of using their LED’s. I’m sure we will get there in the end.

Eco News

No negative only positive responses from last week’s local paper coverage which is great. www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/9319823.New_wind_farm_near_Winchester_up_and_spinning

I have held back from stirring things up about the ‘Hampshire’s first major wind farm’ statement when we are only a ‘micro-generation project’ and take comfort from the fact that is has been so well received overall. It’s interesting how many individuals you speak to say how much they like their appearance but think they are in the minority and how it is assumed the ‘anti’ lobby are in the majority. Such is the power of the media and the weak position created by a silent majority.

There has been a bit of a solar rush in the last few months as many people have cottoned on to the falling installation costs and high current rate of solar Feed in Tariffs resulting in ever shortening payback periods. Lots of little installation companies appeared offering all sorts of deals and the ‘clever’ buyers were holding out for lower prices for maximum return. This balloon was due to pop in April when the annual FIT review comes into force and the government adjust the FIT rates to compensate for falling costs. However it was leaked last week that the new rates are coming into force for all solar systems installed after 8th Dec (still to be officially confirmed). There is a big cut 50%+, new rules and the quick implementation of the changes which has put the wind up a few but it is something that had to happen. The good news for all is that solar costs are falling rapidly which brings it a lot closer to being an economically viable asset to have as part of the energy supply system. The high rate of FIT support was a tool to get these things started and it has succeeded in that, but when monetary gain becomes the main aim things do need looking at. I’m sure after a few months of readjustment the solar industry will settle into a more sensible phase of development. One company I was speaking to was looking at designing ground mounted tracking systems where you can increase output by up to 40% which sounds very sensible especially in a country where we need to make the most of our limited sunshine levels use the same panels and get more output.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-10-24T19:04:00.000+01:00

Had a scary visit to Roundstone Nurseries this week for a Grow-save seminar on heating and ventilation. What a place, lovely smart warm offices and a spotless despatch, potting and production setup on a big scale. We had a brief walk round and saw crops of Poinsettia coming on for the Christmas market, all very closely monitored and managed to keep inputs to a minimum and quality high. Many of the guests were more greenhouse orientated than ourselves so their interest in heating costs etc was probably more financially significant but the overall story of lack of margin for most on this crop or no margin at all, despite a crop waste rate of less than 3%, was sobering. The market is hugely supermarket led and ruthless. Stories of large pot cyclamen imports at 50p/pot were told and there were a few long faces at the longer term prospects if this sort of madness carries on. The depth of knowledge in the room was very impressive, with clever use of heat, irrigation and venting reducing and in some cases eliminating the need for sprays to control growth habits and diseases. These were very highly skilled growers producing fantastic crops yet they struggle to pay minimum pay rates to make ends meet and without better consumer appreciation will struggle to survive. It was interesting to see one large ornamental grower selling up two of their nursery sites over the last couple of weeks to a food producer, possibly a trend to watch. Luckily I did pick up a few useful pointers as to how we can eek our oil heating costs out a bit, while at the same time improving our propagation successes, so it wasn’t all bad news.

I’m not sure whether I should mention how well Southampton FC are doing on their return to the championship, riding high and playing pretty well. It’s amazing how far a bit of extra confidence can take you. We went into the city on Friday to see The Beat and a great young band called Will and the People, all of them oozed confidence but in a fun and non-irritating way. Even if you are not old enough to remember the Ska scene of the eighties look out for The Beat. It always seems slightly sad to be going to see a reformed band in a small local venue, but it was a great party atmosphere and the band very entertaining and talented. It’s always a good sign if the band look like they are having a good time!

Have you noticed the cooler weather has brought about a change in fly populations. We did have a big influx of quick moving little buggers who were very irritating and in my eagerness to catch & despatch them tended to get over splattered. It’s been a good time to avoid any homemade garibaldi biscuits in our house! Now we are into the cluster flies which tend to congregate at this time of year to hibernate. Fatter, dopey things, easier to swat but form ugly seething masses when they find a nice home. They used to be a problem in the loft until we put up an electric killing machine and now I’ve noticed them filling up the control boxes at the base of the turbines, not very nice when you open them up to check the readings. The joys of country living.

Eco News

We made page two in the paper with a reasonable splash. www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/9319823.New_wind_farm_near_Winchester_up_and_spinning

I would hardly classify us as a wind farm (too small and less than 5 in number), let alone a major wind-farm, but there you go why would you want the press to be accurate, there is no sensationalist or entertainment value in that! I may have accidentally invited a load of complaints by mentioning that only one person had complained directly since they went up 3 months ago, but hopefully all will pass off quietly.

We are having the first service of the turbines in a couple of weeks which should see the last of the setup stuff completed. Although they have been busy generating since we turned them on there are still a few bits of the installation to tidy up before all is signed off at which point we will have a look at getting some local groups/schools in to have a look at what is going on and how it all works.

Times are tough and sustainability rules. Even our labels get the chop. Apparently the huge tongue depressor market is saving resources by now making them 1mm narrower so I will need to remake our wider printing plates to accommodate the change, I bet they didn’t think of that when they changed.

Skylarks are back in the field already singing and fighting over territory.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-10-16T20:34:00.001+01:00

Triumph! Computer security upgrade successfully sorted last week but as is the way with all messing about with computers it’s never that simple. The instant I had finished we had a huge Windows 7 update which loaded the latest Internet Explorer 9. It took ages to download and completely messed up any internet browsing, within 30 seconds or so it would freeze and refresh. Naturally I assumed it was a cock-up on my part with the security update but after a bit of investigation it was the new IE9 upgrade. It automatically sets itself up for the very latest video software which of course we don’t have and can’t upgrade with a compatible driver despite the computers only being a couple of years old. Anyway by ticking the right box in ‘internet tools + advanced’ we sorted it. Another productive few hours!

Caroline came back down to earth last week, quite literally. She did her tandem skydive which she got as a birthday present from a load of ‘friends’ a few months ago. I wasn’t too worried as I had topped up the life insurance and I know she loves that sort of thing, about as much as I hate it. It hit the spot and the ‘money off your next jump’ voucher is now burning a hole in her pocket so I doubt it will be long before she has another go.

Sad news this week that the Woking Nursery Show is no more. We have been exhibiting there for a very long time and it was always a productive and lovely day out for us, but the competition from the new HTA National Plant Fair just a couple of weeks before was just too much to bear and perhaps it was time to move on. It will be interesting to see how the shows get on over the next few years, particularly the national ones especially when I think things are likely to turn more in favour of more local supply with increasing demand for local produce, transport costs and possible future plant movement restrictions. I’m not 100% sure of our future strategy on the show front, we have now lost both of the shows we attended this year but it looks at the moment that the favourite option may be to buy a pig and eat it! As a sideline we might invite a few folk to come and see what we are up to at the same time. We have done quite a few tours already with local interest groups, nursery visits and students and we seem to have built up quite a variety of different things to show, there is all the hairy stuff, production facilities micro-prop lab, sustainability stuff and the turbines and nearly all the people who come have managed to stay awake for most of the time. Perhaps one in early February and another in the summer, we’ll see. Mind you by the time we get too February we might be down to cabbage soup rather than suckling pig!

With perfect timing through our contacts in Plato Sustain we had a very entertaining & productive visit from a marketing strategist from URS Scott Wilson who has done us a quick review of all things hairy. I am always a bit sceptical about consultants especially when they are not horticulturaly orientated but she was brilliant, very sharp, practical and astute. We discussed all sorts of options from very short term ideas on a shoestring budget to longer term business strategies. It was certainly a great way of bringing some of our ideas into sharper focus and finding practical ways of bringing those ideas into reality. Watch this space!

Eco News

The local paper caught up with us this week with a call asking if the turbines were up yet. The reporter lives in Winchester but such is the uproar created by their erection that he hadn’t realized that they had been up for over three months. It won’t be in until next week (Hampshire Chronicle) but hopefully it will get a sensible reaction and not stir up too many negative thoughts. The photographer came in on Wednesday to take some pictures and I look great, so that’s ok.

I have been doing a bit of internet research on UK average monthly wind speeds this week to try and get a more accurate idea of how the turbines are fairing. It will still need a long term review for sensible analysis but it looks ok so far. I found a couple of graphs for UK winds over the last 21 and 34 years and they gave me the percentages to adjust the annual estimate we were given by the turbine installers. By the end of September we were 2.88% under estimate, although if I adjusted for the time one turbine was out of action with a set up problem it would have been 3% up. So far in October we are fractionally up but it is so tight that a day of light or heavy wind could swing it one way of the other.

The recent wooden tray returns have gone pretty well, we still are a few short, but looking back over the three seasons we have been using them we have achieved a return rate of 97.5% which is brilliant. Well done everyone, especially those who have achieved a 100% return of which there are many.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-10-10T13:43:00.000+01:00

Back to autumn which is good news for turbine production and my body. Might have been a bit over optimistic playing hockey twice last weekend in all that heat as it took me a while to get upright on Monday, in fact it wasn’t until Thursday that I felt I could give it another go. Better day yesterday with perfect cool weather and a more forgiving rubbery pitch and a 7-0 win, we won’t talk about last week’s results. Most parts are moving ok this morning, well, as many parts as usual anyway. Shame about the England performances this weekend, on the football and rugby pitches, but there you go, good job it’s only a game and played for fun.

We had another very full week again, I keep thinking we will get a quiet week but there seems to be so much going on Monday saw my last official PLATO Sustain meeting and a résumé of all the things we had all done over two years which was a surprising amount. The timing seems to have been perfect for those of us who stuck the course (9 out of 13) with sustainability coming much more to the fore in businesses of all sizes. OK I know some may only be playing lip service to it at the moment but those of us who are embracing it are seeing some valuable returns already with plenty more to come. We are going to continue our local group on a self financed quarterly basis, meeting up at each other’s premises to try to keep up the momentum and I’m looking forward to the first one at a rubber mouldings manufacturer!

The changing weather prompted some pre-winter repairs this week which seem to have gone really well. The lab growth room and mess room roof’s had sprung a few leaks where the covers had split. The mess room we re-sheeted which looks good and the growth room we repaired with some very expensive but hopefully effective tape (Eternabond). We have tried repairing this roof before with bituminous stuff, but it has dried and split again, the tape looks much more suited to the job was quite easy to apply. What did we do before the internet!

Had a trip to the solicitors to sort out the official lease paperwork for the turbine sites which are on the field above the nursery. 28 pages of legal stuff and a bill larger than the rent for 20 years! Everything odd ‘little’ job done for this project costs another couple of thousand, whether it’s bat survey, archaeologists, solicitors, planning stuff, servicing contracts, electric extras. If only we could charge these labour rates for our skills in horticulture, still at least we are not bitter, we do have such a lovely lifestyle after all!

It is that frustrating time of year when our computer security software comes up for renewal. Every year what should be a simple renewal of licensing turns into a long winded, hair pulling cock-up. That’s the advantage of having me as the IT department! I got a reminder from Symantec that it was coming up to renewal time and they gave me a renewal code number to use. Looks easy and if you have a domestic version or have a business in the USA or Canada it is, but in the UK you have to buy it through a reseller. Went to the company who sold it to us last year, sorry we don’t do renewals, searched the internet for the UK and no obvious candidates, it was easier and cheaper to buy from new again. Bought it and tried to load it, slow start as no instructions as to what to do until one of the 6 disc’s supplied goes in (no indication of which one first). Then have to stop loading to remove the old version first. Remove that then try again, window appears to say that this version won’t load onto Windows 7, hurrah guess what we have. Spend the rest of the morning finding and reloading the old version as
we have now have no protection on our main computer. Then I find out that I can load the new one onto W7 if I use another loading method. I’ve decided to take a break from this and will try again tonight, could be a long one.

Eco News

The turbines have been productive this week and are whizzing around again today, pushing up the daily average closer to what we were hoping for. Still need a few more breezy days to catch up with the plan although we are continuing to produce more
than we are consuming which was one of the main aims of the project.

We have been researching the latest Phillips LED Growlights to trial in the lab and have now ordered a couple to try out. They look bizarre as they only have red and blue bulbs so the overall effect is quite dark, but apparently the plants like it and they are said to be 60% more efficient as well as a lot cooler in operation which saves on climate control costs too. We will see how they do over the winter and when the cash-flow recovers in 2012 we will look at making another significant sustainability investment. One financial hiccup is that this investment isn’t as obviously beneficial as it could have been as we are now generating cheap electricity so the savings aren’t as great in £’s only in carbon.

The recent wooden tray returns have gone pretty well, we still are a few short, but looking back over the three seasons we have been using them we have achieved a return rate of 97.5% which is brilliant. Well done everyone, especially those who
have achieved a 100% return of which there are many.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-10-03T09:41:00.000+01:00

Summer at last. A bit late but a nice vitamin D boost before the long haul through until next summer, which is due I believe in March. Not the best of weekends to make my hockey debut for this season with two games in two days. I’m still standing after yesterdays jog about on the wing but I suspect I will be suffering after today’s fixture. Luckily it’s the over 50’s cup so not too many younger than me this time.

A lot of rubbish in the news this week. There was one day when I think the boys and girls in charge thought we needed a bit of uplifting after months of doom and gloom with economic woes and cut backs so they threw us a couple of token bonuses. All I felt were shockingly negative and wide of the mark but pandering to a perceived public demand. Just as we are getting into the swing of living more sustainably and doing lots more recycling we get told that weekly mixed rubbish collections are going to be encouraged, relying on investment in clever sorting equipment to get the recycling done. First of all the equipment is not there at the moment to achieve this with completely mixed waste and how good is that equipment anyway, surely there will be huge cross contamination between all the different wastes that can go into the domestic bins. Then there is the negative message which comes across that we can go back to not thinking about where stuff comes from and where it goes. Sorting the recycling can have a very positive influence on attitudes over a long period, as annoying chores become inbuilt ‘feel good’ habits, at which point we can move on to the next stage whatever that might be.

Another rumour of change was the discussion on raising the speed limit which seems to go against most boring but sensible thinking. Although car development and safety has come a long way they are still heavy fast moving objects controlled by rather unpredictable organic life-forms on increasingly crowded roads. On those roads there are even bigger objects that are restricted to 56mph so the contrast in speeds will be even greater which looks to be asking for trouble. On top of that the loss in fuel efficiency is already big between 60 and 70, let alone at the higher speeds, so carbon output will increase instantly.

Then the BBC were warning one morning about the dangers of handling and eating veg that had been grown in the soil, potatoes and leeks getting particularly bad press, all due to a tenuous link to a very widespread, but not huge, e-coli food poisoning outbreak for which they could find no other explanation. They couldn’t pin anything down to a single farm, district or even county but ran out of other possible links. Now I don’t know much about medicine but if the soil around the whole country was widely infected and soil on veg was the real source of this outbreak why haven’t we seen it in all those other years when soil appeared on fresh veg? I hope no-one took this too seriously as veg growing is tough enough without silly rumours hitting the markets.

Now for the rubbish good news. Recycling for small businesses is getting more efficient and the result is falling costs to us. This week we reviewed our waste disposal choices and managed to simplify our sorting/storage choices by picking more comprehensive disposal packages now being offered to businesses in our area. Because we produce relatively small volumes of waste we have had to work quite hard to get our various different recyclable wastes taken away. This has involved several different contracts, lots of individual costs and plenty of inconvenience, but it would appear that there is now enough organisation in the waste industry for more inclusive flexible solutions to be offered at lower cost. This means that most of our recyclable waste can go to one contractor in one bin, in one collection, once a fortnight at far less than we were paying before. Not only that but we are now recycling so much of our waste that we are reducing our non-recyclable waste collections to once a fortnight rather than weekly which means another saving. We also found out that our mixed waste goes to energy generation (incinerator) rather than landfill which is not perfect but better.

Eco News

The dominant high pressure system has slowed up the turbines somewhat this week but we are hopeful that the autumn storms will return soon (every cloud has a silver lining). We heard from the SSE Feed in Tariff people this week letting us know that we would need to obtain an export meter number, a half hourly export meter and an export contract to be eligible for FIT’s. I informed them calmly that all this was already in place (all installed and contracted to SSE!) and we had been generating and metered since July 21st. Am I the only one that has any idea what is going on? They said they would check it out and get back to me. They must have sorted it out as the contract turned up the next day and we are now signed up and have sent in our first quarterly reading (end Sept), hurrah. Despite the generation slow down over the last week and a bit we still managed to generate more than we used, not just September but over the whole period since the switch on. So some of that carbon surplus can go towards balancing the next big carbon user our delivery system.

Have a good week.

2011-09-26T12:37:00.002+01:00

A slow start this morning after a big day yesterday. It was our first go at entering the Lowaters Nursery (Garden Beauty) 5-a-side football tournament followed by a night out at a local charity ball. Considering I was still up after 10.30 and the fluid intake was above average my head feels fine unfortunately the rest of my body has let me down.

The only way I could make it into the team was to play in goal as we had plenty of volunteers to play on the pitch but I underestimated the effort involved in repeatedly lying horizontal between a couple of posts. Actually the lying horizontal bit was ok it was the getting down and back up again that did me in. My thighs are very stiff and sore, I’ve got carpet burns and bruises on knees, elbows and hips and one wrist doesn’t work anymore. I was like the six-million-dollar-man in the first game, if anyone remembers that far back, everything I did was in slow motion but unfortunately the shots weren’t. A pint of Guinness and a sausage and bacon roll put that right and things did improve in the later games, in fact much to our surprise we won with a 100% record through the whole day. We had one or two very useful players but the thing that swung it was the team work, if we used everyone together it worked fantastically well most of the time and the occasional cock-ups were soon forgotten. It was a perfect sunny autumn day for it and Lowaters did a great job organising it and raising valuable funds for the Greenfingers charity, so well done them. I had hoped a bit of jigging about in the evening would help stretch things out but I fear the only thing really stretched was the waistband. Hopefully things generally will have loosened up a bit by tomorrow and I can start moving around again without quite as many old person’s moans and groans.

2012 is creeping up very quickly and I saw this week that they have already announced the Great Britain sailing team. I don’t know much about sailing but I hear that Ben Ainsley has made it into his fourth Olympics which is a great achievement especially when you think of all the time he spends cooking and hosting Ready Steady Cook.

Back on the nursery, the herbaceous bulbs have just arrived so that means another last few days potting and we will be done for 2012. All the seasonal helpers have gone back to college or other jobs now and we are back to our core backbone of hardworking regulars. That must mean those days are returning when we treasure every penny that comes in and dread each that slips out as the cash-flow issues build through winter until the spring income starts again in a few months time. At least we can see how much better the nursery, stock and business look at this point in comparison to other recent years, real progress and excitement for the coming seasons.

Hopefully the wind keeps the turbines turning over the next few months which should give us a handy boost to the autumn and winter income, it is not quite like printing money but it does provide a regular bonus. On top of that we will have a whole winters benefit of the extra house insulation we put in last winter which will save several more hundreds of pounds. Slowly, slowly catchee monkey.

Eco News

I went to a PLATO Sustain conference last week which was very good but rather disappointingly attended, lots of up to date sustainability info and I learnt a bit about effective business governance. Sounds very dull but was actually quite inspiring. One thing an effective company board can do is take a step back from the everyday fire-fighting that tends to dominate general management in challenging times and take a look at longer term strategy. This can cut back on the fire-fighting which is an obvious immediate bonus and also identify opportunities or approaching challenges in the coming years, sustainability being one of those. Then the very next day we had a sustainability issue reappear in conversation with our plant health inspector. This is something we have started addressing quietly ourselves over the last couple of years and may become a much bigger issue in the coming years for the whole horticultural industry. The advantages of local purchasing of stock is likely to become more obvious as transport costs (in £’s as well as carbon) continue to escalate. But there may be a more urgent issue that could create a real strategic challenge for plant growers and retailers and that is the increasing spread of non-native pests and diseases. One pest we have had come onto the quarantined part of our nursery on imported cuttings is the tobacco whitefly. It is known to carry 152 seriously harmful plant viruses that can devastate commercial food crops and is already seriously affecting production abroad of all sorts of crops. At present it is a notifiable disease in the UK and is being stopped from spreading by effective monitoring and control by importing nurseries (us) and the plant inspectorate. Although this has worked so far there is the possibility that regular offenders (propagation nurseries abroad) could be banned from sending stock to the UK. This could produce sudden serious loss of supply and shortages and in the future could result in a lot more restrictions of plant movements between countries and even within countries. In the longer term there are even fears of plant movement restrictions within the UK, resulting effectively in forced local growing and purchasing. Something to think about for all you buyers and growers out there.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-09-19T19:05:00.000+01:00

Very autumnal at the moment, sun, wind, rain, then no wind and that’s just in the last couple of hours. Naturally the morning that we had a few visitors on the nursery this week was the time when there was no turbine movement at all.

A disappointing labelling issue came up last week when a large supermarket got away with labelling a range of sausages as Hereford sausages despite the fact that they were made with meat from Argentina! Some of the meat was from the breed of cattle called Hereford which were produced in Argentina, hence the allowed description. There are similar issues with things like English butter which can be made of milk from anywhere as long as it is actually turned into butter in England. Tesco’s got caught out too with their latest sausage advert where it appeared that the meat content was from free range pigs when in fact only some of the meat was free range and the rest was from crated pigs, oops. Having dealt with several multiples ourselves I know that however much you want to trust them you just can’t, they will pay lip service to what they think you want to hear and then do whatever they like to make more money. To be fair I have heard much more positive things said about Waitrose but then they are a worker owned business so perhaps the culture is more positive.

Very sad news about the miners in Wales, but the scary thing for me was the reaction of a guest commentator on the BBC who said how shocked he was that anyone was still working in conditions like that. It might not be as common in the UK as it was but all around the world there are miners working in appalling conditions and dying to extract minerals cheaply to make what we consume. The fact that we choose to ignore that and assume everyone works under the same conditions as us is a comforting thought but a long way from reality.

Now the nights are drawing in there is more time to do some star gazing. I can only recognize a very few constellations and at my age I forget any new ones I get shown with a few minutes so it has been great to find the Google Sky app for Caroline’s smart-phone. Once loaded you just hold it up to the sky and it will show you what you are looking at. Brilliant.

Although we are dead keen on keeping things as natural and sustainable as we can that doesn’t mean we don’t use technology to help where we can. We are after all a plant manufacturing unit and have to produce as efficiently as we can to keep our prices as competitive as possible. One of the latest toys we have to help is a rugged handheld mini-computer which will put up with outside nursery use and help us be more efficient in updating our stock info and availability lists. In the past we have had to input updated info manually into the computer system which was always slow and sometimes inaccurate. Over the past 6 months we have been working with a company (Qsys) developing the software to use on the new device and we are now in the last phase of fine tuning this first phase. It works nicely already and has lots of scope for later development (photos, videos, barcode scanning, GPS positioning for batch location are all possibilities). If only nursery work was as well paid as software programming!

Oh yes, there are some yummy plants to buy on the nursery if you want some.

Eco News

Overall it had been a good sustainability week, we generated 2,500 units and we collected a large number of our wooden trays to dry out, clean, repair and get into storage ready for next season. Hopefully we will recover enough trays to get through another season without having to invest in any more trays which is the sort of result we had hoped for when we set off down this particular packaging route. If you have any tray stock ready to be returned then please let us know and we will pop in next time we are in your area. If you are unsure of the balance of trays owed please contact me and I can print off a report and we can sort out things before any shortage bills go out.

Nature notes

There are some great seasonal treats about at the moment, we’ve had some great blackberries and now the apples are coming on stream too. We’ve been through the early Discoveries and now the Worcester’s are in the shops, crisp & delicious, miles better than the foreign stuff in taste and sustainability. For those who struggle with getting through their quota of daily fruit get your storage right. In the past we used to buy fruit and watch it rot in the bowl or just go wrinkly. Pears were always a nightmare, hard for a while, ripe for 30 seconds and rotten minutes later. Then we started keeping apples and pears in the fridge and they are fantastic, keeping crisp & juicy for ages. Look out for some tasty late soft fruit in the shops but keep an eye on where they come from (blueberries this weekend are coming from Argentina!). For a free treat go for a walk in the woods and hoover up the hazelnuts which are now falling. If you’ve got squirrels around you will need to be quick. I’ve picked a good lot up and started working through them even though they are a bit green, the flavour develops as they mature and they keep for months

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-09-12T12:31:00.000+01:00

Sun is shining and the wind is breezing by, perfect for us. It’s funny how a change in circumstances alters your perception on everyday stuff. I always found windy weather a bit tense making, especially at this time of year when the impending dark winter days loom together with all the associated issues that present themselves at this time of year. The reducing sales and cash-flow panics, short days, colder temps, leaking roofs and still lots to get sorted before Spring sales kick off again in January. The autumn wind blasting by was often the last straw in focusing the tension but now I’m watching out for them with glee, checking on the meter to see how much we might generate. This week has seen a big jump in production with just under 3000 units over 7 days which is nearly half of the months anticipated amount. This is now helping catch up with the shortfall of the first month and the next few days look promising too. At times it was too windy and the turbines production started to fall slightly where the efficiency falls away slightly in the stronger winds. This is a feature of our inshore turbines where they reach peak efficiency at relatively low wind speeds to make the most of the lower speeds experienced inland and that efficiency tails off very slightly at the higher speeds experienced in stormy weather.

It was a very busy week with plenty of orders whizzing out and several box collections made which was great. I also managed to squeeze in a PLATO Sustain meeting, a trip to Mums, a day at Four Oaks trade show and a morning in Wem (Shropshire) picking up our new hand held rugged computer (like a big smart phone) and learning how to make it fit on our system. I haven’t been to Four Oaks for years and saw lots of interesting stuff. Unfortunately Caroline has confiscated the cheque book so I didn’t come away with anything other than a handful of brochures and a few ideas lined up for next year’s improvements. Philips lighting were showing their range of LED lighting for use in growth rooms which looks promising for the microprop lab, I expect we will get a trial going in there soon to test them out. They can reduce the direct energy cost by 60% and lower the requirements for cooling on top of that (it’s cheaper to heat than cool with air source heat pump systems like ours). If the plants like them it will pay back within 3-4 years. I must admit they look odd as the lighting arrays are made up of a mix of just blue and red lights and look quite dark. They only add white lights (if needed) to help us see what we are doing!

It was noticeable on several stands that sustainability was shooting up the agenda although it is still shocking to see some of the lack of thought and amount of waste created at this sort of event. One example was the lunch boxes delivered to the exhibitors of which there were hundreds. Organised by Four Oaks and sponsored by Horticulture Week, they were corex (corrugated plastic) suitcases holding the sandwich, apple, crisps and possibly a drink. They looked wasteful, dated, out of touch, and dominated the rubbish bins. Luckily I am now so old I can make a fuss without embarrassment, well not to me anyway, so I stirred it up with most of the exhibitors I spoke to and went to the Hort Week stand to see if they had registered what a poorly thought out promotion this was. The two youngsters on the stand had differing views, one asked if they were really that bad and the other hung his head in shame admitting that they had paid for these and perhaps they could have done a better job. There is still a long way to go in this world to get things going in the right direction and it gets a bit scary when horticulture, a fundamentally green industry, still has such a blinkered view. Luckily I do get to hear from some of you about how much you are doing at work and in your own homes to move things forward so well done you lot, keep it up.

Nature notes

House martins still in the nests but feeding well. Although our swallows have gone I still saw lots in Shropshire so it might not be too late.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-09-05T10:57:00.000+01:00

September already, how did that happen? I’m not desperately keen on sunshine and heat but it doesn’t feel like summer has happened yet. An unsettled and windy (hurrah) week to come is going to feel autumnal but we could still have a couple of summery weeks yet with a bit of luck. Anyway I’m not too worried now as we had our summer break last Sunday with a lovely day trip to the sunny Isle of Wight. Beer and sandwiches on the beach and slight sun scorch after rashly removing my socks from under my sandals. The beach cleared after a short shower just in time for a quick game of beach cricket where I took the ‘catch of the day’ before retiring hurt with a groin strain after doing the splits trying a bit too hard stretching for a wide ball. I missed our first hockey game yesterday because of that, claiming to have picked up the injury training in preparation for the new season. It’s a good job I only went for the day or I would be in a wheel chair by now.

We are just coming towards to the end of the potting for next spring’s crops, the last compost load comes in on Monday and we just have a few more tunnels to clear to make room for it all. We can then get stuck in to some nursery maintenance to get prepared for the winter. With a bit of luck it won’t be as dramatic as the last two, we are not very good with snow down here and we did loose quite a lot of the less hardy stock in the very cold snaps. With a bit more preparation we will hopefully avoid that level of loss and come into a nice sunny spring with even better stock than ever before. We have got to recover the despatch area, the mess room and the lab very soon as all are leaking badly and internal running water in the winter is no fun when it’s not in the pipes.

One thing that will be interesting to see is the performance of the house heating over an entire autumn and winter. Last year’s insulation efforts (roof, cavity walls and under-floor) and wood burner fitting were only completed in mid December and the reduction in oil consumption was dramatic even for part of the cold season. The oil savings made have already paid back the insulation costs and part of the burner fitting so a whole season’s savings should go even further. If you have not looked at insulating recently, take a look, the benefits to the environment and the annual financial rewards are impressive and in our case the comfort improvement on cold nights is luxurious.

Although we didn’t have a particularly breezy August the figures for the first month of turbine generating look ok. Not earth shattering but a reasonable start. We won’t really know how things look on the production front until we have been going a couple of years as the wind does vary so much. Overall we generated about 2/3rds of the average monthly output needed to reach our estimated annual generation, but our consumption reduced a bit too with a replacement air source heat pump with a more efficient model. If we not had the set up problem with the one turbine which put it out of action for several of the windiest days we would have come very close to a carbon neutral electric supply which had been one of our main targets for the project. The month ended on a whimper with our first nil generation day, but hopefully this week we might see what could be done in a breezier spell.

Nature notes

Swallows have all gone and a lot of the house martins too although there are at least three if not four nests of house martins still with a late second batch of youngsters in residence. Hopefully they haven’t left it too late and they get airborne soon before the cool and wet gets a grip.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-08-30T09:17:00.000+01:00

Morning all,

After a disappointing few days on the wind front we are making up for it this morning with over 20 units an hour since 8.00. This will make up a lot if it carries on over the next day or two. First excitement of each day is to pull back the curtains to see if they are turning. Yes I am old.

So now the turbines are sorted, what’s next? Well we are still adding to the irrigation efficiency with our evapo-sensor control system to set up, which should reduce water use by adjusting application rates to each days weather changes more accurately than I can, and the new variable speed pump to plumb in which is energy efficient and will make irrigating quicker and more versatile. Then I’m off to the Four Oaks trade show in a couple of weeks to check out LED lighting for the lab growth room, bio-mass boilers for our propagation needs and any other helpful stuff I can find. We can’t do it all straight away as the cash flow is so tight but it gives us some things to aim for. We are still trialling box inserts for the wooden display trays we use to make it easier to maintain the stock in their display areas. They are very shallow inserts which just hold the irrigation water around the pot base a little longer to allow the water to absorb before draining slowly away. They are looking very promising, we are just fine tuning the sizing and longevity before taking the plunge.

Started shopping for a replacement 7.5 tonne van this week. The old one is getting more expensive to keep on the road and the newer models are that bit more efficient and cleaner running. Not only that but the new emission controls in London come into effect next year and we need a cleaner vehicle to avoid the huge penalty charges involved. I know it will be another added burden on the cash flow but we can’t manage without a reliable workhorse at the centre of a busy spring. We can always resort to hire vehicles in an emergency but having a purpose built van to hand is essential if we are to get everything done effectively during the busy times. The cost of using specialist trolley carriers is getting very expensive too with charges ranging from £45/trolley for very local delivery to £85 + fuel surcharges for East Anglia, Cornwall and the North Midlands. These costs are going to have a bigger impact on trade overall as the years pass and costs continue to rise. Buying from local suppliers is going to have a real financial benefit to all sides in the future, something to bear in mind as you plan for the medium term. ‘Free delivery’ doesn’t exist, someone pays and at the moment that will be the local customer rather than the distant one and that can’t continue as it simply isn’t fair or sustainable.

Off on our summer break on Sunday which I am looking forward too after a long sales season, turbine excitement and recent troubles. There is nothing like a day trip to the Isle of Wight! It has become an annual pilgrimage to sun worship on the beach with a sandy sandwich and a small beer. OK it did rain most of the day last year and I didn’t get out of my coat but we stuck it out, as long as we are with friends it’s a great day out. A change is as good as a rest and besides, I get a little holiday every day when I get on the web cam over looking Porthmeor beach in St Ives each tea time when everyone has gone home.

Eco News

Virtually all our stock now has MET 52 incorporated in the compost to give 2 season protection against the dreaded vine weevil. It is a bio-insecticide (a fungus) that infects the larvae in the compost as it grows. It has been shown to slow the effect of a few other soil living pests as well such as sciarid fly, onion fly, cabbage root fly and thrips so it could turn out to be a really useful and safe asset to have around. Naturally it doesn’t come cheap but with such beneficial results we should get a higher quality plant overall and less wastage from plant loses which will help cover that extra cost.

I had advanced notification from Floramedia (label printers) that they will be offering a wooden label printing service very soon. They have been doing a few for one big customer but are now able to offer it more widely for anyone interested. You may want to sit down before you read the price list. Still it is great to see more use of natural materials being taken up.

Nature notes

Biological rabbit control in full effect this morning. Spare Cat picked off one off the biggest ones and having dragged it off has now consumed most of it and can’t find a comfortable position in which to sleep it off. I’ve got to move him in a minute and I’m a bit anxious that something is going to give.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-08-22T08:09:00.000+01:00

Morning all,

Plenty of weather last week. We measured over 50mm of rain here on Thursday, it was wet. The drains just couldn’t cope with the volume of water and there was water everywhere. Luckily as we are on a slope and thin chalky soil so it doesn’t take long to soak away and the next morning the sun was out and you wouldn’t have believed it had happened. Hopefully there was not too much damage down in Dorset where it was even worse. I was at a meeting near Swanage on Thursday and drove through the worst of it which was exciting but a little scary, the power of nature to create chaos so quickly is humbling.

The meeting was our quarterly gathering of our NBIS group (Nursery Business Improvement Scheme) in which we look at our relative performances, analyse a few figures and focus on specialist topics to try and make things better. It’s always an inspiring session starting with a close check-up on the local hostelry for lunch to get us warmed up. The discussion of our mistakes and successes over the past few months is very honest, refreshing, and therapeutic. It is the horticultural equivalent of Alcoholics Anonymous and the key thing to getting it to work for everyone is that key moment when you are able to face the group and admit ‘I am a nurseryman, I make it up as I go along, I don’t make any real money, I work ridiculous hours, I need help but it is what I do.’ Once you get over the embarrassment hurdle and you get to hear of everyone else’s problems it is much easier to make real improvements. Everyone is insecure and a bit frightened of life out there, we all just find different ways to hide it and sometimes finding a sympathetic ear on a similar wavelength is just what we need to push us onwards and upwards. Watch out for those ears.

A very unusual feeling at present. Southampton FC always have rubbish starts to the season but here we are riding high on top of the championship table with four wins out of four. We only got promotion at the end of last season and this was a little unexpected. We always start the season full of hope, which usually lasts about 45 minutes so we are not quite sure what to think at the moment, we are very pleasantly dazed. We got so carried away that we have entered the Lowaters Nursery 5-a-side football in late September, a decision I hope not to regret as I haven’t kicked a ball for many years. Hopefully some of our youngsters will prop me up and it won’t be too embarrassing.

Eco News

Turbines have been running for a few weeks now, but the weather hasn’t been very windy yet. We also had a set up problem with one turbine which needed another visit from the installers to adjust some of the sensors. There are several safety measures in place which involve various sensors and computer controlled cut-out/ braking procedures and we suspect they weren’t quite right on installation. It ran for a couple of days before registering a fault and we then lost several days output from the one turbine until it was reset. It seems to be running fine now so hopefully that will be it. Since August 1st until this morning (21st) we have averaged generation of 145 units a day (would have been 175 if all three going) and we are aiming for 240 units as a daily average through the year. Not too bad considering the fairly still weather. We have had one brisk days wind when we generated just over 400 units and I have seen an individual turbine producing at close to its maximum output of just over 12 kW an hour although only for a very short burst.

Originally we were hoping to generate the same amount of electricity as we use and this we are close to achieving already as we have managed to reduce a little further our consumption (replacement air source heat pump which is more efficient than the 7 year old unit it replaced). Our daily use since Aug 1st has been 195 units, so at a rate of 175/day generation we aren’t far short.

I have managed to break into my You Tube account and put on a video of one of our turbines being lifted into position if anyone fancies a look. There is one of the turbines running too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ44nQpdVnI.

I had advanced notification from Floramedia (label printers) that they will be offering a wooden label printing service very soon. They have been doing a few for one big customer but are now able to offer it more widely for anyone interested. You may want to sit down before you read the price list. Still it is great to see more use of natural materials being taken up.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-08-15T08:31:00.000+01:00

Morning all,

I hope the sun shines on you this week, it’s about time we had a little more summer weather especially for all those lucky folk on their holidays.

It’s been a bit of a crappy few weeks hence the lack of news coming from this end. Sadly my dad, who has been poorly for a while, passed away. He was such a gentle quiet man, who so carefully looked after his family. In the end he slipped quietly away surrounded by his family at Katharine Hospice in Stafford on a bright sunny day with the doors open onto a lovely garden. I can see now why anyone who encounters fantastic hospice care as we did wants to give them all their cash. All the staff were so caring and considerate to Dad and the whole family and we are very grateful for that. The family, friends and neighbours were all brilliant too, all coming together to see everything through. We cut bunches of garden flowers with some of Dad's vegetables for the funeral which was a lovely celebration of his life despite the sadness of the day.

My brain has been somewhat mushy since, as we all try to readjust our thoughts, and the turmoil on the streets and in the financial markets haven’t nurtured a very positive vibe. As usual everyone on the nursery has been very supportive during a tricky time which is hugely helpful and we have successfully managed to keep everything bowling along here.

That’s your lot this week. Hope to get the brain working again soon.

Eco News

Turbines running now. I have managed to break into my You Tube account and put on a video of one of our turbines being lifted into position if anyone fancies a look. There is one of the turbines running too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ44nQpdVnI

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-07-24T18:50:00.000+01:00

Not sure what to say this morning. The events in Norway and the loss of Amy Winehouse cast quite a long shadow and it is easy to appear flippant and uncaring by trying to be positive and groovy. Unfortunately my dad isn’t feeling too bright either so I’m not going to say too much today which is a bit of a shame when this week could have been very jolly with the new turbines complete, commissioned and running as I write this.

I suppose it just goes to show how vulnerable we all are to whatever unknown event is around the corner. We aren’t perhaps as indestructible as we hoped and life is often unfair and too short. We are all basically soft and squishy on physical and psychological levels and we need to be taking more care of everyone and everything around us, don’t waste your opportunities, appreciate how lucky we are to have what we’ve got and don’t undervalue yourself or others.

I was thinking about socks this morning. Aren’t they great. Quite a complicated thing to make to achieve all of a socks goals but they make life that little bit easier, comfy and luxurious. Extrapolate. We are lucky really, make the most of it.

Eco News

Turbines running now. Quite surprised by the amount generated in light summer breezes of the first couple of days and how much extra was produced with the slightly stiffer breeze over the last 24 hours. I will put some figures together soon.

I have managed to break into my You Tube account and put on a video of one of our turbines being lifted into position if anyone fancies a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ44nQpdVnI

Nature Notes

Second brood of swallows from the same nest fledged this morning. There are loads of tiny frogs hopping about in the tunnels closest to the main pond with quite a few toads and newts too. Explosion of hoverflies this last week or two which should help keep the aphid at bay.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-07-18T12:30:00.000+01:00

No rest for the wicked. I can’t remember such a long period when one deadline seems to be followed by another. The busy spring period is always bonkers with so many little deadlines to stick to in order to get all the orders out on time but as things start to quieten we expect to be able to relax slightly. Not a hope this year.

The nursery is filling with rooted cuttings and young plants for next season’s crop which we are trying to get potted as quickly as we can, looking good so far, a few new varieties but such a lot to get through.

The turbines are still stationary as we approach energisation day on Tuesday (19th) assuming we get a dry enough day for the engineers to connect the new supply without turning off the overhead cable. I hope they remember their rubber wellies. (You do have to keep an eye on the automatic spell check on this programme, I nearly missed one there). Then a separate team is due to install the meters before the turbine installers arrive to finish off their electrics and testing and finally the SSE inspection engineer tests everything for final commissioning on Thursday evening. Slight cock-up this week when the meter installer arrived unannounced to do his bit but couldn’t complete without a live supply. The supply installation manager had booked them to do the work, it must have slipped his mind that they needed it all live, I wonder if any supplies are connected in time? Hopefully he has rebooked them and it all goes smoothly and we will be generating by the end of the week. Cue a month of summer high pressure settled air. We still haven’t had the old poles removed that carried the old overhead cable, I checked and they had the job down as being complete, so hopefully I have resurrected it again, we’ll see.

As well as still sending out lots of orders again, we had the Woking Show to attend this week which added to the deadline list. As usual we were well prepared having planned what we were up to several hours in advance of leaving to set up on Tuesday. We are always full of good intentions to get proper signage done when we dismantle the previous show but before you know it there are only moments to go and it’s all too late. Luckily I had made some notes after the last one and so remembered that the stand space was slightly bigger than it used to be and I needed to take more stuff to fill it up. I’m sure all the info is in the exhibitors info pack but that sort of paperwork falls into the category of ‘please confirm you have read and accepted our terms and conditions before completing your order’. Anyway the weather was perfect and we had a really good day. I suspect that the organisers would have been a bit disappointed with attendance but we met lots of existing and potential customers and had plenty of positive responses. We got some excellent feedback from customers after showing them our trial tray insert that will hold a temporary water reservoir after watering to allow the compost to more efficiently absorb what it needs so reducing watering time. We hope to have these available next year after trials are completed.

Bacon roll for breakfast and a delicious lunch added to the day and on top of all that we were delighted to win the ‘Best Stand’ award. I proudly sported the winners rosette for the next couple of days despite the ‘Best of Breed’ overtones of the resulting appearance. I knew it hit the spot when Jamie on the nursery couldn’t stop laughing every time I stepped in view.

Excitement and tension are building on the farm with the imminent start of this year’s harvest. We have cleared out one barn ready for a crop and I should clear another this afternoon if the rain stops for long enough. Then we stand back and let them get on with it. The scale of kit involved these days is astonishing, it makes me feel quite inadequate on our little nursery, still size isn’t everything.

Eco News

I have managed to break into my You Tube account and put on a video of one of our turbines being lifted into position if anyone fancies a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ44nQpdVnI

Nature Notes

The first of the house martins have fledged and the skies are filling with more and more swooping chirping stars. I think there are 7 nests on the house and now a second late swallows nest has appeared on the nursery so by the end of the summer it will be mayhem. Can’t wait.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-07-11T13:22:00.000+01:00

What a week!

They are up. It all happened so quickly I missed most of it. Unfortunately SSE who are trying to connect our new supply are unable to send a team over for a few hours to connect the cable to the overhead wire until July 19th so the turbines will be stationary until another SSE engineer can then arrange to come after that date and witness the commissioning of the turbines. A bit frustrating but such is life when playing with the big boys! The SSE metering team have also still to fit the import export meters too so just a bit of fiddling to do. Oh yes and SSE still have to take the overhead cable poles down which are now spoiling my view of the turbines.

Anyway they look great to us even if they won’t go round. Quite big close up but shrink quite quickly as you move away. They are a definite addition to the landscape as they are sat on top of a windy hill but hopefully not too dominating. I think that they are attractively majestic in their appearance. I had been a bit worried about the galvanised mast looking a bit clunky but they are quite elegant and do disappear fairly well into the background from most viewing angles.

Bank manager visited on the day of the turbine erections so that was nice to show him what they had missed out on supporting. He was very complementary and glad to hear the positive comments from the erection team on what a great site it was and we all lived happily ever after.

The turbines arrived on Monday on a couple of arcti-lorries, were assembled on the floor on over two days and hoisted up by crane on Wednesday. The hoisting and bolting down was done in 3 hours, all very dramatic. They looked a bit big when they first went up but shrunk quite quickly as we got used to them. I hope by next week to have a video on ‘You Tube’ as soon as I can work out how to get into my new account.

I had an interesting letter this week from SSE containing a copy of one of our many new contracts, it was addressed to a Mr D. Pot Plant. ! Not quite sure where that name came from as the contract details inside were all correct.

Woking Show this week so it will be the usual last minute panic to get things together and set up for that and then a whole day of being nice to everyone, can I hold it together? I must say that the lunch usually makes it worth going, as well of course the opportunity to meet lots of lovely customers. I wonder how well attended it will be after the recent National Plant Show at Stoneleigh? Last year was quieter but still well worth attending and still a fun thing to do. It does get me off site for a few hours, it’s almost like a mini holiday, a change is as good as a rest.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-07-04T09:52:00.000+01:00

PTT (Pre Turbine Tension) has set in big time over the last couple of weeks. It has taken nearly two years to get to this point where our little turbines are due to go up so you would think that was plenty of time to get everything sorted to avoid any last minute rush. Not a hope. This last week has been an endless run of phone calls and emails trying to tie things up so something actually happens next week. We had success early in the week when one of the Local Area Network (LAN) teams arrived to take down the overhead cable which would otherwise have interfered with the turbines and their erection. The poles are still there but we can work round those for the moment. We have already replaced the overhead cable with our own underground one. A long wait for MPAN numbers (identification numbers given to individual meters) meant that we couldn’t apply for the energy supply contracts, one for importing energy, one for exporting and one for meter rental (a surprise one that we only found out about this week) until the last minute and they won’t energise the new supply until all contracts are in place. Then there is the slight hiccup that the new incoming supply is not quite finished yet. There are just a couple of cable joints and a couple of bits of kit to fix in the meter shed and we are then ready to energise. On Thursday we were given an energisation date of 27th July which would mean that the turbines would sit stationary for 3 or 4 weeks until commissioning of the turbines could be rearranged for sometime after that date. However with a bit of re-jiggling the LAN chaps are hoping to get something sorted sooner, possibly next week which would be brilliant. We’ll see. Turbine erection starts on Monday and if all goes well could be complete and generating by the end of Thursday. Can’t really believe it might actually happen.

The rather precarious nature of nursery life has been brought into focus (no pun intended) recently with the demise of the Focus DIY chain and the appearance of the list of horticultural creditors in Hort Week on Friday. I hope those companies listed are making bigger margins than most of the nurseries I know because losses of that size would be devastating. We are feeling quite relieved that we decided a while ago to move away from that market area where volumes may be high but stresses are huge, margins low and eroding, contract security levels are thin and worst of all you feel unappreciated, abused and out of control of your own business. I know as a businessman I am supposed to hardened to that type of pressure but being at work isn’t somewhere I want to abandon my heart and conscience it is where I spend a lot of my life, I want it to be fulfilling and rewarding. OK, I know the money is in short supply and it can be really hard work but given a chance this is still a potentially great industry to be involved in at any level and well worth getting out of bed for.

Eco News

Good weather at the moment for putting up a turbine or three.

Electric consumption up to the end of June 3.5% down on 2010 and 23.07% on 2009. Not such big savings now as we have made the easy savings already. Now it will take investment in new kit to make more savings and first we have to wait until we get through a year or so paying off some of the turbine costs.

Lloyds TSB sent us their glossy farming magazine this week, there is a whole page on renewable energy project funding. There is a handy checklist which I have read through and I can tick all the boxes so you would think funding would be a doddle. The one item they forgot to list was, only apply for financial help if you don’t actually need it. Their support was nonexistent in fact it cost us delay and extra cost when our local manager tried twice to get us help. He is coming on a visit this week so it will be interesting to see what he has to say and how supportive the bank will be over the coming couple of winters when cash-flow will be under huge pressure due to the extra commitment we have had to make ourselves. We have to thank our families for their belief and support in getting the turbine project of the ground rather than the extraordinarily conservative bank approach.

Nature notes

The removal of the overhead cable has meant no perches for the pigeons above the pea field. It makes a surprising difference to our outlook as we are used to seeing loads there when there is a tasty crop below. They are now fighting over the three remaining pole tops which will soon be replaced by three more hazardous perches!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-06-27T14:17:00.000+01:00

Phew it’s gone all steamy here with the promise of a couple of days of hot summer in the offing. Luckily for us old folks who have hot flushes at any opportunity it should cool off again pretty quickly but BBQ sales should pick up again.

Potting here for next season is well under way with some of the slower growing lines settling in for a good summers growing. Without the distraction of production for the multiples this year it is great to feel that we are getting things done at the right time and we can concentrate on further improving everything we do. Unfortunately there still don’t seem to be enough hours in the day or days in the week to fit it all in but it’s definitely improving.

Among this week’s distractions was a tour of the nursery and farm organised on Saturday for the local village as their summer ‘do’. It was a great idea to show the villagers, who no longer have very much to do with their immediate local environment, what goes on locally. Several people said how they always wondered what went on under all our tunnels which they drove past every day. It ended up being over-subscribed with over 60 attendees and they all seemed to enjoy it although the kids were well ready for tea by the end. Sometimes it is easy to take what you do for granted forgetting how fascinating it can be for an outsider looking in. Must make more effort to do more.

We are enjoying our usual Glastonbury experience this weekend, a great way to see bands an old fart like me would otherwise miss. The BBC coverage is excellent although seeing more of the smaller stages would be good. Everyone looks to be having a great time which is quite contagious despite the wet and cold on Thursday and Friday. But for me a beer at home, some good ‘live’ music even on tv, home cooking, my own loo, a shower and a comfy bed with clean sheets is just fantastic. I’ve spent the last three weeks caked in mud from all the turbine earth works and trenches and I spend most of the year in the open, so the attraction of paying a fortune to do worse all weekend is lost on me. Long may it continue, there is definitely something very attractive about watching the antics of others having a good time, it’s a bit like the fascination of watching others work.

Eco News

PTT (Pre Turbine Tension) is building here as things sort of come together for the imminent erection of the turbines. Cables are now all in position if not quite all joined together, most trenches are filled in, the grid connection terminal is in and the erection team are primed and ready to go starting on the 4th. The inspection man from Scottish Southern Electric is booked in for the 7th to check all is ok to switch it all on and generate. However with only 5 working days to go we have no date yet for the removal of the overhead supply which has to go before the turbines go up and there is no word yet on the installation arrangements of the special import/export meter needed to measure energy going in and out of the system. We haven’t even been able to tie down contracts for supply and export as they need meter numbers allocating before paperwork can be done and we only have one at the moment, and the supply can’t be connected until contracts of supply are in place. It seems to be really hard to find a way through the maze of departments and teams involved in the energy system and the lack of communication is scary. With each passing day we make a little progress but I have no idea whether it will all come together on time as we get so little feedback from the teams involved despite numerous one way phone calls and messages.

At least we now have the outline contract quotes here even if I can’t understand them. There are lots of new sections in them on which I will have to get clarification but the importing rate looks frightening at the moment. Let’s hope the wind blows a lot!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-06-27T14:14:00.000+01:00

Our friend at Mabley Green Community Meadow get busy planting in their Hairy Pots, find out more at
http://mableymeadow.blogspot.com/2011/06/leabank-square-gets-growing.html

2011-06-20T12:47:00.000+01:00

I can’t believe it’s been only a week since the party and awards do. Still keep having flash backs but luckily all of them are good ones so far. There is nothing quite like an excuse to get a load of friends together and letting your hair down. In our youth it happened all the time and it only took a few hours to recover, sadly now the opportunities seem far apart and the recovery time runs into days if not weeks. Now it’s nose to the grindstone again to accumulate the necessaries to do it again.

So, lots more done this week with the potting for next year already underway and some more of the debris left from this year’s crops cleared away. We seemed reasonably under control at the start of the week although that can so quickly alter when the unexpected happens. Yes another puncture!
The microprop lab also had a surprise last week with the sudden change in supply plans of a major multiple outlet. Although we don’t supply them directly anymore we do supply young plants to those that do and a change in policy has resulted in a sudden loss of market for tens of thousands of plants. After the initial panic and a little more thought this looks like being in our long term interest after all. The usual scenario has set in of large volume but very low and decreasing margins and with demand for stock from the lab very strong for other stock, we will actually be left with capacity to take advantage of that. There may well be a short term penalty of a dent in the cash flow but it looks ok in the longer term. It is our customer I feel for, as the complete lack of understanding of the big buyers in how the horticultural supply chain works has completely messed up their plans, investments and cash-flow. Hopefully they will pull a new opportunity from the debris but it won’t be easy.

It is nice to see the ground damp again after all that dry weather although for us the timing could have been better. The massive trenching job for the turbines and mains cables has created a bit of a mess in all the wet. We had been hoping to get everything dug in and buried by the end of the week but a combination of weather and more archaeological hold ups has slowed it up a bit. The mains cable and biggest part of the turbine cable are in and mostly buried with just the cable jointing team to come in and do their bit connecting all the various ends together. We have two weeks now to get all the wiring and kit sorted out, foundations backfilled and track repaired to allow the turbine erectors access with a lorry and crane. In theory they could erect each one and commission it in a day to generate electricity although the way the admin is progressing I am struggling to see us having all the contracts and connections complete in time. This may delay commission and the commencement of generation by a few days which would be disappointing but it is just a few days and after waiting two years to get it all together that will be just a minor irritation. You never know it might all fall into place in the next few days, we live in hope.

The archaeologist was back on Monday and Tuesday to see the turbine cable trenches cut into the chalk. We had hoped for a quick run down the hill but complications appeared pretty quickly with the finding of a field boundary ditch followed by more possible ditches. The first one was fairly obviously man-made and he found a burnt flint and a small animal jaw bone in the bottom to prove it but the next four or five dips in the chalk profile on the top of the hill turned out to be natural but had to be checked out. Then there was another man-made ditch and a pit, both with very small shards of pottery (yet to be dated). It was all a bit time consuming but at least he now has some dating evidence of sorts and we were able to get on with putting the cables in eventually. The mains cable trench also showed up three ancient ditch profiles, one of which we already knew about and when we turned to look up the hill we could see the ditches sweep up the hill highlighted in crop markings. We hadn’t noticed them before although Caroline's Dad said that in dry years they had seen the crop marks from the adjacent hill. Hopefully we will be able to get a better idea of who was working and possibly living on our hill when the report comes in, but it does give a real feeling of continuity, history and commitment to working on the nursery. We and the turbines are just another step in the long story of people living their lives on this hill. Sitting on my desk in front of me now is a heat shattered flint I found near the bottom of the furthest trench, possibly used for cooking someone’s dinner on our field over 2,000 years ago.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-06-15T19:07:00.001+01:00

A tasty lunch and a flat tummy too - Who could ask for more?
Find out why herbs are some of our best flat tummy friends at http://flattummyclub.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-favourite-flat-tummy-things-2-herbs.html

You can even win some of our lovely plants in their super competition, check it out at http://www.flattummyclub.co.uk/win.php

2011-06-13T19:33:00.000+01:00

Trenching for the cable to carry the green electricity to the grid.

2011-06-13T19:31:00.000+01:00

Check us out in our posh togs at The Business Excellence Awards Ceremony....

And the award for Green Innovation goes to......

2011-06-13T09:16:00.001+01:00

Very short one this week as it has been a very busy few days and I’m feeling a bit fragile.

Lots of trench digging for power cables this week so plenty of cut pipes and cables short outs to deal with. More to do next week and hopefully cables in and buried by the end of the week. With the current fashion for night-time cable collecting the cables only come on the day they get buried to reduce losses!

On Friday night a gang from the nursery got all dolled up to attend the gala awards dinner at the Winchester Guildhall, everyone turned up looking fantastic, virtually unrecognisable from the usual nursery attire. It was a long and very enjoyable evening and well worth it in the end as we scooped the Green Innovation award for 2011. We made the final of the Business of the Year but missed out on that one. Highlight of the evening happened when we were all gathered together for a group shot for the local paper. All the excited winners huddled together and I felt a reassuring stroking and cupping of my right buttock, I turned expecting to see Caroline but it was the hairdresser who had won the main award. He was a lovely chap but a little forward for my taste. Still nice to know you’ve still got it at my age! Maybe?

Last night was Caroline’s big party night which is the main reason my eyes keep closing and my legs don’t work anymore. We had a great time drinking lots of shandy and dancing the night away to the Ben Waters band. Anyone still not heard Ben play
should checkout his latest CD ‘Boogie for Stu’ which is a tribute album for Ian Stewart who was one of the original Rolling Stones. All the Stones are on the album and proceeds go to the British Heart Foundation, but best of all it is a great recording!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-06-06T10:04:00.000+01:00

Yet another eventful week, not sure how we fitted it all in with only 4 days.

We managed to get one of the vans back into the garage again this week. This time it wasn’t for tyres but a suspension issue from a couple of weeks ago when they replaced some parts. We were stopped by a very helpful off duty policeman who pointed out that the van was travelling in a slightly crab-like fashion and perhaps we ought to get it checked out. He was quite right and the garage repositioned the suspension in the right mounting hole and we were cured. So a big thank you to the policeman for helping out and the embarrassed garage for getting us back on the road very quickly, although I’m sure it would have been spotted at the next regular check-up.

I need to press on as I’m due in Stafford for lunch and time is slipping by. So another quick summary of another hectic week. We got our three electric buggies serviced by a pro as they were all in need of a refreshing overhaul of the electric leads and a couple were due a new set of batteries, ouch. They are whizzing about so no excuses for lack of mobility now. We had our ace box making experts in to take a look at making a shallow tray/insert to create a bit of a reservoir in the bottom of the wooden trays as a further watering aid. We are hoping it will hold on to enough water to absorb more thoroughly into the free draining pots on watering rather than running straight away. They are coming up with several options and we are hoping to trial some very shortly.

On Friday we are attending the local business awards dinner to see if we have pushed any of the right buttons with the judges. We are finalists in the green innovation category for our product, overall business sustainability and the turbine project which will be the biggest of its kind in the area (although it is weeny really). We have also been selected as a finalist in the overall business of the year which was great, although we are up against some very stiff competition. We will enjoy the evening as an excuse to dress up with a few of the staff who we rarely see all poshed up. Luckily we are not particularly competitive so it will be nice to just to have some little bit of recognition for what we are trying to do.

The wind turbine foundations got finished over the week which was great, lots of digging, steel weaving and concreting. I got the irrigation system programming sorted so it is almost back in automatic mode which is a relief as it means we can get off the nursery again for a several hours at a time, even if the sun's out and we can water out of hours which means fewer of us getting wet!

Eco news
Foundations in and looking good and I'm sure that you have already spotted the pics! Trenching for cable should start next week for a couple of weeks, then we hang on for the grid folk to fit the new transformer/substation thing and the turbines to arrive in early July. It’s all go at last.

Nature notes

The nursery and garden are all full of newly fledged youngsters, swallows, greenfinches, goldfinches, starlings, great tits, jackdaws. It all seems to have happened this week.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-06-03T07:53:00.000+01:00

1st foundation kit

1st foundation kit install

Concrete done 1st site

Concrete in 1st site 2

Digging in lightning wire

2011-05-31T18:35:00.000+01:00

Here we are again, another bank holiday weekend, it’s great to be able to relax again.

Ok just a quickie this week as I need to get away for lunch and I must admit to lying about too long this morning recovering from all the celebrations yesterday for Caroline’s 50th . Festivities were great but hardly riotous but still needed some quiet time this morning! Everything went well, I even remembered card and presents which have been seen to be missing on previous birthdays, it is usually so busy and we are usually so busy at this time it’s hard to find something for a girl who has everything. I suppose I should be thankful that we don’t have any big-boy multiples to supply this spring that has given us a bit more of a life this spring.

Brief summary of the week. Busy as usual, lots of orders and the now regular puncture on the comedy van (M25 towed off and expensive). The irrigation control system is more or less sorted, all wired up and working on a semi-automatic basis which is a relief. I only made a few minor wiring/programming mistakes which meant the wrong line coming on but all sorted now. That means that this week we can do a bit more fine tuning on timings and water volumes to get each tunnel right.

In-between times we have been clearing tunnels and tidying up a bit ready for next year’s production to get under way. This week will see the first main batches of young plants arriving of some of the slower growing types ready for potting. Then we have also been getting stuck into some archaeology on one of the wind turbine sites (see below) and organising all the parties involved in next week’s foundation works.

Eco news
This week saw the arrival of the first digger on site to remove the top layers of soil to allow the archaeologist to inspect to see if there was anything exciting to record. Getting him in a week early proved a smart move as in the site nearest the top of the
hill there were definite strong shadows in the chalk sub soil. There followed a two day dig with three of us from the nursery helping out to get it sorted out ASAP and at minimum cost. It was really interesting if a little frustrating in the end as we
revealed a series of adjoining pits but with no datable finds at all. After he finished we were allowed to carry on, so we did a load more work on Friday and Saturday to see if we could get any further. The pits continued off the foundation site but still no finds. I will reveal more another day.

Egg production up to 8 a day!

Nature notes

Swallows are about to fledge already.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-05-23T08:25:00.000+01:00

Morning all,

Good to be here, the world didn’t end after all.

Yet another flat tyre started the week but managed to get it to the menders for a replacement valve so it worked out ok in the end. After that things got more exciting as the week went on, culminating in a couple of hours off yesterday to do the supermarket run and have breakfast out!

We had a very welcome splash of rain overnight, but it’s now sunny and very windy so it’s all evaporated again. We have been topping up the puddle in the yard for weeks now to help out the house martins building projects and the water bill is mounting (we do use a bit on the nursery too!) I wouldn’t mind as much if all the wind was pushing our turbines round but all I can think is that all the wind for the year will have been used up by the time they are up and running. I’m not sure yet how much this very dry weather has affected the farm cereal crops, certainly the barley is in ear already which is very early and the hay crops are very poor. Could be another year of hay and straw shortages which is bad news for we donkey fosterers.

On the brighter side the wind turbine project got active again this week with at least some dates being set (see below) and the chicken enterprise has kicked off. We are now proud owners of a chicken run and a small batch of rescued free range chickens. No eggs yet but they are a surprisingly entertaining gang making very pleasant contented chicken noises. We have never kept them before so I could well be wrong on the contented interpretation but it sounds very therapeutic to me. Hot news straight from the horses mouth, or should that be the hens bottom, we have our first egg!

We put in our order for a table of tickets for the local business awards dinner next month. We are in the final of the green award section and selected for the final of the overall business of the year. I’m not sure we press enough of the right buttons or tick the appropriate boxes to win but it is nice to get some local appreciation of our efforts and a good opportunity for the staff to see that at first hand. It is a black tie event, so it will be quite exciting to see how some of them scrub up, smart dressing is not something we see much of on the nursery!

Eco news
This week I have been organising all the different suppliers and installers of the turbines as we received a date for the foundation installation. They are starting on Tuesday 31st May and expect it to take all week for all three to be prepared and concreted in position. Then it’s several weeks for the concrete to cure enough to put the masts up, a date was set for 24th of June but that has already been postponed now until w/c 4th July due to a delay in mast making. There is quite a bit of sorting out to do before then anyway, with cables and poles to come down, trenches dug and cables to come in and be buried, substations to be installed and various electricians sorting out each end. Then there is also associated water works to accompany some trenching. Work starts on Monday with the digger man coming to remove the top and subsoil on the three sites, each 5 meters square. This work needs to be started ahead of the foundation installation so that the archaeologist can check we are not digging up anything ancient and if we do, they can take appropriate action. I now need to go and set up the protective fence around the nearby hedges to prevent damage before all this starts. Tension mounts!

Nature notes

We are getting round to clearing a few tunnels now and it’s great to see the number of frogs and toads hopping about, they must be doing some good. The long native hedge/windbreak we planted 11 years ago is not only doing a great job as a windbreak and natural habitat site but looks fantastic at the moment with waterfalls of dog-rose cascading out.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-05-15T19:28:00.000+01:00

I was looking forward to this week being a bit easier as the orders dip a bit after the long run of good weekends and the bank holidays. Then there was the luxury of 5 days in the week again, it should all have been a breeze. Naturally it went pear shaped from day one. The big van lost the back end of its exhaust and went in on Monday for a replacement which was ok but while it was in there they found a broken part of the suspension which had to be replaced. Not a huge job but they couldn’t get the right spare parts until Wednesday morning so we had to managed with the little comedy van and the borrowed farm transit to ensure we got all the orders away this week. The first delivery on Monday in the comedy van suffered a blow out on a rear tyre so that meant a breakdown call out and replacement. Then that was followed on Thursday morning by the big van having a flat and another breakdown callout, but luckily only needed a new valve. The great thing about all this was at least it didn’t happen a few weeks ago when we were so incredibly busy.

Feeling pretty smug again this week with all the news about rising energy costs expected over the next few months. Electric prices we know are rising again on the wholesale side as we have been getting quotes for one of the farm contracts and the prices are back to the high long term contract terms of three years ago when we last fixed the price. They dipped significantly just after we set that one up and now as renewal approaches they are back up again. Can they see us coming?

Anyway, higher prices will make the payback quicker on the turbines which is good for us and may make people make a bit more effort controlling their waste. Certainly we have felt huge benefits from all our insulation projects in the house with the costs being returned in less than one winter. Mind you we do suffer from living out in the sticks and relying on expensive heating oil as a fuel source which increases the savings. Insulation was top of the agenda on breakfast telly of things to do to combat the higher prices and we know it can work. There has always been some negative vibes about insulating houses with scare stories of extra damp and such things, but our experience has been brilliant. We have experienced less damp in the bathroom where the cold outside walls used to run with condensation when you were showering. Cavity walls and roof insulation is very well subsidised so quite cheap to do and free in some cases and then we topped it up by fitting more expensive (no subsidy on this bit) insulation board under the floorboards which stopped a lot of draughts and warmed the floors up hugely. We also put in a wood burning stove to take the pressure off the central heating. The savings so far have covered all the insulation costs and a bit towards the log burner. Next year will see the burner paid off through the ongoing savings then it’s win win over the following years. Probably the best return on investment we have ever made, it certainly beats investing in a nursery!

Eco news

All quiet on the turbine front this week but pre-installation tension is beginning to mount.

Nature notes

We see sparrows, wagtails, blue and great tits feeding in the tunnels all the time. They can be seen working quite systematically down the tunnels visiting all the nooks and crannies where the insects tend to get caught. Years and years ago we saw a Long Eared Bat in a tunnel, apparently they can be active in the daytime too. This week we found a tiny roosting Pipistrelle Bat just hanging on the side netting of a tunnel, I assume it was the one I see most evenings scooting about the nursery or maybe a passing stranger. Anyway he had gone the next day. However in the next tunnel on the following day we saw a Long Eared Bat hanging from the tunnel roof frame, he only stayed a couple of hours then flew off, but how bizarre to see two different bats in two days after years of seeing none.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-05-09T11:50:00.000+01:00

Many sighs of relief this week. We don’t have to worry about bank holidays this weekend, the work load has eased slightly, got my hair cut, the temperature has dropped, Southampton secured automatic promotion to the Championship and best of all we have had two nights of heavy rain. Ok, we have had the odd little flood but who cares, everything looks so much better for a refreshing splash. With a bit of luck this will also freshen up peoples enthusiasm for the outdoor pursuits and give all gardens a bit of a boost. It’s quite a comparison to last Sunday when the really strong dry winds were ripping off the fresh poplar leaves and young branches of our main windbreak, littering the nursery as if it was autumn.

To save the brain working too hard I have started writing the odd note during the week, of things to mention but naturally I can’t remember where I’ve put it, so I’ll have to try and recall the highlights as best I can.

Luckily we didn’t have to work too late this week as we did have a concert to attend on Wednesday evening. Jools Holland and his huge band provided a jolly and very loud bash and everyone looked to have a good time. Ok I admit it, this wasn’t one of my favourites, I’m not very good at community clapping or singing on demand, it was all a bit to manufactured for me which was a shame because there were some very talented musicians among the 20 or so on stage. Sandie Shaw made a guest appearance which was a surprise, and she looked fabulous especially considering she is 64. We reckon she must have pinched a pair of legs from an 18 year old.

It was all a bit of a rush to get there on time especially as I thought I ought to get my hair cut before entering the real world again. While the pizzas were warming in the oven Caroline whisked over me with the clippers and I got the whole thing done and myself showered off in 30 minutes (this exercise helps cover the mortgage payments made to cover Carolines trips to the real hairdressers!). Then there is the tricky bit of eating hot pizza in my only nice shirt just prior to rushing out. Easy solution, don’t get dressed until after eating. Slight hiccup as I sit at the kitchen table juggling hot pizza in my undies, when the ladies from the Cat Protection turn up and troop through with a late cat delivery. Not a word was spoken as I shuffled further under the table and acted cool!

On Saturday I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the last home game of the season at Southampton to see them seal promotion back to the Championship. A sell-out crowd saw a very entertaining game with lots of action and goals (won 3-1) and there was a fantastic party atmosphere by the end. Even the opposition (Walsall) were celebrating as they had been in danger of relegation if other games had gone against them but they escaped despite losing and in the end everyone lived happily ever after. Quite a contrast to the past few seasons of relegation and near bankruptcy.

Eco news
After another week of irrigating and now some real rain, the recently sown wild flower strip is well up. The new hedge has shot well too with the extra water, although we will have to pull a few weeds out to reduce the competition a bit. The mulch we put down did ok but the odd weed that got away has got really big suddenly.

Things look like they are about to kick off with the turbine construction. The way-leaves etc are all sorted by the grid folk and they reckon we should be wiring up in about a month. A programme of dates is nearly ready and I’ve lined up the trench and ground works team to be ready to go. The foundation installers are also looking at dates to install hopefully before the supply is actually in, so that the concrete has time to cure before the masts are bolted on. Naturally we are expecting the wind which has been incessant over the last few weeks to die away in mid June.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-05-02T16:14:00.010+01:00

What day is it now? It has been a slightly bizarre couple of weeks with all these banks holidays and special occasions. There is hardly anyone here so it must be Sunday and we have just one more bank holiday to come tomorrow, so we should be back to ‘normal’ in a few days. Next week is of course short again but hopefully we will be able to cope if we are not too over swamped with orders. We managed a few hours off last Sunday for a family Sunday lunch which was delicious, as usual I overdosed on meat and pudding which meant I couldn’t eat again for nearly 24 hrs! I can’t believe Easter was only last weekend. It’s a shame that so many centres have to close on that day right at the peak of the season, but there you go.

It is such a bonkers time of year it reminds me of my first nursery selling fruit and veg. Christmas was the daft time then, prices used to shoot up, the quantities bought were silly and the work load huge, but by the time the post Christmas lull was taken into account it all evened out to be normal few weeks. At least with the plant sales we get a reasonable run at it before the autumn and winter lull kicks in. At this time of year will can sell as much in one day as we do in an entire winter month, so make hay while the sun shines (and wind blows).

We had a heavy shower last night, just enough to lay the dust for a few hours, but we need loads more really. Although the temperature dropped last week, the sun and constant east wind has meant no drop in water use which is really high for the time of year.

With so much going on it’s difficult to keep up. I managed to catch the highlights of the big wedding, if anyone missed it, it was all ok. He turned up, she turned up, she had a white dress, they got wed and they kissed. Hopefully they all live happily ever after as prince and princesses should although apparently rarely do! (at least not at the first attempt). Coincidentally it was our anniversary this week. We celebrated in traditional style, Caroline went out to see an Eagles tribute band with a couple of boys and I stayed at home to make my own dinner! Luckily the Riverford organic veg box was still full of fresh yummy goodies so I naturally I went straight to the phone to order a chicken tikka khauri and mushroom rice, mmm nice.
Eco news
After a week of irrigating, the recently sown wild flower strip has germinated, it’s either that or the weed population in the soil popping up to have its say!

The wind turbines are another step closer with the money going out to have the overhead power lines and the poles removed from the site. The last instalment of the large deposit on the turbines themselves has also gone, although still no actual activity on site other than the movement of money out of the account. I’m just beginning to wonder if it’s all just some sort of very elaborate scam.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-04-24T19:33:00.000+01:00

Fantastic morning to all. Ok it might get a bit hot later which can be a bit stressful so early in the year but just for the moment it is perfect. Sun out, light cool breeze, early mist clearing from the valley just stunning. I suppose today may see a few of you on restricted hours today with many centres closed for Easter Sunday, a moment to catch your breath, gather your thoughts and press on with what is a bonkers couple of weeks with all the bank holidays. We have had a good couple of days to catch up a bit and today it’s just Caroline and I sorting out the irrigation, seed sowing and accounts. We are having a bit of a holiday later with a trip to Dorset for family lunch which will be a nice break, then back later to finish the watering. We are back on Monday with a ¾ crew and will be treating the coming week as a normal trading week but with deliveries probably not starting until early Tuesday.

Last week was unsurprisingly a hectic one but we got there in the end although we are getting a bit tired. It would be a lot easier if it wasn’t so hot but there you go, can’t do much about that and it does get people outside. It doesn’t take much to push me over the edge at the moment, I caught myself at the top of the stairs this week on my way to bed carrying my empty dinner plate, realising I set out for the kitchen! Fruit juice at breakfast made it into the cereal and most of my wardrobe has disappeared where I have taken something off and forgotten where I put it. I put it down to an active mind, thinking about lots of different things at the same time, or is it just old age creeping up. Still at least it keeps us fit in body if not mind.

Eco news
I spent last Sunday having a great time rotorvating a 60m x 3m strip next to the new hedgerow we planted this winter. This was to sow a wild grass and flower patch as part of our wind turbine ecology improvement plan. I was just going to tickle the surface to get the seed raked in and it would only take an hour. Five hours later the job was done, well the bed preparation anyway. I had forgotten about the rather flinty nature of our thin chalk soil, and the run wasn’t quite as smooth as I had pictured. You just get set on a moments nice tilling when you hit one the size of the Isle of Wight and the whole machine leaps out of the ground usually sideways too, making for a bit of a wrestling match. Late on Friday we managed to get it levelled and rolled, sowed the seed, raked it in a bit and put on the irrigation. Hopefully in a few weeks we will have our wild flower meadow, although the amount of seed recommended for the area seemed a bit mean. I doubled it to allow for the bird feeding but we will see later if it is enough. A bigger area I was thinking of sowing will have to wait until I find a man with a tractor, I’m keen on promoting wild flower areas but not that keen!

Nature ramblings

Exactly three weeks from seeing the first swallows, the house martins arrived this morning. I was out at 6.00am and there were none, by 8.00am they were there. A characteristic flash of black & white and there they were, probably 4 or 5 all swooping around the house checking out the old nest sites. A long trip for them from their African feeding grounds all the way back home to Kirton Farmhouse, how do they do that? We get a great view of them from the bedroom window and it is always a summer morning sight that gladdens the heart.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-04-18T20:31:00.001+01:00

What a great run of weather, maybe we could with a drop of rain, just as long as it is at night. This morning is fantastic, early nip, bit of mist, blue skies and no wind, a perfect day to get outside and get to grips with life the universe and everything. I am expecting a change in attitude to the windless days in a few months time, but not today.

Another hectic week has passed, we sent out more deliveries this week than we have done for years, the fuel bill is growing but luckily the sales are there to cover that. Next we have a bonkers three weeks when the bank holidays and peak season will combine for a fun time for all. Hopefully we can all revel in the fact that we are all so popular at the moment rather than panic at the impending workload and lack of time. We will be pulling as many rabbits out of the hat as we can so do bear with us as we do our very best to make things go smoothly.

On top of the busy week we also had our Winchester Business Awards judging visit as finalists in the Green Innovation section and the overall Business of the Year. Despite my fears of a lack of written plans the nursery walk-round provided loads of examples of what we have done, what’s half way through and what is coming up providing we can find the funding. This seemed to get everyone quite excited although afterwards I kept thinking of bits I had missed out, like the ponds we put in, the LED lighting we are looking at in the lab growth room and worst miss of all, the handmade Christmas cards we slave over!

On the awards front, I was astonished to receive the player of the season of our old gits hockey team at the club bash on Friday night. I now have a small but heavyweight plaque on the mantelpiece, which I believe is made of solid green, as discovered by Lord Percy (Blackadder).

All the warm weather has got the insects going, the wasps and flies have all made an early rather dopey appearance. I’m hopeless with flies, something about them just makes me very tense. It is something to do with their second sense of what they can do to cause maximum irritation. Classic last night with Caroline reporting a whopper in the bathroom. Checked it out with the swatter and nothing, at least not until I got in the shower. Then of course it appears and gets in too, restricted space, lots of water, dopey fly, a recipe for true slapstick, good job no one saw that.

Eco news
End of March electric savings up to 28.24% on the 2009 figures, 7.7% on 2010. Extra savings this year probably down to the milder late winter. Looking forward to next year when we should be generating our own and hopefully selling a bit back to the grid.

The grid folk are currently (no pun intended) sorting out the way leaves across the field where the new cable has to go, then hopefully we will have some dates provided so we can organise the trenching and foundation works. Lull before the storm.

Nature ramblings

Fantastic sighting of the Red Kite this week. It must have been searching for food, performing repeated circles quite low to the ground over the nursery and the next field.

Swallows in residence and very active.

Jackdaws are nesting somewhere, I caught one perched on one of the donkeys backs pulling out the moulting hairs. It was there for ages with a great beak full.

There rabbits are at it. Our young cat Spare has been waddling around for a couple of weeks now, full of baby rabbit, leaving the odd half eaten trophy in the house just to let us know he is earning his keep. In this lovely weather even our ancient two are showing an interest. Seeing what the youngsters get up to gets the mind going even if the body can’t follow it up. Bit like me at the hockey dinner dance.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-04-11T19:19:00.000+01:00

Phew, what a scorcher. This is all a bit of a shock to the system, it’s been like June out there not early April. It does make everything look stunning in the hedgerows and gardens so hopefully everyone will be enthused and excited about the spring garden projects. I wonder how many out there are asking already about bedding plants? - it must be tempting despite the prospect of weeks of potential frosts still to come. Summer also arrived with the first two swallows spotted on Sunday shooting off down the valley, then on Tuesday our pair arrived and started nesting activity and feeding around the donkey shed, which is their usual haunt. Lots of feel good stuff going on, don’t forget to look up and see it.

Usual nursery activity on the arrival of the sun and heat, fog system goes on a go slow, in need of new nozzles and ventilation fan in microprop weening tunnel trips out, needing a motor rewind. Perfect, so plants and pricking out teams have been wilting all week. In the house the insulation is beginning to get too efficient and we may have to look at a change in tactics for the summer. In theory it can keep the house cooler in summer but not when you’ve got an Aga generating heat in the middle! Whereas before most of the heat leaked away and left us in the cold it is now all retained which is great until the sun comes out. Still at least we have reduced our oil consumption by over 60% this winter, and I reckon it will be more next year as we didn’t get the insulation complete until December.

If I can find time this week we will need to have a bit of a tidy up as we have a team of judges coming round for the local business awards competition. The nursery looks pretty smart, for a nursery, but the judges may not be used to the somewhat primitive facilities we are all used to here. We are in the Green Innovations final and the overall Business of the Year final which is all very exciting. I can’t say I’m brimming over with confidence as they have asked to see our financial results and our business plan. Well the financials are ok, we are showing a marked improvement in the last couple of years after many years of less than impressive returns but the business plan is stored away in the spreadsheet that is my head. In other words we make it up as we go along. Not sure if that will be sufficient to impress anyone with our long term planning! The trouble with doing a written plan, well one of my written plans anyway, is that it is out of date before it’s even finished.

Eco news
I’m in print already. Our copy of South East Farmer magazine arrived complete with the telephone interview I unwittingly gave last week and it’s ok, luckily no picture. http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=w18B3K0j1mJ7&PBID=86ca4d1f-d261-48bf-a7cf-4c10bd9ca517&skip=

After introducing the anti vine weevil fungus (Met 54 or is it 55, can’t remember) as a new bio control this spring we have also got another new introduction to come onto the nursery next week. We have had a couple of aphid predators before among our usual bio control introductions but this is a ready mixed tube of six different ones that cover the control of over thirty different aphid types. We hang the tube up in the tunnel, they hatch, have a feed of glucose syrup on the end of the tube and that gives them the energy to zoom off and start eating and laying eggs in their prey. It’s not a particularly cheap solution at over £18/tube, one in each tunnel, three introductions needed to build up a population but results last year were said to be impressive and it should further reduce any control sprays we use.

Nature ramblings

Swallows in residence.

Newts active and feeding on the tadpoles which are growing strongly. They will soon be grown and getting revenge by eating newt babies. It’s an amphibian eat amphibian world out there.

Wagtails are nest building somewhere but haven’t spotted where yet, it’s bound to be somewhere inconvenient it always is. It only seems to take a day or two, you put a pile of crates down and go to move them and find it, complete with occupants. Then it’s a case of setting up an exclusion zone and hoping for the best.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-04-04T20:22:00.000+01:00

Wow, what a week, it’s been heaving this end, hopefully the same with you at your end. I’m not quite sure how we got everything delivered but we did and then had Friday and Saturday free to get potting again. This weekend looks promising again down here, not a lot of sun but dry and mild. Now the wind has dropped (Saturday evening) I will pop out and get a bit of weed control going, conditions are looking nice for it.

Just in case there is not enough to do at this time I’ve got a presentation to do to our PLATO Sustain group on Monday evening all about what we do and what we plan to do. I will need to do a bit of preparation I think, usually I just make it up as I go along but that is because I usually do that sort of thing on site and can use the nursery itself to illustrate points and prompt me as I go along. Having seen a few other presentations from the group I have opted to put something together on Powerpoint which I’ve never used before, it won’t be as slick but at least I can show a few pictures and tell a story.

Winter drew to a close on Tuesday with our last skittles game of the season where we pulled a rabbit out of the hat by winning 3-0 against the second placed team. It was our first 3-0 of the season and pulled us up 3 places from bottom to just about avoid relegation. A few beers and some chips for the opposition worked wonders. Caroline who is the team captain couldn’t play as she had spent the day at an old friends birthday bash at Taunton Races. I expected an excited response and reward for our glorious victory but all I got was how she had snogged Hugo Speer (famous actor for those not in the know). OK those weren’t her exact words but I know when I’m out gunned!

Thursday saw another trip to the big city to see Sandi Thom and her band who were great and very loud but the evening was made complete by a surprise appearance of Marcus Bonfanti as the support, who we have been wanting to see since getting his great album last year. Brillant young blues player and singer, check him out at http://www.marcusbonfanti.com/

Richard finished officially this week although you may be lucky enough to spot him helping out on the odd delivery for a few weeks yet as he has offered to help out occasionally to help fund the expanding family at home.

Eco news
I got interviewed on the phone by a journalist from the South East Farmer magazine this week about our wind turbines and all things renewable. Cleverly done, I didn’t even realise it was an interview until he asked for a picture at the end. I’m just wondering what I said now! I did pass comment on bank funding issues but I don’t think I was too ‘open’. Anyway I don’t think the readership is too vast! As someone doing an article on renewable energy stuff I was surprised how little background info he knew. He was asking about whether I believed the ‘experts’ that oil was getting in shorter supply and would get more expensive and he knew little of the Feed in Tariffs. I suppose after you focus on sustainable stuff for a while you assume everyone else is aware of the situation and the need to start doing something. When in fact most people are blissfully unaware and just complain when prices go up assuming that one day they will come down again. Watch out you boys and girls start planning now, the sooner you start preparing the more you will benefit.

Now could come a list of smug improvements we have made (like house insulation, wood burner, reduced electric use of over 28% on 2009 figures, reduced heating oil use on nursery and in house, reduced water use, smaller car, wind turbines on the way etc) and those we are thinking off (like a bit of solar generation, ground source heat pumps, rain water collection, LED lighting in growth rooms etc) but that would be rubbing it in. Oops too late.

Nature ramblings

Another first this week with the first sighting of a Nuthatch here. Unfortunately it was lying on its back with its legs in the air, definitely an ex-nuthatch. It looked in good condition apart from the lack of pulse and rather stiff demeanour, still that’s life, or not.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-03-28T14:03:00.000+01:00

Morning all,

What a lovely week on the weather front. Great for getting out there and watch spring springing. Despite the forecast not being as good for the weekend it has been fine here, lots of sun and warm again. I have packed away my fleece lined trousers for the summer and look forward to taking my hat off soon. The fleece lined trousers were a revelation in the coldest weather of the winter, replacing my rather scary ‘two trouser’ fashion of earlier times. They came via a catalogue company called Chums which had loads of very useful bits of kit specially selected for those no longer in the first flush of youth. Slightly frightening was the pamphlets for mobility scooters and special pants that came in the parcel, but hey, the trousers did the job and I’m now old enough not to care!

Anyway talking of safety pants, I attended an open day run by the HSE at a local farm this week. It was mainly agriculturally based but did have quite a few good reminders of some of the most common safety issues associated with smaller outdoor enterprises too. Ladder safety, manual handling, safe handling of chemicals and vehicle use were all there with some sensible advice and a few scare stories to accompany it. It’s really a bit dull and negative to focus on this sort of stuff but it is something we all have to bear in mind every day. Keep it safe, check stuff regularly, and watch out when you get tired, irritable or lazy. It’s all ok until an accident happens, then it’s too late. Luckily we don’t have quite the risks associated with farms, there were some truly horrendous tales of accidents over recent years which certainly makes you focus on things, but we all face risk, so be careful out there.

Availability list - Spring is here so if for some reason you lose your list you can now download it from the www.kirtonfarm.co.uk website.

Star of the week the week is Fritillaria meleagris in flower, we have a few, but they won’t be there long.

Eco news
An engineer from the National Grid came in this week to check out the site for the installation of a new pole mounted substation for the wind turbines. Everything was fine and he reckoned it should be done in 8 weeks if all goes well, although I was quite surprised that he knew nothing about why the installation was needed. I suppose as long as the right kit goes in it doesn’t matter what it is for. Once the dates are set for that then we should be able to work all the trenching, cabling and foundation installation in over that 8 weeks, ready for construction once the power is in place. I still can’t really believe after all this time that something is going to actually happen.

With Richard off at the end of the week we are losing our nursery egg supply so we are currently looking into a small production facility to compensate. We have a good local source of second-hand free range chickens to stock it but are still trying to tie down the accommodation. Chicken housing isn’t cheep! The current favourite option is to adapt a redundant cat pen although I’m not sure myself how well they would cope with the cat flap. The other decision is how many to eat, or will that just be too traumatic? I love a hot bird on a Sunday but can we get through the pre-roasting stage without a fuss, I suspect not. I bet it won’t take long before they all have names and all hope of breast and stuffing evaporate. Visions of ‘Chicken Run’ and the decision of which one for the pie come flooding back. How much easier it is to pick up a plastic wrapped bird at the supermarket, with none of the associated angst. But at least it would be real, it would have had a good run and we know where it’s come from.

Nature ramblings

Tiny tadpoles are swimming about already, it doesn’t take long in this warm weather.

Ordered our wildflower seed mix for sowing our patch of ground down by the new hedge as per planning conditions. We do have a bit of unused ground next to the hedge strip, so I ordered a bit extra to do that too. It’s a mix of annuals and perennials so hopefully will be effective from the first season and mature over the years.

Saw our first Red Kite of the year this week, soaring in the sun with a couple of Buzzards. Hopefully they will continue their spread as they make such a dramatic addition to the skies. On the subject of birds of prey I keep an eye on the bird sitings in and around St Ives, just to see what I’m missing, and all this week they have been reporting a Golden Eagle over several sites. Now that is a spot.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-03-21T12:11:00.000Z

A relatively quiet week and weekend in comparison to this time last year and all the 20 years previous to this one. At long last we have got back to concentrating on growing plants, developing our own plans for the nursery and simply doing our own thing, and it is such a relief. In all those previous years we would have been shipping plants into the DIY multiples by now with all the pressure, stress and low personal and financial reward for all the effort involved. It could easily destroy any appreciation of the real joys of spring, the warming sun, bursting buds and the patter of gardener’s feet rushing out for their annual fix of gardening retail therapy. Although there still aren’t enough hours in the day at this time of year at least we are now focussed on doing something we feel is worth the effort. Other than the odd run in with the occasional big institution, like last week’s bank fiasco, we are back dealing with human beings again which has so much more going for it. So well done all you human beings out there!

Anyway, back to this ‘quiet’ week. Lots of orders as the weather improves and a bit of potting done too. Very nearly up to date with production in the microprop lab after a period of very high workload and the first seedling and cutting plant deliveries of the year are in. I finished clearing the hedge debris created when the turbine sites were cut back a few weeks ago, so they are ready for foundation installation sometime over the next couple of months.

The nursery has been selected as a finalist in the Business of the Year section of the Winchester Business Excellence Awards, which I think means we are finalists in at least one or maybe two other sections. I know it’s only a local do but it’s still nice to be loved by someone! The awards aren’t announced until June so I suspect we will get a visit from a judge or two before then, so best behaviour all round, could be tricky.

We managed to squeeze in a concert at a pub venue in Southampton to see Ben Waters playing with Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones), a brilliant night and so bizarre to see such a famous musician in such a tiny venue. Caroline had a good day yesterday with a Cat Protection training day (some people get all the excitement) and then going to see Southampton beat Sheffield Wednesday to move closer to an automatic promotion place. Meanwhile I lost my last hockey game of the year 2-1 at Oxford which means after a few weeks of freefall we are now awaiting other results to see if we get relegated. Ooops. A team curry last night helped improve spirits in the short term.

Eco news

Electric consumption continues to fall with warmer weather than last year during February, it’s down 8.82% on last year, 25.63% down on 2009 for the year as a whole. Every little bit helps. Next Saturday at 8.30pm is the WWF’s earth hour when they are encouraging people around the world to turn off their lights for an hour. You can register to take part at http://earthhour.wwf.org.uk/get_involved/signup/signup_individual.cfm

The nuclear power bubble seems to have deflated somewhat with the difficulties in Japan, perhaps it won’t be the easy answer to future energy demand after all. It does swing things a bit more back towards renewables for a bit which makes the turbine project even more exciting. This week we made our first big financial commitment to the scheme by handing over a large dollop to the National Grid chaps to put in a new sub station and some new cable. An interesting deal which demands payment up front and the possibility of the work taking 12 weeks to complete. So far I must admit they have been very helpful and I think quite excited about the first of this type of installation in the area. They certainly remembered us when I phoned to sort out the payment.

Nature ramblings

Having gone up to the hill top to clear hedge debris I couldn’t help but notice the lack of old nests in the bare hedge. In 400m I didn’t spot one. Just a few meters away, on the nursery, our hedge has loads of nests, I suppose we are talking about two different environments really, open arable fields and an insect rich, more sheltered nursery with winter feeding.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-03-14T12:50:00.000Z

Morning all,

This is the first weekend when it has felt, to me, like the first stirrings of spring gardening weather. Bit brighter, warmer and more colourful. The daffs are all coming out and the buds are swelling and splitting in some of the hedges. Hurrah, let’s hope the tills swell as the purses split open when the gardening public hit the plant sales areas. The plants on the nursery certainly know it’s springtime with plenty of chunky fresh shoots getting going, even the Hostas are getting started.

It can seem a bit shallow this week to focus on the apparently trivial bits of our nursery life considering the astonishing events unfolding in Japan. The coverage of world events by new technology, ironically developed and produced in the area provides compelling images of a huge disaster which is still to unveil its true outcome. If there can be a bright side to such an event, it must be the Japanese peoples use of modern design and technology to build earthquake proof facilities and buildings. The relatively low loss of life from such a huge quake so close to the shoreline is quite astonishing when compared to the devastation in recent years in China, Christchurch and Haiti from relatively small quakes. It is such a tragic shame that the tsunami which followed hit so swiftly, before the warnings could be fully effective.

Back to our little world, and although we are weeny it is still our bit, and where we can still make things happen. It’s been week of ups and downs here. On the up side we were very busy again which is great and will be especially good when the dosh actually begins to flow back in and knock the overdraft back a bit! We also got a bit of potting done and three new samples of peat-free potting composts arrived for us to trial. We got most of the minor frost damage to the irrigation repaired, I hope, so not too many leaks when it is all switched on. We need a few more replacement valves before I can leave everything on all the time but we are not far off. We don’t quite have the automatic part of the system set up yet, so I am setting things going manually at the moment and this week I mastered a new bit of modern high tech to help, the timer alarm on my mobile. As I don’t get off the nursery much and have no friends my mobile rarely gets an outing, my monthly bill comes out at about 75p, so to find such a useful function makes the £50 it cost several years ago much more worthwhile. There is also the extra street cred to consider as I walk down the nursery, head down, mobile in hand, punching things into the key pad with my thumb, tripping over pots and falling into drains!

Thursday saw another birthday slip by with some lovely cards and presents and the shock of being so old that I couldn’t remember how old I actually was! I suffered a huge overdose of sugar through the day, with all the various cakes that arrived with visitors, but that was easier to recover from than an over indulgence in alcohol that used to occur in younger days.

Eco news

Chocolate Teapot of the Year goes to the general management and organisational unhelpfulness of the banking system. The week started really well on the turbine front, with lots of positive noises from the banks pilot renewable energy financing scheme and our bank manager, but got turned on its head over 24 hrs and they effectively forced us out of a deal, when they couldn’t make us fit in with the rules that each bank department has.
I don’t have enough space to explain the detail, but because putting in an energy installation is not as simple as buying a tractor or combine (surprising to who?) they can’t do it under the same system and the alternative way, at present, was to instruct solicitors and experts to do a load more stuff at a cost in excess of £20,000 to secure a right over the feed-in-tariff and all the kit, organise a shed load of extra separate security for the project and get us to finance the project to the point of completion when they would take it over. This basically means that for lots of extra cost and time delays, they would lend us the money just as long as we can prove that we don’t actually need it! Does anyone really want to get this sort of thing going, or is it all just lip service. We had our accountant in this week, to report back on the project figures and his simple answers to the questions of; is it a good deal for the investors and for the nursery? was that it was a ‘no brainer’ (in the positive sense). It was a short meeting. It is still all going ahead, but only with the help of our families and a further resolve on our part to reinvest any nursery profit rather than squandering it on management remuneration.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

PS. Frogspawn has appeared at last.

2011-03-07T14:25:00.000Z

Another rather brisk morning here. Glad to be tucked out of the wind for a couple of hours, the office is a cosy 12C (everything is relative) and I’ve got to put the brain in gear to create a few coherent sentences. I know I always say it’s been a busy week, but it’s happened again. You would think that after 27 years doing this we would stand still for a moment every now and then, but we don’t seem to be able to manage that. Luckily most of the stuff happening is positive in the long run if a little inconvenient just at the moment. We managed to get the reconditioned potting machine plumbed in and running towards the end of the week. Holly, our resident potting machine expert, even managed an overhaul of the conveyor belt, which involved a fair bit of fine tuning with the lump hammer. It worked brilliantly and we now have a near silent potting process having lost the combination of crashes and groans from the machine and an incessant squeak from the conveyor that has plagued the potters for years. Luckily for everyone they can hear clearly now the latest pop tunes from their record collections!

Unfortunately Richard, who many of you will have met or talked to on the phone, is leaving us at the end of the month. He has only been working part time over the last year since his family grew in number, and he has now been offered a very attractive position back at Hillier Nurseries researching, developing and trialling new plants for their production side of things. He has helped us through an enormous period of change since he arrived all those years ago, which we do appreciate and we are left with a much more manageable and rewarding business in the end.

I had a couple of rush jobs to do this week, one a surprise and the other just something that sneaked up on me. The sneaky one was the entry into the local business awards competition. We won a category a couple of years ago (innovation, for the hairy stuff) which was nice, but we had kept a low profile since then. But with the wind turbine planning stuff over the last year we have been noticed again and have had a couple of calls encouraging us to enter. I thought I had weeks to do it but then got an email reminding me the closing date was on Friday. I put aside a couple of evenings to cobble something together, it always takes me ten times as long as I expect, but managed to get something away. Then in yesterday’s paper they have extended the dates! Still, at least it’s done. If we get through to the finals we get to go to the awards dinner and last time there were two free tickets for the finalists, that’s a bit more attractive than the £180 each for the Grower of the Year awards!

With all this change it’s always nice to have some old standards to fall back on. I always enjoy a corny play on words, I’m sure emanating from the day my dad asked me if I wanted a whole piece of toast (when we were little we might only have a half slice), after a positive response I was presented with a slice with a huge hole cut out of the middle. That was to scar me for life! Every time at home when I get offered an avocado the response is of course ‘Yes please, I’ll avacardo’. Hilarious, especially after 27 years. Saturdays example was based on the arrival of a Jamaican Ginger cake for coffee break. ‘Hmm, Jamaca cake’,‘No, I got it from Sainsburys’. When I used to do a lot of knapsack spraying, the chant accompanying the repetitive pumping action was along the lines of, ‘Red Spider Mite, Red Spider Might, Red Spider might.’ I’m easily pleased!

If for some reason you lose your list you can now download it from the http://www.kirtonfarm.co.uk/website which should have the latest up to date version.

Eco news
The surprise job on Friday was to put together a last minute proposal for the bank to fund the turbine project. Having initially been very positive last summer, then the opposite in the autumn, they have had another change of heart at the very last minute. It might turn out to be a fortunate break for us as they are looking to run a pilot lending scheme and they need some ready-to-go projects to play with. This should mean quite attractive rates/charges etc and hopefully a very quick decision, but we still have to press enough of the right buttons to qualify. I have pressed all the buttons I can and we now await some response, hopefully some time in the next week.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-03-01T18:43:00.002Z

We are being talked about....

http://conversation.which.co.uk/energy-home/what-to-do-with-plastic-flowerpots/

2011-02-28T18:47:00.012Z

Morning all,

A lovely bright morning and the robins are singing away out there sorting out their territories. It’s still pretty cool but much more like gardening weather than the past week or two, hurrah. Hopefully the economic gloom doesn’t hit us all too hard and the recognition of what a positive and healthy lifestyle choice gardening is continues to gather momentum.
We are still very positive about the coming season and the years to follow, despite everything, and I think part of that is down to addressing some of the potential future issues in advance rather than sweeping them under the carpet and hoping they don’t happen. The sharp rise in oil prices this week highlights vulnerabilities in our whole way of life, with our dependence on the current transport systems for personal mobility and delivery of goods, and general energy use. If we are all to keep costs down to maintain sales over the coming years, we are going to have to look even closer at efficiencies as well as looking to source more locally where possible, when prices will increasingly reflect the delivery costs. This is potentially good news for the smaller suppliers as small and local becomes a more viable option to becoming big and national. Every cloud has a silver lining.

I must admit I’m not seeing anything terribly clearly today having suffered a small injury yesterday, although at least this one wasn’t through hockey (scabs nicely healed thanks). Watching a film last night, lying on the sofa resting my head on a combination of cushion and hand after a hard day. I must have closed my eyes for a second during the shooting crescendo of ‘Hot Fuzz’, and was rudely awoken by a loud shot. My arm flinched away from my head, my head dropped and the arm returned planting my thumb firmly in my eye. Luckily no-one there to witness it, I know Caroline’s concerned loving response would have been to burst out laughing. Retired to relative safety of bed.

We got lots done this week, most of the plastic sheeting found its way to the recycling man, just a few odds and ends to go. Recycled a pallet of glass as well which has been hanging around for years after we dismantled an old greenhouse. A load more pallets went down to the farm for reuse and we sorted out the last few rubbish ones for cutting up for the wood burner. Not only are we tidier and greener but we have created so much useful space which we hadn’t notice disappearing during years of gradually accumulating piles of stuff. Still not quite there, but looking good and feeling virtuous.

Our NBIS (Nursery Business Improvement Scheme) group met here last week, for a quick tour and review of figures, oh yes and the best bit, lunch in the pub. It’s an inspirational group with lots of open, frank and sometimes sensitive discussion (which could also be described as insensitive!). At times over the years it is potentially embarrassing with some poor performance figures from all parties, but with a positive approach from everyone we have all recognised that some freely given external input from knowledgeable and experienced peers can help enormously. If nothing else it can be a great therapy session if you need a lift, a sounding board for ideas, and a great source of nursery economic guidelines. Sharing your failings can be a great source of strength and support, rather than a show of weakness, and I know we have benefited greatly from their support.

Eco news
Minor but exciting first step in wind turbine installation earlier in the week when we used a combination of GPS devices and a measuring wheel to mark the actual positions of the foundations. Might be some movement this week on further developments, we’ll see.

Nature ramblings

Still no frogspawn, but I did see two newts swimming about and the pigeons have started egg-laying already. Evidence of eggshell on the path, I suspect from a Magpie raid.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-02-20T19:56:00.000Z

Morning all,

I can’t remember which day it was, but I took someone, can’t remember who, up to see the wind turbine site, luckily I did manage to remember where that was. I do recall it was a rare sunny moment in the week and that very noticeably spring was springing with loads of skylarks doing their thing. Sometimes it’s good to lift your nose from the grindstone for a second to take in the simple stuff. Bit grey today and lots of bird song but no skylarks yet.

Sadly we didn’t win the Nursery Stock Grower of the Year Award which was presented on Thursday, we will have to make do with reaching the final three. I couldn’t bring myself to part with the ticket money (£180 each + travel, drinks, parking, sleeping etc) at a time of the year when cash flow tends to be a bit tight and the total cost of night out for two would keep us in logs for the winter. As an alternative night out we took a few friends out to see Imelda May in Southampton on Friday, which was great value (just 17.50 to see a big selling live performance). She and her band were brilliant, lively, slick and professional, the night just flew by. If you get the chance go and see her, and the support band Big Boy Bloater!

Struggling to walk this morning after a late night on Friday and hockey yesterday. Last week’s result got worse with the news that it was 0-10 not the nine I counted. We did better this week 1-1, so pride restored a bit, although scabby weepy knees and elbows resulting from a few close encounters on a sandy pitch are a high price to pay. No Saturday night cuddles for me!

Excitement on the nursery this week with the return of the potting machine which has been off at the menders all winter having its bearings, sprockets and chains replaced. Everything on it had been moving in odd directions and making a lot of strange noises during last year and now it is reported to be a smooth operator. Can anyone do the same for worn out nursery chaps?

Lots of fresh chunky spring growth coming on the plants especially the perennials which is great to see. We have a few casualties after the December freeze but hopefully not too many. The nursery is looking quite tidy after the big winter sort out. Nearly all the plastic stuff has gone off to the recycling man or other nurseries for reuse, with just a few old tunnel sheets to repack into bulk bags when we get a dry spare moment. Much of the stock has had its winter tart up and the last of the irrigation plumbing is nearly done. We sent some of the pallets we have accumulated down to the farm for reuse this week, sorted out the broken ones for the wood burner and kept a few for reuse here, a very satisfactory job and a bit more space too.

Eco news
We had a visit this week from our PLATO Sustain group leader/consultant to see how we were progressing on the sustainability front and where the group might be able to help us progress further. Although not a horticulturist it was a useful couple of hours and helped me focus a bit more on what else we can go for in the short, medium and long term. Lots to think about from water use and recycling, waste management and recycling, to longer term future transport issues and how that could affect us and the industry in general. It is something that will need to be addressed soon. With escalating transport costs, the problem of getting stock to the customer on anything but a local level is going to become a major factor in plant prices. For example one trolley distributor is charging £59/ trolley plus £10 collection from our site and a fuel surcharge, to deliver from us to East Anglia, North Midlands & Devon/Cornwall. This gets us to £75+ per trolley with no multiple drop discount until you reach 4 or 5 trolleys per delivery. Luckily we rarely deliver this far, we mostly use our own lorries and I’m sure there are slightly cheaper alternatives, but energy prices are only going to increase over the years and it is something that will need some thought over the next few years.

As soon as we start potting again we will be incorporating the new bio-insecticide Met52 in all our potting composts. This is a fungal inoculation that gives long term protection against the dreaded vine weevil. Since introducing the herb and soft fruit ranges we have shied away from using chemical control in favour of introducing the safe nematode controls, but they are expensive, not always effective and take a lot of time to apply. Although not all our stock is attractive to this pest, by using the fungus in all compost mixes, it should give us an opportunity to get right back on top of its control.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-02-14T10:46:00.001Z

Morning all,

I can always tell when it’s been a hectic week when I open up Word to record my weekly thoughts and last week’s version was the last file opened. The first thing to do is welcome a few newcomers to my weekly availability list posting, brace yourselves, this is as much to do with my unloading of stuff running around in an aging brain as it is providing the latest list of yummy looking hairy pots for you to release into the wild. I look on it as a bit of a free therapy session to delay the inevitable visit of men in white coats. The extra readership comes courtesy of the local GAN tradeshow which took place last week. It was a little quieter for us than last year, but still rewarding, and it was quite a shock to hear the next day that it was to be the last one. Attendance by stall holders and visitors did seem reduced and maybe the show had run its course, but it will leave a gap in our spring build up. The official reason for the closure was that the space was needed for plant production which is a positive move for a nursery!

Signs of hard times are hitting home here with the local pub closing this week, it has been struggling and has passed through several tenants in the past few years. Then I heard yesterday that the pub we use, to rehydrate after a tough game of hockey, has closed too, which was quite a surprise as it seemed really busy. That meant there was nowhere to drown our sorrows after getting stuffed 9-0 yesterday!

This week could be a big one on the awards front, with the dinner to announce the Nursery Stock Grower of the Year. We are one of three or four finalists, but we have decided not to lash out on the shockingly expensive tickets. It would have been £500+ for two of us to attend on the off-chance we might win, and I can think of better value things that the dosh could go on. Luckily I located someone who is attending, who has ‘volunteered’ to collect any surprise packages that come our way.

As an alternative night out we are getting a few friends together to go and see the very exciting Imelda May, must polish up my dancing shoes! www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxj5wlXY9No&feature=channel

Talking of dancing shoes, we went to see Ben Waters again this week (Boogie Woogie pianist).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT4IzEo6hhY&feature=related A great night out enhanced rather bizarrely by a tall lady in a red shirt and black tights, who danced from start to finish in what can only be described as a ‘classical style’. Pointy toes, pirouettes, leg kicks, no-holds barred, it’s great when you reach a certain age when what other people think doesn’t matter, as long as you are having a good time! After an initial embarrassment period, on the part of the audience, she certainly made a lot of people smile!

Eco news

I can now tell you that we will be incorporating the new bio-insecticide Met52 in our potting composts. This was launched at the GAN show and is a fungus that gives long term protection against the dreaded vine weevil. Since introducing the herb and soft fruit ranges we have shied away from using chemical control in favour of introducing the safe nematode controls, but they are expensive, not always effective and take a lot of time to apply. Although not all our stock is attractive to this pest, by using the fungus in all compost mixes, it should give us an opportunity to get right back on top of its control.

Wind turbines continue to get closer to starting but still not quite there. Turbine prices due to increase at the end of the month so the pressure is on!

January electric use down on last year (warmer weather and less heating), so a good start to further carbon reduction for 2011. Gave away a load of trays and pots to other growers this week, and more loads went off to the plastic recycling man, so we are very nearly clear of our old plastic pot orientated production clobber. The wood burner continues to use up the scrap wood and a few old coir pots so we are land filling less and less rubbish. For a business employing 25+ people we send a remarkably small amount of stuff to land fill, just one wheelie bin (small 4 wheeled) a week, and we hope to get this down to a domestic sized one later in the year when the recycling gets really fine tuned.

Nature notes

Spring is springing, loads of bird song well into the evening at the moment shows that as Valentines Day approaches (don’t forget chaps) thoughts are turning to love. There was definite plopping in the big pond the other night when I walked past, although no sign of any spawn yet. Sunny yesterday but cool today (9.2 C in the office at the moment)

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-02-07T19:21:00.001Z

Great weekend for anyone with a wind turbine! Luckily not too much damage here, a few bits blown about but nothing too exciting. At least we don’t get cyclone winds of 180 mph like they had in Australia this week, now that would be scary, what a relief that no-one was seriously hurt.

We are gradually ramping up the orders as each passing day gets us closer to the mad spring rush. We managed to get a few more shelves up in the upgraded despatch area, laid some more drains, plumbed in some more irrigation, printed more labels, recycled some more plastic and tidied a load more plants, so we’ve not been slacking.

The week was peppered with meetings and visits which we try and get out of the way before it all goes bonkers and I have to say they were all really productive. I’m not a great fan of meetings, as I would rather get on and do something rather than sit around and talk about it, but I came out of each one thinking how rewarding they had been. Possibly the oddest one was one evening, being invited as an ‘expert witness’ to a City Council committee meeting, which was looking into how they could encourage a lower carbon economy in the locality through the planning process. I suspect I qualify as an ‘expert’ by default, being one of the very few to have actually got planning permission for a renewable energy project! I got off to a bad start by sitting through a planners presentation on current policy which was full of acronyms that I had never heard of. There were too many people and acronyms for me to stop them and ask what they meant, so I just nodded my head along with everyone else! Anyway I then did my bit to try and demonstrate how there are many business trying to do their bit on sustainability as a whole, how we approached our planning application, where the planning process held us up and then answered a few questions. Then I listened to a series of sharp intakes of breath as they listened to an expert on the current view on global energy use over the next 25+ years. The keys seemed to be the likely continued reliance on fossil fuels over that period, the increasing demand from a developing world and the increasing population size. The estimate for demand for oil exceeding available supply was 2015 18 months ago, that has now dropped to 2013. That doesn’t mean we will run out but that the price is likely to increase significantly. The recent Egyptian political unrest increased the oil price to over $100/barrel, at which point the OPEC countries usually increase supply to stabilise the market (a high price increases political unrest) but they haven’t, prompting fears that the taps are already fully open! Reserves are still being found but at a rate of only 1 barrel for every 2 barrels sold. Those new supplies are also more difficult to get to market, the tar sands in Canada for example use the equivalent of one barrel of oil in energy to extract two barrels of oil, not cheap and not brilliant on the carbon emission front. The age of cheap oil has gone unless there is a complete collapse of the world economy!

Luckily to balance out this slightly depressing news, I can report that I scored twice yesterday in a 3-3 draw at our local rivals Alton. A game marred by a load of grumpy old men trying desperately to get into the English whingeing squad. That’s the price you pay sometimes playing in a veterans hockey team, but it was all ok because, in spite of my modesty, I was brilliant!

Eco news

We have now heard that we have successfully fulfilled our planning conditions for the wind turbines and should receive written notification soon, this means we can actually start on the actual physical work. That will involve the imminent removal of the short sections of hedge where the turbine foundations will go in. This needs to be done before the hedges shoot and the nesting season gets started, which won’t be long away. This week should see the coming together of the costs and finances so we can start some real action, unfortunately that involves parting with a load of dosh. It looks like it will take us about two years in total from deciding to do the project to completing it, assuming no more hold ups. In that time the cost of the electric cabling alone has increased over 400%.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-01-31T07:59:00.001Z

I can’t believe it’s still January, so much seems to be happening already. Not too many orders, but definite signs of activity from the glorious gardening public, the nurseries and garden centres and best of all from the plants. Despite the rather cold weather it doesn’t take much for the early starters to show signs of new spring growth, the Delphs and Lupins are starting off despite a hammering in the December cold period. On the nursery this winter, we have been trying to keep the pots drier in an effort to naturally reduce the liverwort and moss growth, this has certainly helped, but with the start of the new plant growth we have had to start irrigating in some of the driest areas. Seems a bit odd running the new spray lines when it’s still so cold at night, but it does the trick, I just have to remember to drain them again after so that they don’t split in the next freeze.

Pre-season preparations continue at pace, lots of plumbing, drain laying, shelf building, label printing and plant tidying. Even plant production is whizzing along with the first batches of microprop weaning started and first batches of ‘spring’ seed sowing underway.

We had a top up on our heating oil this week, ouch. Luckily we buy enough to get a competitive price so we are not paying some of the rates mentioned on the news over the last few weeks, but it is still over 50% more than we were paying last year (we get really good competitive rates by buying all our energy via the FARGRO energy team, who do all the donkey work for you, constantly searching the best deals). We are fortunate that we actually use very little heat on the nursery and each year use a little less but it certainly brings home the consequences of energy supply and demand. In the house which is also oil heated we are feeling very smug, having put in a wood burner and insulated walls, loft and under the floor. Oil consumption looks to have more than halved, which should mean a slightly lower bill than last year, but the extra cost if we hadn’t taken these measures would have been huge. The extra exercise sawing and splitting wood keeps me fitter too, in theory, although after a long session with my chopper, I come in and demolish cakes and crisps at a frightening rate, so no BMI improvement yet!

Eco News
After last week’s physical effort spreading 3km of mulch we turned to office savings this week. I have set up a generic email to send to all those senders of useless or little used catalogues that turn up each day in the post. I have given my email address for them to send me anything they want and I can delete those without the paper waste and extra printing and postal cost to them. Naturally as soon as you do something like this they stop arriving! However I have done two so far, both achieving a positive response, although it could take Viking up to 6 weeks to stop!

I have also managed to get several of our customers who receive fax availability lists to go for the more reliable email alternative which is more reliable (at this end) and should save you paper. We are happy to receive fax replies as it is a nice, simple way of getting a physical record of an order for us to then process. For those who like to do everything online, personally I prefer the real thing sometimes, I am working on a fillinable email order form but it isn’t as simple as I had hoped to tie it in with own availability list generating programme.

Nature stuff

Getting great vermin control this winter with several cats patrolling the nursery and the new policy of leaving cat access points open into the locked barns. Our odd mystery of the one legged cat has been solved. It is our newest one Spare. We get used to wet paw-prints about the place in damp weather but we have repeatedly seen just the occasional paw-print spaced out about every 40cm or so. Spare is quite young and has obviously never mastered lapping, so to drink, he dips in one paw and licks it off that, then walks off with the one wet paw.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-01-24T09:50:00.000Z

Morning all,

We had our first repeat order of the year last week so there must be some action out there, hurrah. I know it’s still early but it’s nice to know that there are some springtime thoughts taking shape out there. We are going to need some early cash flow to cope with the new CC trolley scanners which seem to be going through batteries at an astonishing rate! We are due some rechargables in the next week or two which hopefully will help, but at the moment it’s costing about 50p a trolley in batteries. If they flatten the rechargables at the same rate we will also need to invest in a mobile recharging kit as well as the desktop one. Of course it could just be me and the combination of old fart vs. new technology!

Struggling to stand up straight this morning after several hours spent yesterday splitting logs, followed by a tough game of hockey (won 1-0, and I saved one on the line in last 5 mins). Off this afternoon to collect more logs for splitting, might leave the splitting until I can walk without watching my knees!

Still haven’t made my mind up about attending the Grower of the Year awards dinner, I can’t get round the fact that in our push for sustainability the cost of this night out would pay for over a year’s supply of logs for the wood burner (if I can’t stand upright again). If anyone is planning to attend themselves, please let me know, I will help fund a ticket if you will volunteer to collect our reward should we receive one (unlikely if we don’t attend I know, but at least all bases would be covered). For the price of the car park I can get two tickets to see the brilliant Imelda May in Southampton the night after.

On the nursery we are continuing our big winter sort out. Now we have stopped supplying our last DIY customer we have been able to revamp our despatch area to concentrate solely on the garden centre & nursery customers. This meant moving & rebuilding the coffee shack, which proved to be a bigger job than we thought, and opening up a bigger plant preparation area to help throughput. The lower despatch area which used to be used for the DIY job is now home to the rebuilt shack and the completed order holding bay. It’s surprising how exciting a little more space and a jiggle out can be! Hopefully we can finish the revamp this week ready for the busy times ahead.

With a big effort this week, we managed to spread mulching bark along our 3 Km of tunnel edges as planned, this should help control moss, liverwort and weeds in this awkward gap, which we used to spray.

We have also prepared the new 60 metre strip where we are planting a double row of mixed native hedging. The plants are here ready for planting next week if the weather is ok. This is a strip that is being planted as part of the ecology enhancement scheme drawn up for the planners as part of the conditions laid down for putting up our 3 turbines. We still have to sow a wide wild flower strip next to the hedge and replant part of the hedge removed for the turbine foundation work. All this despite that, in total, we will lose only about 5 or 6 metres of hedge when the turbines are up. To be fair we would have planted this length of hedge anyway so it’s not a huge problem.

Although the basic planning consent for the turbines was given in September we only just managed to fulfil all the conditions laid down before Christmas, and are just awaiting official clearance of those conditions before we can actually start any works. The final cost quotes are just coming in and the financing looks to be coming together, so all being well we could see some serious money being spent very soon. It will still be weeks before any serious action takes place on site, but at least the ball will be rolling.

Nature stuff

So far we don’t seem to have lost too many small birds in the cold snap. Those usually vulnerable small ones, like wrens and long tailed tits, are all still about in good numbers here, and the other garden birds seem to be in good heart. We got through sacks and sacks of different types of bird food on the nursery as well as the garden, and hopefully we will be rewarded with some extra help with pest control later on.

Thanks, have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-01-17T12:07:00.000Z

Morning all,
Not the best weather yet for kicking off those lively spring sales, but it’s early days yet. We are looking forward to the new season and getting that cash-flow moving again after the lean winter break. For all nurseries it’s always a bit of a juggling game getting through the winter and into the early spring without upsetting the bank manager, especially in these tricky times when the banks are a bit hesitant about lending. With low margins in our sector for a long time, we can be particularly vulnerable to the current practice of passing financial decisions further up the management line at bank. It’s no longer enough to convince your local manager of your security and prospects, it has to go further up the line, I suspect, to one of those lovely chaps who earns those lovely bonuses! Luckily we look to be getting through this winter with slightly less excitement than usual, other than the slight hiccup of wanting to borrow some dosh for 3 wind turbines! I’m sure we will wangle it somehow, just not quite sure how yet. The joys of trying to make progress.

A few exciting things this week, the main one being the introduction of the new CC tags which can be scanned to check their authenticity. Thanks to all those who replied to my request for info on your trolley situation, it should help make the deliveries a little smoother. We now have a scanner to check the trolleys here, but we can’t afford to give all our drivers one each, which would have cost us just under £2,000 just to look after our 75 trolleys. So far we haven’t had a single centre say that they have a scanner, although most are in the CC system, so I’m not quite sure how the system will hold up.

The other news is that we are one of the finalists in the Nursery Stock Grower of the Year Awards. Hopefully it is recognition of our achievements rather than a ploy to get us to buy rather expensive tickets to the awards dinner when the results are announced. I don’t get out much, but I imagine that this price includes a room and you get to take the table, chair and crockery home afterwards too!

New Year, New Season, New Price Point?

We managed to get all the catalogues printed and posted so you should all be in possession of the latest version. There is a download available on the nursery website if needed. Don’t forget that the prices have gone up by 7p/pot after the big coir pot price rise and increases in labour costs. Then there is also the VAT increase on the perennials to consider too. This means you may want to review your retail price points before getting stocked up. Many of you have your stock pre-priced, so you will need to let us know ASAP of any changes so that we can get ahead on the plate making and printing. Thanks.

Over the last couple of months we have been having a really refreshing end of an era winter clear out. With the end of plastic pot production and a focus on recycling we have sorted and shipped out loads of recyclable material. We have a new plastic recycling man (Grassroots Recycling, Warminster) who charges an annual subscription fee but will take all the plastic we can pallet up (sorted and clean(ish)) if we deliver it to him. This has been great for the final post-plastic era clear out, of all those collections of pots and trays that ‘might come in handy one day’. Once we clear this lot we should only have the odd tunnel cover to send in and the tubs and lids from the micro-prop lab. We had accumulated a large scrap metal stack over the years where we upgraded tunnels from gantries to trolley paths and the money we got from that (£180/tonne) will help pay for those areas of recycling we get charged for. Pallets of card have gone back to our backing board supplier, used pallets to the farm for their seed packing plant and old timber scrap is chopped up for the wood burner/heater. Even a collection of old gas bottles we no longer use was collected by a Calor Gas supplier for reuse or refurbishment. Hopefully we will find enough time before the season takes off to finish the job, as it does great things for the morale to see old rubbish finding a new life and the business getting back to efficient and organised chaos!

An accumulation of little projects gets you there in the end. One such ‘little job’ started this week, which was filling the gap between the tunnel bed edges and the side of the tunnels with mulch, to reduce herbicide use on the nursery. We don’t use herbicides on the crops but we do use them around the tunnels to reduce the potential for weed infection. That means filling an awkward narrow strip just under 3 kilometres long! Hopefully this will have quite a long term benefit, we will see.

Thanks, have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-01-10T19:34:00.000Z

What a stunning sunny morning it is, a great day for getting out there and communing with nature in whatever way takes your fancy. Hopefully everyone else will think the same, take a peak in the garden, get down to their hairy pot plant supplier and voluntarily empty their wallets. We are seeing a bit of tentative activity on the nursery with a few sales, decisions being made on price points and reports of trays available for return. This does give us a growing sense of urgency and excitement as the new season approaches, which is a great way to get the juices running again after the Christmas break.

We have several expert label printers beavering away churning out lots of wooden labels in anticipation of the sales to come and I’m thankful that last year we splashed out on a second printer for the task as it does give us a bit more flexibility on this big job. With each label going through several stages, cleaning, printing on two sides (one label at a time), bundling and treating, it’s quite a performance compared to buying off the shelf plastic alternatives, but the results achieved are worth it.

The rest of us are busy repairing broken wooden trays, cutting back plants and finishing upgrading the polytunnels to operate with trolley paths rather than gantries. We still have loads of other winter jobs to complete, like installing the new irrigation pumps, pipe-work and control system, rearranging despatch to improve efficiency, upgrading nursery drainage and tunnel access and getting started on the turbine installation work. Even in the office we have been getting ready by updating the software systems to cope with the new VAT rates, and revamping the stationary designs to reflect the focus the business now has on the hairier side of things. With such a huge change in the business over the last 4 years it is great to see the whole thing coming together in such a coordinated way. We are by no means perfect and we still have lots of ideas about how to do things better, but it does make going into a new season, in difficult times, a very positive and exciting time for everyone.

Eco news

This week I was able to update our ‘PLATO Sustain’ spreadsheet for the final month in 2010. This logs our basic sustainable stuff, waste levels, energy and water use, transport, recycling levels etc and it makes very encouraging reading. Although some of the calculations are not fool proof (the carbon footprint is a lot more complicated than many might hope) it does give a good indication of progress and provide a platform for further improvements.
Carbon footprint down by 14% in 2 years at the same time as turnover has increased by 31%.
Waste levels over the same time have dropped 23% (in volume) and we recycle 86% of that waste.
Water consumption down 14%.
As rising prices of energy, waste and water make a bigger impact on overall costs to everyone, we are hoping that being on top of our game early will benefit us hugely in the long-term and make us feel good about it too!

Where do we go from here? Wind turbines could potentially halve our total carbon footprint, updating irrigation will save more water, harvesting water would reduce carbon hungry mains use, update lighting and heating systems to carbon neutral fuels, more insulation. It’s one step at a time, we can’t get it all sorted straight away, but we all need to start somewhere.

Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm.

2011-01-09T11:00:00.000Z

Happy New Year to you! Let’s make it’s a good one. The overall outlook for the global economy and environment still looks challenging but I’m sure I have detected a certain degree of common sense beginning to creep in to things as a whole. I’m sure we will muddle through somehow and even if we are not richer financially at the end of the year we can still be better off in other ways. Perhaps the start of a new year gives us a helpful nudge to look at many things with a fresh eye.

We had a great Christmas, all the usual simple stuff, relatives and friends, eating a bit too much and a nice change of focus away from the usual goings on. For a change this year we hosted the big Christmas day lunch and in honour of the festive season and the advancing years of the visitors we did turn on the central heating to get the conservatory/dining area warm enough to eat in. Things got off to a shaky start after finishing work on the Friday, I turned on the heating for the first time this winter hoping to build up the heat in the tile floor in plenty of time, at the same time I attempted to complete the replacement of a PIR light sensor on the front step. Things didn’t go quite according to plan. As I fiddled about with the sensor trying to get it to go I could see the house lights dimming and automatically assumed I had messed something up. Naturally everyone else assumed the same so the pressure was on. I quickly realised that it was unlikely to be me as my circuit was disconnected and I noticed that the central heating pump had stopped so that was my next worry. I turned off all the circuits in turn but then every time something was switched on the lights dimmed dramatically. Anyway to cut a long story short we contacted our electrician who came out to us at 9.30 in the evening and identified it as an external supply problem despite the neighbours being ok. He reported it to the supply company who arrived at just past midnight to take a look. We were disconnected at this point for safety and the line repair team came early the next morning to find and fix the damaged cable (worn through neutral wire). It’s only in odd situations like this that you notice and appreciate the backup services that are in place to keep our lives moving along and how dependant we are on things like a consistent energy supply. Lights, central heating, hot water, fridge and cooker and our phone system were all out of action and over Christmas that could have been a bit tricky. Once the floor heating was back on it heated up nicely although we did overcook everyone on the day as when I turned on the radiators on Christmas morning the only two we needed on were in the conservatory and the only two we had to have off were in the sitting room where the log burner is. Naturally the conservatory ones were stuck off and the others stuck on. I managed to get the conservatory ones to go but the other two wouldn’t go off, consequently we spent the whole day in the conservatory and even after several hours of the heating being off we still struggled to get in the sitting room, it is so well insulated! Naturally I was far to mean to open the windows, what a waste that would be.

We lashed out on the 28th with a second light lunch for 34 after our annual hockey thrash around and the heating came on again but this time worked perfectly!

Hope yours was fun too.

Back to earth with a bump this week, stormy weather blew off three of our tunnel sheets and there were a few old trees taken out. However we do have some new lovely POS boards here which can fit in our wooden display box effectively making a simple picture frame. More on these next week. I will take some pictures so those on email can see the great look.

Eco News

December turned out to be a record month for us on the wind turbines. It is usually one of the windiest months but it was over 20% up on estimate, which helped make up Novembers shortfall. The sensor issue on one turbine which hopefully is now solved has reduced overall output but we are still only about 5% below estimated kWh generation. Had the fault not occurred the we would have been about 2% up, but stoppages do happen from time to time so it is handy having three turbines rather than one, so something is generating even if not at full capacity. In December 74.3% of the electricity used on site was generated ourselves and we are continuing to export plenty of excess power to the grid.

The initial turbine service and tidy up was done this week so we can now finish off the odds and ends around each site and perhaps get some visitors in to see them in operation.

Fax availability – Why not change to email, get more info and save paper.

Over the winter I have stopped the automatic faxing of the actual availability list to those who still receive this service via their fax machine, to save wasting your paper. If you need a fax list please let us know, pick it up from the website or alternately send an email address or two as an alternative. The newssheet will continue, just to make sure you don’t forget us and to keep you up to date on the latest ramblings on things hairy.

Happy New Year, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2011-01-04T07:49:00.001Z

Hello all,
Hope you all had a good Christmas and we wish you all a Happy New Year. It’s been a few weeks since my last update and we’ve been really busy. I can’t possibly fit in all the stuff we got done but despite the cold nip in the air, we managed to make some great positive progress on lots of projects. Hopefully the pre-Christmas weather didn’t spoil things too much out there in retail-land, and all those Christmas trees got shifted.

We had a great Christmas here, plenty of fun preparing, making our decorations for the mess room and a marathon session making all our Christmas cards (I did take some snaps of this year’s efforts which I will try and get on the website). We still had plenty of lying snow on the day and had a big family Christmas lunch down on the farm which was just perfect. Might have overdone the food consumption a bit over the period so a bit more self control needed in the next few weeks to get back to standard wobble levels.

Having been married for an extremely long time, present buying between Caroline and I does get tricky. Luckily I did remember last year’s Christmas message which was that when she says there is no need to get anything, that isn’t always what is really meant! I did better this year, although we did manage to buy each other the same things, great minds think alike. Having had a new wood burner put in the house, we both got tool-holders for the hearth, on top of that we both got chocolates. The last present also nearly got repeated too, but luckily I remembered she finds lacy underwear a bit scratchy!

New Year, New Season

We managed to get all the catalogues printed and posted so you should all be in possession of the latest version. Anyone who got missed or needs an extra copy please let us know. There is a version available as a download on the nursery website if needed.

Don’t forget that the prices have gone up by 7p/pot after the big coir pot price rise and increases in labour costs. Then there is also the VAT increase on the perennials to consider too. This means you may want to review your retail price points before getting stocked up. Many of you have your stock pre-priced with our ace wooden labels so you will need to let us know ASAP of any changes so that we can get ahead on the plate making and printing. Thanks.

Eco news (Don’t forget that if you receive this via fax we can save paper and email instead, just let us know)

OK this is a moment for big-time smugness on my part. It’s not often I get something so right and well timed, but in November I certainly hit the mark in the house. Over a few weeks we installed a wood burner, insulated the roof (to 270mm), filled the cavity walls and lifted the floorboards to install insulation under them. Perfectly timed for the cold weather and the enormous increase in heating oil prices over the last few weeks. In our old leaky house it has made an incredible difference, now the heat stays in for longer and the draughts have reduced hugely. Oil consumption has dropped off a cliff despite the cold and it’s toasty even when the heating is off. The roof and cavity wall work was subsidised so will pay back in just a few months, the burner and floor job will take longer, but the nice thing is that we save heat and dosh from this day on for years to come, a much better return than most saving plans and the feel good factor adds to the glow of self congratulation. I can’t believe we didn’t do this before, but years ago fuel was cheap (heating oil up over 50% in a year) and our focus was on other stuff.

Wind turbine project ticking along but progress is a bit slow as we try and get everything sorted out. The planning conditions are fulfilled and are just awaiting being signed off before we can actually do anything at all on the site.

Electric consumption on nursery down by 23.6% for 2010 up to the end of November. Water consumption down 14%.

Happy New Year, have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-11-08T10:10:00.000Z

Just a quickie as I’m not meant to be doing this. We’ve been so busy over the last few days that I couldn’t find a moment to sort out last week’s update which was supposed to disclose the fact that I wouldn’t be able to do this one!

It’s fairly early on Sunday morning and I can look up to see the blue skies and azure seas of sunny St Ives out of the sitting room window. Usually I have to go online to do that but today I can do it for real, lucky me. If it makes you feel any better it’s actually blowing a gale, the rain is lashing the window and I can only just make out the waves through the murk. Well it is November in Cornwall. Heating works well and tea is hot.

So as you might guess we are on our hols and have left the nursery in the hands of all the very skilled and capable staff and if there are any problems my Mum & Dad are staying to sort it all out. Good luck to everyone!

If anyone has any burning issues or even the odd order they want to discuss, Richard will be in the office most of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the next couple of weeks.

Eco Stuff

A lot of activity in the last week which caused a few delays in the holiday preparations. Despite nothing too much actually getting done in real terms we had a load of visitors coming to have a chat, give advice and find out what we are up to. There was a visit by a Green MEP who had heard about the turbine stuff but was very interested to see all the sustainable directions we have taken. He knew very little about nurseries which always helps when making an impression!
Then we had an environmental consultant visit to see if we qualify for some funded environmental advice and training which could help us fine tune some of our projects and hopefully get some recognition or accreditation for our efforts. I’ve never been a great one for official form filling and box ticking, but from what he said we wouldn’t have to do too much to get some fairly major results which could improve our credentials and profile. Mind you after two weeks eating and drinking down here I don’t think I’m going to have any problem increasing my profile!

The bank, bless them, asked us to get another company to come and do an independent report on the viability of the turbine project so that they can avoid losing sleep over lending the dosh. Naturally this is for our benefit and so consequently we foot the bill. A very nice couple came to take a look at the whole business as well as the turbine site and seemed very positive so the report should be ok. The site assessment involved a fairly scientific walk to the top of the hill, rotating 360 degrees and deciding that it looks really good, big views, no trees and planning consent achieved. Thank the lord for expert input.

More expensive input with the arrival of the ecologists report on the turbine site. A nice long one describing what we have, what will happen on installation (remove three sections of 6 meters of young hedge, and hang a bit of orange fence on the hedge ends to prevent damage during fitting). Then what happens after for ten years (replant hedge over foundations, plant a further 60m of hedge and a 60m wild flower strip). Still such is life.

Got the insulators organised to do the house on our return so looking forwards to a cosy, reduced carbon winter.

Sun now out, so need to get the surf gear sorted, not.

Got to go and see if the American Bittern is still in Zennor.

See you all in a couple of weeks.

2010-10-25T07:59:00.000+01:00

Hello all,

Another lovely sunny day but bit nippy again. A real autumnal feel, which usually means things start to quieten down as we prepare for a bit of a holiday, Christmas and next spring’s madness. But we have so many plans and projects on the go, I’m not sure if we will find time for Christmas.

This week I have been updating the catalogue for the coming year which will be winging it’s way to you very shortly, a few new varieties and a few encouraging words on how we are building in more affordable sustainability into the business. It is very easy to believe that getting more sustainable means increasing the costs but we are finding an increasing number of savings associated with the changes we are making. Sometimes it takes a bit of initial investment to reap longer term savings but occasionally it just takes a bit of focus and application. We are working on a combination of simply reducing our consumption and waste in all areas and changing kit, which both lead to reduced costs and lower carbon output.

Unfortunately although we are achieving very positive progress, there are not enough savings to prevent a price increase for 2011, our two major costs labour (50%+) and coir pots (12%) have gone up significantly and there is no slack in the system to absorb the increases. The cost of the coir pots alone have increased by over 4p/pot after the devastating fire at the production plant on top of the high inflation experienced in Sri Lanka over the last couple of years. Since the fire it has come to light (no pun intended) that although we were paying a rate that provided a valuable income for all the staff it didn’t allow enough to be put aside for reinvestment which is now going to be so vital to their future development. Naturally the insurance company involved are doing their best to wriggle out of paying back what is needed to get back to where they were before the fire and delaying the payments too (nice to know insurers are the same the world over!). So in the interest of continuing a sustainable relationship with them into the future, we have volunteered a big increase to get things back on a more realistic level. Having researched potential alternative supplies we have found that we are still getting a competitive deal and don’t forget that this is very much a handmade, multi-processed product and as, such still provides exceptional value for money.
Eco news (Don’t forget that if you receive this via fax we can save paper and email instead, just let us know)

SAVE, SAVE, SAVE.

Ok, now here is a top tip for saving loads of dosh almost instantly. This is on a personal level but makes its importance no less significant. With all the eco stuff going on we have been looking at our personal impact and heating costs have come up as a major cost both financially and carbon wise. Insulating things seems a really dull way of spending money but can be extremely effective if you don’t have much installed yet. We had a man take a look at the house this week for cavity wall, roof and water tank insulation. Despite having some loft cover we didn’t have the recommended 11 inches and cavity insulation would be easy to do. Now here is the exciting bit, we would need over £1,000 to complete the job but with the grants available we can get it done for a little over £300 and we don’t even have to apply for the grants, the company does all that. Anyone is eligible, owners or tenants (although not quite sure how this side works) and if you are over 70 it is free (yes I realise you are all under 35). Your financial situation and house size seems to make no difference. It’s a hell of a bargain. With our leaky old house we should make the cost back in a very few months and we will make those savings year on year. Don’t delay, Google ‘cavity wall insulation’ and loads of sites will offer their services, all at very similar rates.

Our wind turbine and sustainability efforts got recognised on the 10:10 website this week with a great little blog article. Fame at last. Link: http://www.1010global.org/uk/2010/10/making-cut-kirton-farm

Electric consumption on nursery down by 23.37% for 2010 up to the end of September. Water consumption down 15.6%.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-10-22T19:53:00.000+01:00

Check us out at http://www.1010global.org/uk/2010/10/making-cut-kirton-farm and pick up some energy busting tips of your own from our friends at 10:10

2010-10-18T11:05:00.000+01:00

Beautiful sunny morning but bit nippy as I sit here in the office complete with vest and fleecy hoody. No the hoody isn’t an attempt to hold onto some idea that I retain any hint of youthful style, the vest extinguishes all hope of any street cred, it is just thick and cosy and super effective at retaining the vast amount of heat radiating from the head area (lots of hot air). All hope of youthfulness disappeared this week when we went to see Judie Tzuke in concert who was brilliant, but the audience was 100% old gits of a certain age (mine) who could remember the one and only big hit (Stay with me ‘till Dawn) 30+ years ago. I’m sure I don’t look that old really but everyone else was definitely showing signs of wear & tear with a corresponding dated ‘style’. Sod it, just reread the first part of this, I give up.

Busy social week with another concert last night with an intimate evening with Ben Waters a sensational boogie woogie pianist. A sell out but with only 95 seats to see a great talent, it’s amazing the class out there you can see at a local little venue, must get out there more. Ben was telling us of his recent work with gigs across Europe, sessions with most of the Rolling Stones, Jools Holland, Ray Davis (Kinks) and others I can’t remember. I must admit to being slightly distracted towards the end of the first set when there was nearly a nasty accident. Having downed a quick pint before the start I popped off to the facilities but bumped into Ben and his mum on the way and got chatting. Suddenly Ben was due on so I had missed my chance. Things got a bit uncomfortable as time passed and to add extra tension near the end Ben asked for a request for the last tune. Two got called out and he said he would do both, neither were short either! I was right in the middle of the seating and would have had to shuffle across right in front of Ben to get out, I thought I was going to pass out! Had an ice cream at half time rather than a drink!

Dramatic and heart-warming news about the rescued miners in Chile, what a great result. Mining has always been dangerous and when safety is cut to produce raw materials cheaply, things are bound to go wrong sometimes. Just a note to think about is that 2,600 miners died in China last year. Let’s hope the Chileans do as they say and get their safety act together, I just hope it doesn’t mean they kill the industry because someone else cuts corners to do it cheaper. Sometimes the global economic system we work in can be tricky to live with and don’t get me onto bankers (yes, I do understand just how hard they must work!).

Eco news

Ecologist is booked to do our official environmental programme/scheme for the wind turbine site. Once that is done we can get final clearance from the planners to get started, we just need to secure finance and order everything then we are off.

A friend of mine is a military strategist and looks into planning what the expected military requirements are likely to be in the future so that procurement plans are as effective and relevant as possible. Bit scary. It was interesting to hear how the eco stuff is now affecting their sector so much. The predicted scenario is based on the simple basis that demand for raw materials and energy is accelerating, populations expanding and supply of the stuff is running out or getting much harder to extract. They are now wondering what will happen when things start to get in short supply and recognising the importance and urgency in doing something about securing the future by reducing consumption and securing supplies. There is also a realisation that this will take a major change in culture to make this happen. That’s you and me.

Electric consumption on nursery down by 23.37% for 2010 up to the end of September. Water consumption down 15.6%.

Have a good week.

2010-10-11T10:08:00.003+01:00

Hear Derek live on the radio....http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/p00bd0hy/
Let us know what you think by posting a comment?

2010-10-11T10:03:00.000+01:00

Morning all, 11 October 2010I

Just a quickie this morning as I’ve got to rush off to BBC radio Solent in a minute to be interviewed live about the wind turbine project on their Good Life programme. I’ve done a couple of spots on there before and it’s pretty laid back and I don’t think the listening figures are going to make me an overnight star! I’ve been trying not to think about it this morning, as the shakes begin as soon as I do, but I’m sure it will be fine. Background preparation has gone well, none, but then that’s like any normal day I suppose.

We had a week full of various visits this week the most exciting of which was the installation manager for the turbines. He checked over all the practical challenges on the site, which luckily appear fairly easy to overcome. We looked at the likely order of play with surveys, electrical substation, meter and cable installations, trenching and ground-works etc, but still came out the other end with no real idea how long it will take to come together. At least he was impressed with the site as a whole, great uninterrupted wind flow from all directions, easy access and solid chalk under the foundations. One thing I did learn was that the foundation slabs under each turbine are buried 60cm down and the soil replaced on top so we can replace at least half of the short bit of hedge we remove at each site. This should help the ecology plan that has to be written before we are allowed to start. The archaeologist is lined up to write his pre-commencement proposal and attend the site while digging takes place and the power company are half way to sorting out the new connection quote, so things are moving even if nothing actually gets done for a bit.

Our electricians have been in to sort out a quote for moving all our circuits about to make best use of the renewable supply when it comes in. At the moment we have several separate circuits and meters which have evolved as the nursery grew over 26 years so a bit of a re-jig is necessary. We are looking to disable some parts of the nursery that no longer need a supply and reuse the armoured cable and bits and bobs, where they are still within regulations, this helps with the sustainability of the project and hopefully with the cost too.

I attended our monthly PLATO Sustain meeting this week and we had a new member present his company and products. He was from the UK arm of Hansgrohe who make bathroom fittings. It was amazing to hear some detail of what goes on in other industries. They make very swish fittings, but although more expensive, are so much more efficient in their use of water and energy that they can pay for themselves in a matter of months, all done through clever design and thought. Although you get less water through it doesn’t feel like it, due to the way they introduce air into it and ‘bulk it up’. The reduction in water means less heating hence the energy reduction. Another member who specialises in roofing systems for big buildings was saying that they are taking on a new PV solar panel design that is mounted on a roll of plastic, making it much lighter and easier to install and it is supposed to be less affected by the angle and orientation to the sun. With a life expectancy of 50 years it sounded interesting, although I suspect this sort of technology has plenty more developments to come over the coming years. It’s all go.

Eco news

Electric consumption on nursery down by 23.37% for 2010 up to the end of September. Water consumption down 15.6%.

Nature notes

Nursery rabbit control has taken a leap forward in the last month or two with the arrival of a new cat. We have now officially adopted this stray that just turned up. Younger and fitter than our other two, who now struggle to find the energy to get out of the cat-flap, he has been named Spare as that was what he got used to while we were trying to locate a possible owner. He does have an interesting drinking technique, he hasn’t mastered lapping so dips in his front paw and licks it off. We can now tell when he’s been in the house by the trial of single foot paw prints across the floor. As our friend Roger would say there is more than one way to skin a cat!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-10-04T11:20:00.000+01:00

I can’t believe it’s October already, that’s the end of another financial year, so lots of stock taking to do this week and hopefully the figures will come out ok. There are nearly always surprises when they are sorted out, but not usually nice ones!
This year is looking ok so far which is a relief as it has been such a struggle over the past few years to make sense of it all. Things are looking much more together now as we get our ranges and priorities sorted out and the current combination of great staff, customers and stock, as well as continuing positive business developments are making 2011 look even more exciting. Luckily we all get more out of this than major financial gain but with some cash return things are certainly easier.

A touch autumnal last week and next week looks the same, at least the reservoirs around the country will get a good topping up. I had a bit of a water related week with a trip to Lowaters Nursery to an irrigation orientated open day. They have installed a rainfall harvesting system to reduce their reliance on the increasingly expensive mains water supply and ensure future supplies as demand increases. It was very impressive with a range of collection ditches and ponds supplying a new large reservoir. The reservoir water was filtered through a series of iris beds to remove contaminants before going through a fine particle filter and returning to the new main nursery irrigation tank. They had researched the system very well (with some funding help) and have constructed a very sustainable and cost effective solution for their situation. Water has been cheap and freely available in most areas for a long time but as prices rise and continuous uninterrupted supplies possibly coming under threat in the future, it is something that many nurseries like us who currently rely on mains supply will need to address. The exciting bit was that the payback period was 4 years even without grant funding, which not only makes it sustainable but a great investment. Unfortunately it is yet another ‘jam tomorrow’ project, but does show the importance of finding enough funds to invest in the future and how this does help keep future costs down. Unfortunately there were probably only a dozen nurseries represented there and many of those were the inspiration behind a lot of the systems incorporated in the Lowaters project. Buffet lunch was great too!

Got the propagation tunnel finished on Friday after getting the double sheet attached the week before. It needs to be well sealed so that we can inflate it for the winter heating period. We don’t heat much until late Winter, but any heat we can conserve helps and running a weeny fan to inflate the double cover works brilliantly. Although it costs more for two skins they effectively protect each other so last quite a bit longer and the running costs of the fan are minimal.

Eco news

Spent most evenings this week raking the loose insulation in the loft. I’ll be back up there this afternoon to finish it off, it has recovered from 3 or 4 cm in depth to a nice fluffy 7 or 8 cm, so I will just need to top it up slightly to the rafter tops and we are there. Next is having a go at fitting some insulation under our suspended wooden floors. When the wind blows hard the carpet has been seen to rise off the floor which is not just inefficient heat retention but does bring on a feeling of motion sickness and that isn’t something you expect while watching telly!

Electric consumption on nursery down by 23.37% for 2010 up to the end of September.

Water consumption down 15.6%.

Nature notes

Last of the summer sights this week with a large flock (100+) of house martins feeding over the nursery. Red Kite spotted over the nursery last week.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-09-27T20:15:00.000+01:00

We are in the headlines this week with lots of local press coverage of our successful wind turbine planning application. It started with a request for a montage turbine image and a few words for the head reporter which went fine. Then came the disappointment of the first spread in the Southampton Evening Echo on their eco pages, headlined with the caption ‘Green light for giant turbines at beauty spot’ with a picture of a dramatic Cornish multiple turbine scene, which was hardly the balanced view we were hoping for. Having sworn never to speak to another journalist ever again I was forced to rethink when The ‘Hampshire Chronicle’ came out on Thursday. Written by the same reporter, we were the lead on the front page with a more sensible ‘A wind of change on the horizon?’ followed by a longer article with a broadly positive report and including some of my input from the phone call. We were also the lead editorial comment, again sensible and positive, even congratulating us on leading the way. Can’t expect much more than that!

We had great two days sunny weather this week when we managed to re-sheet 5 tunnels. We have been waiting ages for just the right weather and Tuesday was perfect. We had our main heated prop tunnel to do which is a tricky one as it is clad with two sheets which inflate with a tiny fan to improve the heat retention. This one took all day and still needs a bit of finishing off. Wednesday was still sunny and started off still but got breezier as the day went on, this is the usual scenario when tunnel covering, everything is perfect until you unroll the sheets! Anyway, the windbreaks around the nursery did enough for us to get 4 covers on in a day which is a record for us and completed all the split tunnels on site, now we can relax.

We celebrated the end of summer with a trip to the local pub for lunch with everyone before some of our hardworking spring/summer crew finish for this year. Slightly tense incase we bumped into any hostile anti turbine locals but had a great meal with plenty of laughs.

Slowing brain function and over-excitement over a trip out, caused slight confusion yesterday. I am back into the weekly trip to the supermarket, but got slightly confused in the preamble when I met Caroline carrying the shopping boxes to the car after I had just loaded them myself. Turns out I had loaded the cat food! Did anyone see the BBC documentary/experiment on old folk a week or two ago (Young Ones)? it was fascinating. Anyone wanting to see how best to keep themselves or others from deteriorating with advancing years should see it. It’s still on the BBC iplayer and well worth a watch.

Eco news

Winter is coming, it’s getting a bit late but we are looking at major insulation installation in the house and where we can, on the nursery. From watching our daily electric consumption over the last 10 months it has become apparent that a vast amount of our use is related to heating. In the office, mess room and loos our total consumption falls by 80% when comparing winter with summer and when the oil consumption in the prop tunnels and house are added, in this accounts for over 70% of our direct carbon footprint. For too long now it has been too easy to avoid looking at these things but as environmental pressures and especially costs start to increase over the next few years it will become a focus point for everyone. Having spoken to a few people we are now recognising that we probably have many more options than we thought. The variety of insulation options have increased greatly in the past few years as have heating systems and fuel choices. We are looking at biomass boilers, probably wood pellets (now produced locally) which are carbon neutral and after the initial higher installation cost are much cheaper to run and a new hot-water heating system. The hot water is an interesting one, it uses a small air-source heat pump to take the heat directly from a warm room (eg the conservatory in summer) and use it to heat the hot water tank. This would be ideal for periods when the boiler is not on and reduces the boiler load when it is. Having now recognised the shockingly bad performance of our 1930’s house which looses heat from all over the place (suspended wooden floor complete with floorboards with wide gaps between them, un-insulated walls, lots of single glazed sash windows, holes in the wall for cat movement etc). At least the loft is not bad, although I have got to give it a good raking! (some of the insulation up there is recycled paper/card stuff that apparently settles over time and needs re-fluffing every now and then).

Have a good week from all at Kirton Farm

2010-09-24T09:12:00.000+01:00

http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/8407992.Tallest_wind_turbines_approved_for_Winchester_countryside/?ref=mr

2010-09-21T11:19:00.000+01:00

I can’t believe the amount of stuff that goes on in one week. Not only have we delivered lots of plants and finished the bulk of the potting, but we discovered lots of new info about insulation possibilities for the house and clever hot water heating systems. I struggled to walk for two days after starting the new hockey season in less than peak physical shape and oh yes, we got the planning permission for the wind turbines approved by the city planning committee.

The sudden dip in temperature at night is a bit of a shock, especially as it has timed itself really well with the aga going on the blink, the living room chimney being opened up for repair creating a mini ‘mistral’ through the room and the house boiler out of action. Even the cats are getting a bit fed up trying to find a warm spot for a nap.

The plants don’t seem to mind the cool as we seem to be getting a real growth spurt before the cold really sets in. We are just going through a bit of a change in watering regimes at the moment which is likely to keep developing over the next couple of seasons. We are introducing more of a wet /dry cycle into the production to try and toughen up the plants, reduce the amount of green glop on the compost surface and reduce water use. With our current sub-irrigated sand-beds, which had been considered the best system around at one time for plant quality and water conservation, we get constantly moist compost when compost/sand-bed contact is good, this has served us well in the past but we can now do better. After years of repeated niggles with the sand-beds we were finally persuaded to try a different approach by the water usage figures produced by the NBIS. These figures illustrated the extra water consumed by the nurseries using capillary sand-beds compared with those using a well managed wet/dry system (usually overhead), the opposite of the expected results. This has been recorded over three years so we know it’s not a one-off. Our current focus on tieing in sustainability with improved crop management has led us to incorporate an overhead system together with the sub irrigated option, trying out new wet/dry sub-irrigation systems and aiming to install some degree of rain water collection. Hopefully this will pay back quickly in reduced water bills, reduced plant wastage and time saved in pot tidying at despatch. You never stop learning in this trade.

Eco news

Ok, the really exciting news was really the planning consent given to our 3 wind turbines. What a relief, I have been playing it down in my head for so long that I can’t really get to grips with the fact that it’s got through and we can get on with it. No individuals turned up to object at the meeting, but as expected a representative for the two parish councils did read out a list of objection points. I did my bit and although I was a bit nervous I think it went ok, I am sure that the personal approach can work, with something like this, rather than sending in a non-local expert to represent you. Anyway, the planners dealt with all the raised points very well and the questions and debate from the committee eventually came to a sensible conclusion. The planning committee did recognise that public opinion has turned in favour of getting something done about renewable energy production, noted that there had only been three individual objections to the project and that the turbines themselves were not enormous. We passed unanimously in the end which was perfect. Thanks go to all those who have supported us on this one, even if it was a only few words of encouragement, it all added to the momentum. One shocking fact that the parish council did raise was that, according to them, this will be the biggest installation in Hampshire! If that is true, I am shocked and embarrassed as a Hampshire resident, that this small project is all we have managed. Still we have to start somewhere.

Last weekend’s Whitely Village energy exhibition was not quite the extravaganza I envisaged but we did meet one very informative chap from a builder merchants (Covers) who have an ‘Eco Centre’ specialising in wide range sustainable products for buildings, from insulation to boilers, heat pumps, energy generation etc. There is an amazing range of clever and sometimes very simple kit aimed at sorting out more sustainable domestic living but it won’t work if we don’t install it!

This year’s nursery electric consumption is now down by 23.02% (at end of August).

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-09-13T19:34:00.000+01:00

At last the phones are sorted. It took another visit from the engineer to install an earlier version of the software that runs it all (newest version had too many bugs in it) and then a few hours resetting it all up again. We still found the odd hiccup after he had gone but he was able to fix all those remotely via the internet in a matter of moments. It’s all very impressive once it works but it has been a pain-full process getting there. I felt quite sorry for the engineer who was so confident in the kit, only to have to sit through days hunched over his laptop and on his mobile, talking to base and the manufacturers, huffing, sighing, and unable to get it to do pretty basic stuff. The relief on his face when the old software worked so well was a delight to see.
I had an entertaining evening recording the various messages on the new system, I had to wait until everyone had gone home and I could talk without distraction or embarrassment. It took me hours to get anything remotely coherent recorded. When you aren’t used to recording stuff it all seems so odd, my voice doesn’t really sound like that for a start, I can hear my brothers voice but not mine, and how come that a simple phrase can come out with so many words in the wrong order! Then I started to get a bit hysterical and started getting the giggles after a few words, after which the language got a bit more colourful and panic filled as I realised that as soon as it was recorded it was on the system. I then had to quickly rerecord it before someone called which added more pressure and more mistakes. I got there in the end, so apologies to anyone who tried to call when either the system was down or you got an earful of garbled rubbish from some nutter with a microphone in apparent need of a sedative.

Sorry, but those of you receiving this stuff by fax rather than email will have had a rather erotic service over the last couple of weeks due to secondary problems with the new phone system. Hopefully this is sorted now, although it would be more eco-friendly, reliable and cheaper to send it by email if you have the facility available. Just let me know an address and we will add you to the list. Isn’t auto speeling correction just great?!

Eco news

Wind Turbine planning committee on Thursday. There are 4 time slots for people to address the panel, 3 mins (total) for the public to oppose, 3 mins for the parish councils to support or oppose, 5 mins for any city councillors and 3 mins at the end for the applicant and/or supporters. The planning officers report for the committee came out last week and it looks pretty good, they seem to have covered all the objections raised and effectively dismissed them and come out with a fairly strong recommendation to grant permission. We have a couple of the local city councillors who are supporting the proposal, one Lib Dem and one Tory, so with a split representation on the panel itself we might be covered. There has still been very little negative local coverage other than the Crawley Parish Council’s foot stamping, and even that seems to have failed to produce much reaction as far as we know. I am ever hopeful that the tide is turning and a project like this will start to see a more positive response from local communities but the proof will be in seeing how the city councillors respond.

We are off in a minute to the Winter Energy Weekend at Whitley Village near Southampton (http://winacc.org.uk/events/2010-09-10/visit-whiteley-energy-weekend-today)%20see to see if we can pick up any info on local sustainability projects and maybe bend Winchester City Councils ear to make recycling easier for local businesses. It’s aimed mostly at the domestic market but there should be plenty of companies and organisations exhibiting and pointing us all in the right direction. This year’s nursery electric consumption is now down by 23.02% (at end of August).

Nature notes

Summer nearly gone, swallows have all left and the house martins have definitely thinned out over the week. On Monday there were over 50 swooping over the nursery and yesterday just a handful returning to a couple of the nest sites. Still looking on the bright side there will be less guano on the conservatory roof!

Don't forget to do your bit.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-09-10T10:31:00.000+01:00

We have received some pictures of the damage caused by the fire at the hairy pot factory in Sri Lanka that we thought you might like to see.

Production has been delayed but we are continuing to work with the producers to plan for the coming season

2010-09-06T11:36:00.000+01:00

Another interesting week as the telephone engineers try to get the new phone system to work as planned. Nearly there, just the answer-phone service to get going now. During the past 10 days we have been intermittently on and off with nursery phone lines, internet lines, fax lines in, fax lines out, recorded messages etc so apologies if you have had any difficulties getting through.

It even knocked out all our printers from the computer network on Friday after a new router they fitted on Thursday had renamed the IP addresses. The problem didn’t materialise until the computers where turned on again on Friday morning. The joys of high tech. Still, on the bright side we now have network and internet access from the house again after a break of about 5 years and the new mobile hand-sets seem to have a better range than the old ones.
A bit flat today after an afternoon off yesterday the see Southampton FC play against Rochdale. Oops, lost again with another disappointing performance after a tricky couple of weeks when they lost, their main money man who sadly passed away, and their manager and most of the coaching staff who all got the sack. Still at least Portsmouth are doing badly too!

Production of the hairy pots is back under way in Sri Lanka after the fire that destroyed our last shipment and damaged the presses, but it is not up to full speed yet. Naturally there are some insurance delays which haven’t helped but the things are coming together. We will keep production there moving along throughout the winter to build up stocks here and keep their cash flow going. It will mean earlier outlays for us but does give us the insurance of uninterrupted pot supply for next season.

It isn’t the sort of issue we have come across before with a supplier, but it is in its own way it does give us a real connection with the people producing this product and a realisation of some of the social responsibilities we have as consumers.

Eco news

Exciting news on the wind turbine planning which is going before the planning committee on Thursday 16th Sept which is quicker than we anticipated, so well done to the local planning dept. There are 4 time slots for people to address the panel, 3 mins (total) for the public to oppose, 3 mins for the parish councils to support or oppose, 5 mins for any city councillors and 3 mins at the end for the applicant and/or supporters. Our planning guide will prepare my input once the planning dept report recommending approval is issued 7 days before the meeting, nerve wracking stuff. I have a couple of the local city councillors who are supporting the proposal, one Lib Dem and one Tory, so with a split representation on the panel itself we might be covered. There has still been very little negative local coverage other than the Crawley Parish Council’s foot stamping, and even that seems to have failed to produce much reaction as far as we know. I am ever hopeful that the tide is turning and a project like this will start to see a more positive response from local communities but the proof will be in seeing how the city councillors respond.

Hoping to get to the Winter Energy Weekend at Whitley Village near Southampton next weekend and see if we can pick up any info on local sustainability projects. It’s aimed mostly at the domestic market but there should be plenty of companies and organisations exhibiting and pointing us all in the right direction.

This year’s nursery electric consumption is now down by 23.02% (at end of August).

Don't forget to do your bit.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-08-30T20:20:00.000+01:00

At last the sun has come back out, just in time for the holiday weekend, hurrah. So here I am enjoying my weekend, sowing a few seeds, de-limescaling the fog nozzles and sorting out the watering. Things are looking pretty good here, a couple of extra staff this summer has kept us on top of most jobs and the nursery is looking good and is pretty full, ready for the spring onslaught. Actually we still have lots to do but there is a definite feeling of control and progress, rather than the usual organised panic to get everything done in time.
Hairy pots on BBC TV last Sunday! Spotted by one of our eagle eyed, keen and Sunday morning TV watching customers! It was on BBC2, ‘Something for the Weekend’ on the cooking spot! You can see it on the following link (it is 1hr 18mins into the programme, if you can’t watch the whole thing! It’s very exciting, I don’t get out much!) http://bbc.co.uk/i/tl5b3/

Needless to say, the office is in chaos again, the computer firewall issues remain and to add to the excitement we have had a new phone system installed, well nearly installed. With assurances that it was a two day job and the lines would only be down for half an hour we thought it was going to be easy, especially as I wasn’t involved with the installation, it was done by professionals! They started on Tuesday and I’m sat now here on Saturday, still sharing my limited desk space with the computer screen and the fax, as the job is still not finished. All the kit is now in position but they can’t get the programming right, so at the moment all the phones and extensions work, but we have no messaging service, our separate internet number doesn’t work and the fax won’t send out through the fax machine (it’s ok sending out via the computer and receiving is ok). The promises of better, cheaper and easy are all a distant memory. So if you call and there is no reply please try again later, the messaging/answer phone stuff will be back but not for a day or two.

I call console myself by admiring my potentially valuable rock I brought back from Cornwall. Unfortunately I have missed the boat on cashing in on it’s value by about 5,000 years, as it is a chunk of Gabbro rock from the Lizzard Peninsular. It was prized in ancient cultures as the best cooking stone. They used to cook their food in pottery vessels (before metal was widely used) which couldn’t stand the heat of the open fire, so they heated stones in the fire then dropped them in the pot. Other rocks would shatter after a very short time potentially breaking the pot or at least making the meal a bit gritty, but gabbro lasted ages. Apparently you can boil a pot of water in about 30 seconds so it’s quicker than the kettle! It is only found in the UK on the Lizzard and in Skye, but it was traded all over the country and sometimes incorporated into clay to improve heating properties of pots. It is still quarried today as a road-stone. We made a special trip to this beach to collect it, how sad are we? It’s funny but we hardly saw another soul on our trips out.

Eco news

A letter in the local paper stood out today saying that Lloyds are predicting oil supplies to fall behind global demand bu 2013. Oops, that’s going to be exciting. Having spoken to a Shell employee a short while ago he was saying how things were starting to get a lot more difficult with oil extraction, the problems were on two fronts, more extreme environments to extract from (eg very deep sea sites) and more extreme political locations for drilling.

We are looking at all sorts of options for the house now, reducing electric consumption, upgrading the insulation and installing a wood burner to reduce the oil consumption will be a start.

Bat survey results are in and have been forwarded to the planning dept. Results were perfect for the turbine planning but not so good for the levels of bats in the area. Only one common little one detected foraging down by the nursery not up on the turbine site. All looking good for the planning application now with everything in place although by the time the ecology report is updated with the bat survey info it isn’t expected to go to the planning committee until October!

This year’s nursery electric consumption is now down by 22.51% (at end of July).

2010-08-23T20:11:00.000+01:00

Crab Pasties anyone?

Check out our 'beautiful Lemon Balm' taking centre stage on BBC 2's Something for the Weekend http://bbc.co.uk/i/tl5b3/ it's 'gorgeous' says Louise!

2010-08-22T20:12:00.001+01:00

Back to reality after a fantastic break in Cornwall. Ate too much, drunk too much and walked too far, now I need a fortnight off to recover from all the excitement. Weather was perfect for what we wanted, not quite right for the sun worshipers, but we just about fitted in everything required in a Cornish break, pasties, ice creams, cliff top stuff, unusual bird spotting (Icterine Warbler), fireworks and Red Arrow displays, ancient exploring stuff, mining and art, not sure how we fitted it all in around great eating stops and sleeping.

It always seems to take ages to get through all the pre-holiday preparations when leaving the nursery and it can be a bit of a wrench to actually leave, but despite being without their dynamic leadership team, the nursery thrived without us with loads of jobs getting done and orders delivered, with only the odd little hiccup (tail lift on big van burst a pipe, fog system in the prop tunnel stopped at the same time as the shade net over the tunnel split and slid off and the sun came out over last weekend!).

We have sorted out those problems this week with some prompt repairs and it’s now all up and running again. Unfortunately not all the news was great with confirmation that our last delivery of pots for this summer was lost in the fire at the coir pot production unit in Sri Lanka. Some of their pressing equipment was damaged too although I believe it will be relatively easy for them to repair it. The facilities there are very basic but it is still a huge blow in such a vulnerable community. For us it isn’t the end of the world, as we have most of our stock here already and will just mean a readjustment of the potting schedules and spring planning, but for the small set up out there it is going to be really tough.
They have already arranged to borrow more money to repair the damage and get going again quickly but I suspect we are going to have to find a way of giving them some support in advancing payments/orders and paying a little more for the pots until they are back on their feet and financially sound. As we are their biggest customer (I believe by quite a long way) we do feel a responsibility to this group who have tried so hard to get their product right for what we want and don’t have very much to fall back on. They were very worried initially that we would move straight on to another supplier, as they feel they have let us down, but we don’t see that as a responsible option unless things take a significant turn for the worse. So far we have agreed to take delivery of and pay for, the last of this year’s loads, despite it being too late to pot most lines by the time they arrive and to put in orders for next year’s stock. What the next step will be I am not sure but I suspect a price rise will be the most obvious way to help. We will see how things develop.

Unfortunately the computers have not cured themselves while we were away and are still not talking to each other unless the firewall is disabled. At the moment I just can’t face the pain of calling the help line at McAfee again to help sort it out having spent one afternoon before we went away trying to cure it after an automatic update sent by them seemed to have started the whole issue. As a couple of the other computers are out of date on their contracts I might ditch the lot and get a different security package it might be easier, or not! Who knows? Not me that’s for sure!

Eco news

Bat survey results came in this week and have been forwarded to the planning dept. (Decimal point hiccup in my last notes, cost was only £1,650, much more reasonable for one nights recording!) Results were perfect for the turbine planning but not so good for the levels of bats in the area. Only one common little one detected foraging down by the nursery not up on the turbine site. All looking good for the planning application now with everything in place although by the time the ecology report is updated with the bat survey info it isn’t expected to go to the planning committee until October!

Electric company have quoted about £20,000 (yes, decimal point is right on this one) to connect the turbines up to the mains as we need a new post mounted substation and quite a lot of cable to cope with the two way traffic of power.

This year’s electric consumption is now down by 22.51% (at end of July).

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-08-09T09:13:00.000+01:00

Just a quickie as I’m supposed to be packing my bucket and spade ready for our week in Cornwall. Just about to dash out into town to purchase my emergency summer wardrobe. I have only managed one trip out to the shops since mid March and that was just Sainsbury’s and apparently my boxers and socks are not in a fit state for such an exciting adventure. I must admit the number of apertures in most of the current stock is far higher than the initial designs intended, so off we go. There is also the chance of a few extra purchases as the ‘one outfit fits all’ may not be enough for all the destinations on the itinerary. This going on holiday lark is not as easy as you would think, especially when you add in all the extra work and planning needed to sort out everything to be away, and then all the effort to catch up what you missed when you get back. When there are so many exciting things going on here it is proving to be quite a wrench to get away, but I’m sure everyone will be glad to see the back of us for a few days as I’m sure the lack of ‘outside world’ contact does send us slightly potty.

We had some worrying news late last week that there had been a fire at one of the pots stores in Sri Lanka in the village that makes our pots. Fortunately there are no reports of any casualties other than possibly our last shipment of pots. Oops. Details are sketchy at the moment but we may have to adjust our potting plans slightly to cope with a slight shortfall in supply, we’ll find out on our return. We are not too worried for our own planning as we have had 75% of our stock already delivered and we can adjust things our end to cope easily enough, but it could be a big setback for the setup in Sri Lanka. I believe we are one of their main customers and so, we do feel, that does put us under an obligation to try to help out where we can, so we are reassuring them that we are not going to abandon them in favour of another supply source and we will be seeing if there is anything else we can do to help them through what could be a difficult time. Being a very resourceful community I’m sure they will bounce back quickly, but until we hear more detail we are not sure quite the level of problem they have. Although this does add a new level of worry for us, it is a potentially rewarding one to have and quite different from the sort of worries we used to have when dealing in the cut-throat world of supplying the multiples (last lorry left on Wednesday, hurrah). Taking some social responsibility as part of running a business can make up a lot for the sometimes thin pickings on the financial front, especially when everyone pulls together as a result.

Eco news

Still no news on bat survey yet.

The quote is in from the electric company for the upgrade necessary for the substation and cable to take in any surplus power we generate. Ouch. Mind you it is still better value than the bat survey (three week wait, one night recording and another 3-4 weeks before results come in = £16,500). Still I’m sure it will be worth it in the end. We are just checking that the sub station and cable are man enough to take a bit extra, in case we want to put in a bit of solar generation at a later date when the price comes down a bit.

This year’s electric consumption is now down by 22.51% (at end of July).

Nature notes

Second batch of swallows have fledged and are getting their first flying lessons this morning. The skies over the nursery and house are now filling up with young house martins and swallows as the youngsters take to the air and move aside for the next lot. They are so busy and quick moving it is impossible to count them, but it is one of those sunny sights of summer that makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

2010-08-01T19:10:00.000+01:00

Slightly more organised this week and sending this a day early in preparation for a day off to visit my Mum & Dad in sunny Stafford tomorrow. This is a trial run because in 9 days time we are going to have a whole week off, and we need the practice in taking time away from the nursery.
This will be the first full day off since the middle of March so we are really looking forward to it. All the usual pre-break sorting out still has to be done, fitting in all the jobs we usually leave until the weekend but it all looks promising for an early start at the moment.

The potting machine has been pounding away all week as we get stuck into producing some of next spring’s crops and we have been putting together quite a few orders again which is great.

Friday marked a special moment when we completed the final plant despatch processing of our last ‘high street multiple’ plastic pot contract. The last trolleys actually get packed and loaded on Wednesday but it does mark the end of an era. We have supplied several of these customers over the last 20 years and this one for 10, each year it has got tougher and tougher to make it work financially let alone get any sort of personal satisfaction out of the relationship, so it is quite a relief to be able to ‘let them go’!

This winter we will have the entire pot production area on the nursery down to hairy pots, hurrah. This means that we will have changed the nursery production from all plastic pots to all hairy in 4 years, let’s hope the sales continue to grow and soak up the extra capacity, it certainly shows all the signs of doing so at the moment. As the last pot was cleaned and priced there was a slightly bizarre, but touching, spontaneous round of applause. I think a round of cakes and sparkling grape juice may be in order for later in the week!

No resting on laurels here though. We have a whole load of further projects aimed at improving the hairy production system combining quality improvements, labour saving and improving overall sustainability. Several irrigation developments to introduce a wet/dry cycle naturally improving plant quality and reducing liverwort growth on the compost, beds and pots, rainfall harvesting, wind turbine installation (one day!), energy and resource saving, tunnel renovation (replacing gantries with trolley paths) and wildlife enhancement. It’s all go, not really got time for a break, still when you work on a nursery life’s one long holiday really, as we trundle about in our clogs carrying our trugs and secateurs!

Eco news

No news on bat survey yet.

One of our things to look at on our sustainability list this year was whether to put in a beehive to help out on the bee survival front. But I have just had a walk about, updating the availability list, and I suspect that we are probably already providing a useful habitat for the bumble bee populations and competition from honey bees may put them off. We don’t have enormous areas of flowering stock as hopefully most gets sold before it gets that far but there were loads on the mints and African Blue Basil in particular. I don’t know a lot about bees but there were several sorts and a lot of them, probably over 100 on the basil alone. I shall see if Sparsholt college fancy doing a project on it, we could also do with some input on overwintering facilities we can install in the tunnels to keep the lady birds and lacewings on site too. I will add it to my list.

Went to my Plato Sustain meeting last week and took along a wooden box of hairy herbs and one of our internet delivery boxes (clever award winning recycled card thing). This was by request, as they all wanted to see what we were up to. I’m glad to say they were quite impressed and excited, I think that their image of what a hairy nurseryman gets up to all day has improved and they can see what can be achieved with a bit of thought and application.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm

2010-07-26T08:56:00.000+01:00

Another week slips by and it’s the end of July already, how did that happen? I think it’s something to do with how the weeks fill up with so much stuff. This week we had a big compost delivery, a container of hairy pots to unload and store, two work experience girls on their final week, two days of birthday cake coffee breaks, harvest starting on the farm, several orders, lots of potting, irrigation installation, setting up a hairy pot stage display at a local village flower show, a bat survey and a computer melt down.

The worst thing in a busy week is getting off to a dodgy start, it’s so difficult to catch up. I had a particularly frustrating IT problem when on Monday morning when I turned on all the computers and none of them would talk to each other. It worked fine when I turned them of late on Sunday night, but no amount of network messing about or turning it all off and on again could sort it out. After hours of messing about, showing one computer to the other so that they could see each other and maybe communicate I tried turning off the firewall software and sure enough that sorted it. McAfee had sent an virus update in the night and it completely stopped all file sharing with the main computer. So despite all my personal insecurities surfacing and blaming myself for the problems, it turned out to be someone else’s fault! Still not fixed despite McAfee’s help but at least we can make things work now if we need to. The joys of mixing high tech stuff and old people!

Eco news

At last the bat survey has been done, The combination of equipment, personnel and weather all came together on Wednesday night and an overnight survey was completed. A very well informed young chap turned up at 8.30 in the evening to set it all up and do a bit of a hand held, walk-about survey. We heard him slip away (in his top of the range Volvo 4-wheel drive) at about 11.30, so he had done a good shift. We caught up with him the next morning when he came back to collect the recorded over-night data and dismantle his two tall masts to see what he had discovered. He only detected one bat with his hand-held kit and that was down behind our house, where I said I regularly see one feeding, but had heard nothing up by the turbine sites. What the microphones will have recorded from the masts we won’t know until the man who runs the software that reads the recordings, comes back from holiday in two or three weeks. So another likely delay there. One day it will all come together!

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-07-19T19:39:00.001+01:00

What a lovely week of cool and damp relief. Looks like warming up again next week, in the south east anyway, so brace yourselves. Feeling slightly sorry for my brother in law and his family who always have a break in Cornwall before harvest kicks in and almost every year it is a wet week. Needless to say last week was their week! Still at least they got away and are back today, they could have been with Gold Whatsit and stuck overseas, covering hotel bills and sorting out a flight home.

We did our stint at the Woking Show on Wednesday which was a great day out. I always try to be better organised than previous years and get away from the nursery, on setting up day, in plenty of time. As usual I failed and didn’t leave the nursery this time until 3.50 (day didn’t start well with a tyre puncture on the big van which needed replacing and it was uphill from then on). We were due to be set up and off the show site by 6.00 and with the help of one of our young eager staff members we just about got it done. The stand looked fresh, colourful and hairy which is just what we were after, although I will have to come up with some new signs for next time to polish it up a bit.

It is surprising to walk round the show and see how we stand out as the only exhibitor making anything much of the sustainability issues that are set to challenge the way we live. The quality of plants and the displays were fantastic but I do get the impression that only lip service is being paid to the issues that are going to dominate our lives in years to come. I know plants themselves and gardening are pushing things in the right direction because of the benefits of ‘doing it’, but surely we can make more of this.
At the PLATO Sustain (business improvement) meetings I attend everyone thinks that it’s easy for us to ‘go green’ because of the industry we are in and it is quite hard to try and explain why the majority of the trade doesn’t seem very interested in the opportunities that might be out there.

Anyway, the actual show day went well with several new contacts made and existing ones reinforced. Visitors were a bit thin on the ground due, we suspect, to the National Plant Fair at Stoneleigh a couple of weeks ago, which was very well attended. It will be interesting to see how the show adapts and recovers over the next year or two.

Eco news

Bat survey this coming week if the weather is ok. Then it’s on with the turbine application. Each day I see our poplar windbreak rustling & bending in the breeze I can picture those blades turning.

Nature notes

Tiny frogs all over the shop.
Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-07-11T18:29:00.000+01:00

Just a quickie as we are going out for a educational (prehistoric stuff) walk and pub lunch. Need to make the most of it as this may be the summer holiday!

We are still sending out lots of lovely stock despite the hot and dry weather which does makes the garden a bit of a challenge. Hopefully we will all have a bit of rain and some cooler temperatures over the coming week to freshen everything up and pep up the enthusiasm again. There is still lots of horticultural TV coverage so there is plenty to get excited about.

Woking Show this coming Wednesday hope to see lots of you there! I must have a think about sorting out a display and printing a few catalogues. Plenty of time for that!

Eco news

Bat survey booked for week after next. Ouch, nearly £2,000.

Nature notes

Tiny frogs all over the shop.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-07-05T10:16:00.000+01:00

Another week whizzes by and still the relentless sun, wind and lack of precipitation continues, for us down in here anyway. The wind is blowing through the leaves of the poplar windbreak again and I mourn the waste of energy (and cost savings) that another days electric generation is lost, but things are looking up.

It already seems an age ago that we dipped out of the World Cup and the fact that the Germans, who knocked us out, go marching on, makes it easier to justify such a poor effort. We've crammed a lot in since then orders, potting, watering and tunnel clearing so it all seems like a distant memory.

I attended two PLATO Sustain meetings, one local and one regional, both on subjects that were to me a bit scary. One was on current best practice/tactics on sales rep employment and use, and the other on marketing in a recession and social media marketing. Having been a bit sceptical about what would be relevant to us, I was blown away by the how much valuable info I gathered. Although at my age I do suffer from the problem that as extra bits of info go in one ear other bits fall out of the other, so I come away thinking wow what a lot of great stuff and when Caroline asks me what it was all about I can only remember that lunch was great!
It reminds me how good it is to occasionally step away from the day to day stuff and get a fresh view of life, the universe and everything. The social media bit was daunting with so many communication channels available for everyone, especially the techno savvy young. It was generally a room full of old fogies or businessmen, of which a few had dabbled in the area but were all astonished at the scale and potential of the various medias. We had a whistle stop tour of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linked-in, search engine stuff and a load of more that fell out of the other ear! The amount of time spent on all this by the users and the amount of available info left floating about by individuals and businesses, which we can use, is astonishing. In the very near future it could become a very efficient way for us all to keep our ‘followers’ up to date with all our news and offers if you get the approach right. Mind you it may take a while for our more mature end of the market to catch up but do bear in mind, we do have a younger customer base appearing. The days of the upfront hard sell appear to be over. Oh yes another gem I picked up was, don’t forget that the main aim of marketing should not be to sell more but to increase your product value and sell at a higher profit. Then you can invest in doing it all even better next year (it’s always jam tomorrow!)

Eco news

A very pleasant surprise this week with a letter from the chief planner who says that the turbine application will go to planning committee to discuss, as expected, but that he would be recommending approval, hoped for but not expected, subject to a bat survey being carried out along the hedge where they are to be positioned.
The survey will delay things another couple of months we think, but the recognition of the relatively small scale of the project and the need for change was very reassuring. We have heard that those in Crawley village opposed to the idea are currently trying to drum up support for a petition against it, but hopefully it won’t get too noisy. There were certainly not many who were moved enough to comment on the application in a negative way during the planning application commenting period. So well done and thanks to all those who managed a supportive comment, you did your bit and it helped.

Nature notes

House Martins have hatched in several nests, there are young finches all over the place and the Sparrowhawk looks to be busy. I know some of our ladies here don’t like the number of kills seen at this time of year, but you need to see the bigger picture and hope it is showing a healthy local environment where the food chain is complete and working. The long tailed tit population seems to have exploded after getting a bit thin on numbers after the cold winter, I can hear them tweeting (even they have mobiles now) all over the place.

Still a few tadpoles appear occasionally in the main pond but most have left home I think, we have certainly seen a few tiny frogs in the adjacent tunnels. It must be a tricky time being so small, I did hear someone say that a big one may eat the tiddlers in hard times which may or may not be true, but it does illustrate that it can be a ‘frog eat frog’ world out there. Take care!

2010-06-28T10:24:00.000+01:00

Just a quickie as it’s a big day today with a warm up Grand Prix to fall asleep in front of and the big game at 3 o’clock. I would normally be slaving away over a tray of seeds or mending something but it’s just too hot in the middle of the day. One advantage at the weekend, of living on site, is you can come in late in the evening to do any essentials when it’s easier to work. So my sympathies go out to you all if you are working all day in this. Please let’s have a bit of rain to give us a break.

Anyway, other than the increasing heat we have had another exciting week here enjoying a bit of end of spring shopping to add some new toys to our collection, with a new knapsack sprayer, hosepipes and the main bits ordered for the new irrigation tank, pumps and control equipment, It doesn’t take much to get us excited! On top of that we broke and mended the forklift (sounded very ill with lots of screeching which turned out to be the fan bearings), had a man in to check the potting machine which is old and knackered, know how it feels, and organised it to go back to the workshop at the end of the season for a complete overhaul. We finalised our holiday booking in Cornwall for November for our own end of season overhaul, sent back a load of packing crates and module trays to Holland for reuse and started collecting back lots of our wooden trays from those we are passing close to on our travels. All in all, a very satisfying week.

On top of all this I had my faith restored in the future with a visit to a local primary school on Thursday. They were having a ‘low carbon day’ which was a nationwide school thing where they focus the days work on carbon issues. A school helper had contacted us through http://www.hairypotplants.co.uk/ website asking if someone who like to go along and discuss our approach to sustainability and carbon stuff and chat about our turbine plans. I had never done anything like this before, we do the odd nursery tour for old fogies and students from the local college but not off site and not to such a young audience. Not having any kids of our own I had no idea how to pitch it, so I prepared in the usual Kirton Farm management style and decided to take along a few props and wing it! It ended up being a great morning, I did a couple of sessions covering about 90 children aged 7 to 9 and their teachers, assistants and headmistress and the level of knowledge and enthusiasm was just brilliant. I suspect it worked so well because at that age we met on an intellectually level playing field! After being mentally beaten up by the local parish council on the turbine application it was a joy to hear such enthusiastic, balanced and sensible thoughts coming from such young minds. Let’s hope it all holds together when the hormones and sulking take over (although I don’t sulk as much as I used too).

Nature notes

Lots more dragonflies and damsel flies now appearing over the ponds and laying eggs.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-06-24T10:32:00.001+01:00

Brought to you by Kirton Farm Nurseries, for your viewing pleasure we are proud to present the uncut version of Derek being interviewed about PLATO Sustain!
Keep your eyes peeled for a more coiffeured version with additional contributors soon....

PS nice turbines!

2010-06-20T11:35:00.000+01:00

Nearly the end of June already, how did that happen?

Busy as usual, but a slight lull in madness has allowed a bit of development planning to take shape as we try and think of more ways to do it all better for the coming season. The wind turbine project seems to have developed it’s own momentum and progressing along it’s slow pathway to hopefully it’s eventual erection.
We are now looking at pushing along other projects big and small. Perhaps some replacement hose to replace the old multi-repaired ones that are past their best and super frustrating when they continually catch on things as you drag them about, usually just as you have got near the far end of the tunnel and have to turn off and walk all the way back to release! A couple of new small sprayers to bring the equipment up to date and make the whole job easier. Then we have a collection of irrigation projects to start ranging from a new storage tank and pump, to installing some new application kit. We are going to try and introduce more wet/dry cycles into the plant production process in an effort to toughen the plants up, reduce the growth of liverwort and moss on the compost surface and reduce water and labour use. We are also looking at starting to experiment with the installation of some of the infrastructure to harvest the rainfall to reduce mains water use, trialling tunnel guttering and drainage channels etc. Although we can’t put in a large reservoir at the moment to store all the overwinter rains, we can put in a smaller storage tank and adopt a ‘use it up as we go’ system where we use up any rainfall we get during the 8 irrigating months of the year, to dilute mains use. In theory we could reduce mains use by at least 50% at a relatively low cost.

Unfortunately this is the usual story of jam tomorrow! Lots of spending and work to put it all in place, with the promise of an easier life in future. One day. Trouble is, it’s so easy to get carried away with all this nursery shopping ‘cos it seems such a good idea at the time.

Now my 'old gits moan off the week' goes to our nearest village parish council and their objection letter to our turbine project. Now I know it’s not everyone’s idea of good countryside development which is fair enough, but they have really gone to town, bringing to light a list of objections most of which are irrelevant on the planning issue and others I took personal offense at. They complained about a lot of stuff one of which was that their questions had not been satisfactorily answered and there was not ‘proper’ consultation. I couldn’t have made ourselves more open to queries and info, they had months to ask questions and visit the site (one visitor) or arrange to go and see a similar installation. They also suggest that the comments letters are mostly from non locals and all have a suspiciously similar content (not many objections from local individuals), they really are cheeky monkeys. If you want a look it’s on page 6 of the comments page;

http://planningapplications.winchester.gov.uk/PlanningWeb/Results.aspx?ID=10%2f00895%2fFUL&tab=0

As usual we will be donating a collection of plants to the Sparsholt fete at the weekend, only the council objected, not everyone in the village, and I’m not bitter!

Dragonflies and damsel flies now appearing over the ponds. A stunning blue Broad-bodied Chaser got trapped in one of the tunnels during the week but I managed to rescue it with a plastic shovel! I tried to ‘push’ it out and it simply landed on the orange blade and I carried it out 150ft to the open. The easiest ‘rescue’ I’ve ever done!

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-06-14T13:45:00.001+01:00

It’s a perfect summer day for me, bright but not too hot, no distractions from getting stuff done and I’m not the England goalkeeper! Poor chap, he will be waking up this morning knowing that one tiny lapse in concentration will haunt him for the rest of his life, still luckily it is only a game. I hope the start of the World Cup doesn’t kill the interest, activity and wallet opening associated with the outdoor pastimes, the weather seems to be in our favour still, with a nice bit of rain and cooler temperatures last week. We still have a lovely range of stuff to sell, with all the summer lines now starting and the herb range wider than ever. We have cut back quantities now as things slow up a bit but things do look pretty yummy. (Don’t chew on the lemongrass too long it can bite back a few hours later!)

The planning application comments period ends on Wednesday (16th) and we now have quite a collection of positive inputs which is great. It does take a few days for the comments to appear on the website sometimes so we won’t see the full response until later in the week.

Met the new bank manager this week which is always a bit of a tense occasion as everyone tries to suss each other out. He seemed very on the ball and customer service orientated, so hopefully we will get lots of support and encouragement and not too much hassle. Luckily the figures he was working from showed a significant improvement in performance from 2008 (shockingly bad year for us) to 2009. Despite the slow start we have made more improvements this spring, so we hope to keep in his good books. He was delighted that we were getting out of producing for the multiples as he had seen the soul destroying effects that these customers can have on companies of our limited size. I must say nursery life is quite exciting again now we have taken control back for ourselves rather than running it for their benefit. We seem to be pressing all the right buttons for the bank at the moment, let’s hope we can keep it up and perhaps even make a profit!

Eco Update

Another month has slipped by, and the meters are read again and we have now reduced our electric consumption this year by 19.79%. Hurrah, this means that if we ever get the planning stuff sorted we could produce our entire needs with the turbines and possibly have a bit spare to put back in the grid.

Planning application for our three small wind turbines. If you would like to take a look follow this link;

http://planningapplications.winchester.gov.uk/PlanningWeb/Results.aspx?ID=10%2f00895%2fFUL&tab=0

Consultation ends on the 16th June. So please if you have a view express it on the comments button on the planning website. Thanks.

Nature notes

I have seen an adult moorhen feeding around the nursery for weeks now and yesterday disturbed her with a well grown large youngster, so she must have had a nest knocking about somewhere on the nursery. We usually get a nest somewhere on site, although we don’t often get a successful outcome, so that was nice to see.

Red Kites over three times this week.
Lots of young goldfinches fluttering about following the parents around, scrounging food (sound familiar?)
Housemartins doing lots of house building, they are gathering mud from around a puddle we keep going for them in the yard. The natural soil is a bit light and crumbly for them and they seem to prefer the yard surface which has a higher clay content.
Swallow chicks have hatched, looks like 4 heads peaking out. A second pair arrived last week, but don’t seem to be able to settle on a nest site.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-06-07T19:18:00.000+01:00

A good bank holiday meant lots of top ups this week and just the four days to squeeze it all into, but we got it all done before the weekend started and got some potting done too. The scary thing is that this week we started taking deliveries of plant material destined for next year’s sales and I know the sooner we pot it, the chunkier it will be for the spring, so the pressure is on to tidy up and get going. It’s all go! There is this vague hope that we will get a pause between one season ending and the next beginning when we can sort out all those little projects that would make life easier. But as we approach holiday time and staff numbers dwindle, then the sales bowl along for longer each year (which is quite handy!) that gap evaporates and all of a sudden before you know it, it’s winter again! Mind you that might have something to do with age too. We are just about to re-book our annual holiday trek to sunny St Ives, which got cancelled due to the flat we rent being rebuilt. So that’s something to look forward to, roll on November, it’s just around the corner. Mind you I am quite lucky really as I get to go on holiday every day for a few minutes when I sit down for my afternoon/evening tea break after everyone has slipped away. The interweb is great for a taking a quick trip to your favourite place, just let your mind go (mine left ages ago) and you're there.

Quite a bit of effort this week on trying to get some positive comments put up on the planning website (see below) as one of the local councillors phoned earlier in the week worried about the negative landscapers report. It is possible that we make get a straight refusal without it going to the planning committee and then have to take it to appeal unless there is enough interest shown to justify a debate by the committee. She has requested that it should be discussed but we need enough support on the application to back the project up. Our planning man has done a detailed reply to the landscape report which should appear on the planning site very soon and does a great job of picking each point raised and arguing very convincingly that the rules/guidance can be viewed very differently. It’s great to have someone who understands this detail, otherwise we could just get squashed by the ‘experts’ interpretation of the policies.

Eco Update

Wind turbine planning app has been processed and is now being considered. All the details and dates etc are on the Winchester City Council website and there is space there to send in supportive (or not) comments on the application. If you would like to take a look follow this link;

http://planningapplications.winchester.gov.uk/PlanningWeb/Results.aspx?ID=10%2f00895%2fFUL&tab=0

More detail is on there now, including a report from the planning landscape man who visited this week and who like the permission refused due the impact of the turbines on the view. Consultation ends on the 16th June. So please if you have a view express it on the comments button on the planning website. Thanks.

Nature notes

Another RSPB bird watch this weekend. The usual one is early in the year but this gives a count of the summer visitors as well. It’s not very easy to count the bush & tree dwellers with all the foliage out now and the house martins move about so much it’s quite tricky. Rather handily we do have a puddle in the yard we keep topped up, so that the house martins are supplied with nest building material and we counted 11 there yesterday. A Red kite glided over earlier, now seems to be around more regularly. Had a long tailed tit in the office, let it out of the window and it flew into despatch where it called to its mates outside for a couple of hours before finding its way out. It’s funny how some birds struggle to find the exits, insisting on always flying up into the roof rather than out of the 4 wide open doors. The sparrows, robins, great tits and pied wagtails are in and out all the time, feeding on the trapped insects in the tunnel roof spaces, but get a pigeon or partridge in there and you’re lucky if you escape without another puncture hole somewhere.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-06-01T19:32:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was a lovely day to get down the local garden centre or nursery and empty your pockets. A nice drop of rain yesterday and some sensible temperatures for the next few days should keep things bowling along nicely.

This week saw a flurry of activity as everyone stocked up for a promising weekend and all that added to the usual exciting extras that add to the spice of life. Each week I wonder what I am going to put in this little rant and each week I end up having to leave out a load of stuff as so much seems to happen.

We had to have a new water pump and pressure vessel fitted after last week’s breakdown. Ouch. Naturally the day we get it fitted it rains and temperatures plummeted! We are now looking to update the whole system to try and save a bit of water, increase our efficiency and improve plant health and quality. Even when the pump is running we struggle to cope with low pressures etc in hot weather which can be stressful for us and the plants. The current system tends to leave the pots a little too wet in dull cool conditions and too dry in the heat or if they get moved too much. We are looking at a two stage development, first to get the distribution and application better and then reduce our reliance on the mains supply by harvesting the rainfall. We already use less water in a year than falls on the tunnels, so if we can collect that and store it we can reduce our reliance enormously. Unfortunately although the harvesting and storage part is the most environmentally exciting it’s not the most economically beneficial, so for this summer it will be the application we will concentrate on and maybe next year we will look at collection and storage. It would be nice to do both but time and resources would be against us especially as it may take a while to sought out any grant applications and jump through the necessary hoops there may be, on the collect and storage side.

Fantastic meal out last night celebrating Caroline’s birthday with some friends, in a big yurt. Riverford Organics are touring with their restaurant staff to several locations through the summer doing lunches and evening meals. It’s a single sitting job on benches on tables of ten (80 covers a night). The meal was just great, lots of stuff all fresh & yummy, not too fancy but imaginative and the best I’ve had since a stonking fish & chips at the Porthminster Cafe in St Ives. Despite a cool night the yurt was warm & cosy with a really friendly atmosphere all helped along by a very jolly if slightly stressed crew (only their 3rd night) and free flowing organic beverages. The whole exercise was thoughtfully presented with crockery and soft furnishings bought from charity shops in Devon which added to the chaotic, boisterous family feel to the event. It was a good job the crockery was cheap as quite a bit of it seemed to be hitting the floor as one or two of the staff struggled with the challenges set before them. A good end to the birthday celebrations which had started early as somehow I managed to get the day wrong for my present giving! (Incorrect time/date setting on my watch), at least I was early and not late. Also thank goodness for 24 hr opening at Tesco’s, it’s so much better than the garage for those special gifts! http://www.riverford.co.uk/about/riverford/riverford_travelling_field_kitchen.php

Eco Update

The wind turbine planning application has been processed and is now being considered. All the details and dates are on the Winchester City Council website and there is space there to send in supportive (or not) comments on the application. If you would like to take a look follow this link;

http://planningapplications.winchester.gov.uk/PlanningWeb/Results.aspx?ID=10%2f00895%2fFUL&PAGE=2&tab=0

More detail is on there now, including a report from the planning landscape man who visited this week and who like the permission refused due the impact of the turbines on the view. Consultation ends on the 16th June. So please if you have a view express it on the comments button on the planning website. Thanks.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-05-24T14:26:00.001+01:00

We are supplying the charity Thrive who use gardening to change lives, with delightful boxes of hairiness.

http://www.thrive.org.uk/products/donation-of-a-plant-a-difference-box.aspx

Why not make a donation of a Plant a Difference Box to enable them to send a box of full of ready-to-plant baby vegetables, herbs or perennial plants directly to disabled gardeners' homes so they can have a go at gardening and discover the benefits which it can bring to their lives.

One in five people in the UK are living with a disability that they were born with, gained as they age, or as a result of an illness or accident.

Gardening can bring profound change, from improvements in physical or psychological health to adjustments in beliefs, attitudes or behaviours to the transformation of skills, knowledge and abilities.

2010-05-24T12:14:00.000+01:00

Yet another great week and a marked change in the weather too. We seem to have moved from late winter to high summer in a week. Still at least it’s due to cool down again fairly quickly next week which should be a bit easier. Gone are the vests and double fleece wearing and bring on the flouncy shirts. Anticipation is already building for the first ‘outing’ of my legendary flowery piece that I wore in the heat of last summer. Having bolstered my case by expressing my confidence in my own sexuality, I am now duty bound to get it out again when the heat builds up this year, although this time with the added expectations of all those who missed out on it last year (luckily it was a very short summer).

Meanwhile the sun coming out and the temperature rising produces the usual irrigation crisis, it always seems to happen when you need the supply most. This time one of the main pumps burst its main seal, tripping out the electric supply and rendering itself inoperable. A man has been to assess it and we need a new pump and pressure vessel due to old age and general fatigue (know how it feels). Not too expensive and luckily we do have a back-up system although pressures are a bit low by the end of the day.

Printer hassle again in the office, with a paper jam error message. Remove paper (stopped in fuser unit), prints one or ten sheets then error repeats. Change all consumables one by one with other printer and think it’s cured but then goes wrong again. Take apart and clean out with air gun, works for 6 hrs then stops again. Now getting a bit cross. Phone consumable supplier, very helpful but never heard of this one before (we always have the errors that have never been heard of before). He gave me the OKI tech support number and the chap there also hadn’t heard of it before but went through a load of possibilities and gave me a number for a printer mender (out of warranty by 3 months). The likely call out charges before time and parts could have made this expensive so I checked the price of a new one. They are currently less than £600 plus £100 cash back, 3 year warranty and a free sat nav. The consumables inside are worth £600+ even when they only fill the toner 1/3 full! This gave me the confidence to take it apart for a closer look. To cut a long story short I sorted it by freeing up a tiny flappy bit which was intermittently getting stuck with one squirt of WD40. Sorted, although I still can’t believe the price of a new one, it is so tempting to chuck away and start again, but what a waste of resources.

Eco Update

Wind turbine planning app has been processed and is now being considered. All the details and dates etc are on the Winchester City Council website and there is space there to send in supportive (or not) comments on the application. If you would like to take a look follow this link;

http://planningapplications.winchester.gov.uk/PlanningWeb/Results.aspx?ID=10%2f00895%2fFUL&tab=0

It’s quite interesting to see the lack of detail in the councils published details, there is much more in our stuff on our website. They have put a scale photo montage of the scale of the turbines in comparison to a big one and a pylon which does indicate nicely how small they are. They are also only notifying by letter, ourselves and our two immediate neighbours which was a surprise. Consultation ends on the 16th June and decision due on 7th June! (I think they mean July) Let’s see what happens now. Suddenly it seems real.

Nature notes

Baby birds all over the place, lots of wagtails crashing about in the tunnels.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-05-17T11:18:00.001+01:00

Good Morning,
Although sales volumes are lower, it is still astonishingly busy here and the promise of a spell of warmer weather should keep things moving along nicely. We are in that slightly scary period of the season when the amount of stock to pot gets critical. It is so tempting after a period of high demand to get on and pot anything green or remotely plant like, but we know a change in weather and the changing seasons can seriously knock back the sales volumes and we could get caught with a nursery full of stock with no home. Both herb and perennial sales went on well into, and in fact, right through the summer on selected lines last year, so we hope this will happen again, the interest in all things green certainly still seems to be there. I suppose as usual a lot will depend on the weather. At least now we have had some income to get over the cash-flow peak to pay for the extra input needed, which makes life easier.

Excitement has been building this week with the imminent arrival of a replacement toilet block on the nursery. We hired a temporary set 10 years ago which had gradually slid into a rather sad condition, so with the postponement of our barn conversion we have decided to get in another temporary set to recover a degree of comfort and dignity! It was still quite a shock to see the old block flying up onto the back of the lorry and many a tear was chocked back by some staff with the memories triggered by the event! There were all the tales of how things used to be, before the arrival of the old block, it’s surprising how the loss of a knackered old bit of kit triggers all this stuff. The new set arrived on Friday so I’ve spent a jolly weekend plumbing it all back in again ready for start of play on Monday. I had all the usual hiccups with a ‘simple’ job like this. The old set had all services entering in one corner (electric, water and outflow) but the new one had them going into 3 separate corners (with different fittings), the doors are in different positions and the whole thing is higher off the floor. This has meant lots of trench digging, re-plumbing and visits to builders merchants, but at least it has meant a trip off the nursery! Naturally everything fitted together perfectly. I managed to flood the outside with a leaking universal water fitting joining our plastic water pipe to the copper of the new block and flood the inside with the first trial flushing (one loo outflow got disconnected in transit). Luckily everything was pretty clean so a full change of clothing and a shower was all that was needed to clean me up. I suppose we ought to celebrate it’s arrival on Monday, perhaps we will have a toast with some lime juice and chocolate doughnuts!

Eco Update

Wind turbine planning app is still waiting to be processed. Apparently they are still getting through the March applications and ours didn’t go in until very early April. We will just have to be patient. Having heard nothing from the locals for a bit, we did get a request for a site visit yesterday from a lovely lady from the local village. She has friends coming over for the bank holiday weekend and they thought it would make an interesting visit for them all. I wonder if I should bake a cake?

Nature notes

4 House martins are here and the swallows are sitting on the nest in the donkey shed.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week,

from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

2010-05-09T19:20:00.000+01:00

What a week. We were hoping for a lull in proceedings to allow us to catch up a bit, but despite doing a Monday shift we didn’t get as far as we had hoped. We have even more staff in (when not off ill) and another starting on Monday, but it just seems that everything was against us to get very far.
Sales took quite a dip after the poor weather last weekend and I suspect will continue to be limited with the continuing coolness. We are quite relieved as it does give an opportunity to catch up, at least in theory!
The week started badly with a virulent cold sweeping the nursery (hitting me particularly hard!), I haven’t can a cold for ages and I usually save them up for holidays anyway, so this one was a surprise and the head numbing features make running the nursery even more of a challenge, although Caroline says she hasn’t noticed any difference.

The other weeks hiccups included the potting machine dying just when we need it most. Every now and then the wear in the chains reaches a point when the adjusters can’t cope and one of the chains jumps a cog or two. This messes up the timing of the drill and makes it start drilling into the machine rather than the compost in the pots! So potting comes to a standstill while I dismantle everything, remove the chain and shorten it by removing a link. All went swimmingly until I tried to refit the chain which was now about 2mm too short to fit back together, oh fiddlesticks. After much stretching, nut loosening, hammer hitting and words of encouragement we got it back together, only to find I had knocked over the crate where I had put the chain link retaining bits and they had disappeared somewhere on the compost covered floor! That took another 20 minutes with a magnet being waved over the debris before they were reclaimed. Anyway it’s all up and running again now.
Later that day I managed to get bitten by a local dog just above the knee, when redelivering some post (I ignored the sign on the gate!) and ended up with a hole in my best work trousers (the least ink covered) and a leaky sore leg. Looking on the bright side, at least the dog wasn’t taller.
Other than the wonderful nursery life this week, the highlight was going to see The Beat in concert at Salisbury Art Centre. For those too young to remember they were a ska band from the late 70’s early 80’s (Mirror in the Bathroom, Best Friend, Too Nice to Talk Too among there many hits) and they were brilliant. Lots of sad old folk there reliving their past and judging by some of the outfits and kids in tow some still living in the past! The support band were a very talented young ska band, attired in a more up to date fashion and I must admit to desperately wanting to answer the call for any requests with ‘Yes, pull your trousers up’!

Eco Update

Still no news on wind turbine planning, but they have cashed the application fees so it must be in there somewhere.

Nature notes

House martins have been spotted, arrived on Saturday, so summer is here.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week.

2010-05-02T19:32:00.000+01:00

Rain at last. We were getting very dusty down here and a drop of rain is great for freshening everything up. Not brilliant for gardening today, but at least not everyone has gone to the beach this bank holiday.

Just a short one this week as I’m in a bit of a rush and we are going to make the most of a day of no work shifts, and I have got my mum & dad down for the weekend so we need to spend some quality time with them. So anyway, I’ve just spent a couple of hours doing the stock update, then it’s a few hours label counting together, followed by a seed sowing session and trolley wrapping! Hoping to manage a half day and finish by 5.00! They usually come down at this time of year to deliver our bedding plant display to go in the troughs outside the office so are luckily quite used to mucking in at a busy time. We have a big gang in on Monday to get the week started as soon as we can so hopefully the 4 day week won’t be too upsetting.
Hope you all enjoy your bank holiday as well.

Eco Update

So busy this week I missed my PLATO Sustain meeting, so unable to boast about our energy savings and recycling improvements, let alone let them know about my podcast exploits of last week, although that’s probably best kept between you & me.

Wind turbine planning application is in, hurrah. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get it all processed and the public get their chance to have a final say. Overall the responses so far have been very positive which is heartening in itself.

Nature notes

Ducks and a Moorhen seem to be attending the nursery regularly again, although not seen any nesting evidence. I suspect the Mallards are evictees from Crawley pond, where only ducks of the sufficient class are allowed. A stunning thatched duck house has been erected on the village pond in the last few months (I suspect that it is actually a property investment and before long it will be on the market as a small contained thatched residence in a lovely rural location) so meanwhile we are supplying the duck version of affordable housing.

2010-04-26T10:07:00.001+01:00

Another mad week getting shed loads of stock out to everyone, well done on the sales front everyone. It’s nice to see so many gaps on the nursery in some ways, as we are supposed in the business of selling lots of stuff, but on the other hand it is frustrating that we can’t refill those gaps instantly to keep stock levels up. It is often like this when things go potty, life would be so much easier if we had a nice steady flow of sales all year round, I’m sure it must be just as frustrating at your end in the sales areas!
My big adventure this week was to be interviewed for a podcast promoting the Plato Sustain business improvement group I am in. The first challenge was to get off the nursery (Friday not as whizzy as other days), in clean clothes (last job before leaving was moving a few cut back Brunnera plants which turn out to have very sticky sap, now all over hands and trousers), next was to find the venue in sunny Basingstoke (never been into the middle before, so got lost and ended up back out on the M3 roundabout), then find a car park (on top of the whole town centre it seems, with most ticket machines out of order), locate the venue from the car park (completely disorientated by now) and finally negotiate with security/reception to let me through the front doors. So I arrive all cool and relaxed for my bit of the filming, go straight in and record. It was all very pleasant and easy going and after a bit of powder I was ready to go. Having been given the questions in advanced I had some idea what was going on and it all went reasonably well I think, they got rid of me quite quickly anyway! How much of it hits the cutting room floor is anyone’s guess but the results on UTube (or something like that) are out in a couple of weeks. Got home to change and found I had my flies open so maybe more will hit the floor than expected. In fact the combination of dried Brunnera sap and the wayward apparel might end up with more hits than planned, thank goodness I was wearing my own underwear!

It’s not surprising I’m not let out much.

Eco Update

Wind turbine planning application is in, hurrah. Bit disappointed that there has been no official planning response yet and we are not on the planning website at the moment. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get it all processed and the public get their chance to have a final say. We’ve have still had no further responses or visits following my light poaching at the Crawley Parish Council meeting, I suspect I may have bored them into submission! Either that or they are keeping their powder dry for when the application becomes officially public. Overall the responses so far have been very positive which is heartening in itself.

Nature notes

Tadpoles are now getting more active and seem to have stopped trying to hurl themselves down the pond overflow. Adult newts are now in the pond too, so they should get breeding soon, and several damsel fly/ dragonfly larvae have been spotted tucking into the odd tadpole.

It always happens, half an hour after writing last week’s report the first swallow did arrive. It was all on its own until yesterday when a second appeared. The house martins usually are a couple or three weeks later here, so that’s the next spotting target.

Have a good week!

2010-04-19T12:05:00.001+01:00

What a week, fantastic weather and everyone and their granny have gone down to the planteria to buy up all the stock. Well done everyone for selling all that stock, spring had to arrive eventually, let’s hope it gets a good steady run for the rest of the season. From ticking over at busy but modest levels for a few weeks it’s gone bananas here. We sent out about three times the quantity of stock this week which was a challenge on all fronts, lots of hours and a lot of transport juggling. A few of our longer distance customers we supplied via a carrier to cope, so those folk will have to hang on to their return boxes at little longer until we can get to you ourselves.
Phil has come across a small problem with the new comedy van, it’s a bit of a tight squeeze for Fredrick the Alsatian. We think this is down to the fact that it was originally designed for Postman Pat’s small black & white cat! Don’t forget although it can be a challenge when it goes this manic, it is good for us in the long run, we are certainly looking forward to getting off our overdraft limit!

Anyway, after a long stint of 7 day weeks and 14-16 hour days this week, we did the sensible thing last night finished early (6.30) and went out to a concert. Although it seemed a bit daft, it was well worth it. We saw a three piece band, Sleeping Dogz, whose front man is Willy Barrett (formerly Wild Willy Barrett of Otway & Barrett fame, or not. They recorded the classics, ‘Cor Baby thats Really Free’ and ‘Beware of the Flowers Because I’m Sure They’re Going to Get You (Yeah)’), who are a bit folky for my normal taste but were brilliant. It’s always amazing to see really good musicians do their stuff live. They played a vast array of instruments including a form of bagpies where he had a bellows pumping under one arm and a bag being squeezed under the other while playing the pipe bit with both hands. I still struggle after all these years keeping control of my knife and fork.

I’m always one to try and take something from songs and stuff, last night was no exception. One particular line that hit home was something from a song about a betting shop, which went something like;

‘Don’t take a tip from old Joe

He’ll poke you in your eye,

Blows his nose on cornbread slice

And calls it pumpkin pie’

I never got the hang of pumpkin pie.

Eco Update

Wind turbine planning application is in, hurrah. Now let’s see what the reaction is.

Nature notes

Big excitement this week with a long low slow passing flight of a big Red Kite right over the nursery. Not sure how it was spotted as it was supposed to be heads down this week with so much to do. It’s the first one we’ve seen for a while. We had a second sighting the next day too.

Tadpoles are now getting more active and seem to have stopped trying to hurl themselves down the pond overflow.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week.

2010-04-11T18:48:00.000+01:00

At last some real spring sunshine and warmth, hopefully this will kick start things in a big way this week. The forecast for the next few days looks good and it certainly makes the working day a lot more comfortable. The less clothes worn, the easier the movements and higher the efficiency. Up to a point. Nowadays that point for me, remains full coverage of virtually all the body surface to prevent staff and customers losing focus on the task in hand!

I managed to watch the Grand National this year, perfectly timed with my tea break. It looked like a great day, sun shining lots of excited people and everyone got round safely in the big race. We had a sweepstake which adds a bit of interest to the events as they unfold. I thought I had won the wooden spoon this year when my horse took off in the lead and then promptly fell at the first fence, but I have now noticed that one refused to leave the start, and I can’t remember if that counts as the first out (wooden spoon) or as a non-starter (money back). I suspect that the monetary return from either won’t cover the cost of a celebratory packet of Rich Tea biscuits.

Watched one of the Harry Potter films earlier in the week and heard a lovely line which I’m sure must have been used a million times before and just passed me by. It was about the choices we make, ‘You can take the right way or the easy way’. It caught me out slightly as I was expecting ‘wrong’ to go with ‘right’. But it does seem to be true in so many areas that to choose the right way is a lot tougher, demanding more effort and commitment, but ultimately rewarding you with more satisfaction in the end. Even if it doesn’t always work out at least you have had a go. Sometimes when you do it, you stand out and get shot at, but unless we make some less comfortable choices, things won’t get better on their own. It’s always refreshing that however ancient I get, there are still lots of life’s little nuggets still for me to stumble across.

Eco Update

Wind turbine planning application is in, hurrah. Now let’s see what the reaction is. We’ve had no further responses or visits following my light poaching at the Crawley Parish Council meeting, I suspect I may have bored them into submission! Either that or they are keeping their powder dry for when the application becomes officially public. Overall the responses so far have been very positive which is heartening in itself.

Nature notes

Lots of bird song and activity. The ravens are now a regular spot and one was watched over the nursery this week soaring on a thermal with a buzzard. Luckily they didn’t distract us all too long away from all those urgent nursery tasks. This morning we had a pair of yellowhammers feeding under one of the feeders and skylarks singing in the sun. Last night the lapwings were still flying and calling a it approached dark, at the same time as I spotted my first bat of the spring on its feeding run alongside one of our hedges. Most summer evenings I can stand by the gate and wait as one patrols up and down a couple of hedge runs, flying straight over my head. Spring is really springing, although we haven’t seen our first swallow or heard a cuckoo yet.

2010-04-06T09:27:00.003+01:00

Just a quickie this week, as I have an urgent appointment with a roasting lamb in a few minutes! It’s been a hectic week as expected, as we fit in all the pre Easter deliveries in the rubbish weather. It is always quite a relief to get to Good Friday having completed all the order collations and just got left with a couple of orders to deliver on the Friday. The new comedy van got a good airing, whizzing about on a load of local runs, attracting admiring glances and comments wherever it went which was fun.
The exciting day ended up being Wednesday when the number of deliveries to do out-numbered the vans, so we called into action the old farm van again. I shot out in it on a local drop, got as far as King Somborne and something went bang, followed by clunking and big vibrations. I pulled off the road and called up the farm to rescue me. On arrival the farm mechanical marvel got in it, started it up, pulled forwards and backwards with no exciting noises. It was suggested that perhaps I had picked up something off the road, but we would take it back to the farm for a check over. I followed in the farm pickup and caught the van up a mile or two down the road stopped with hazards on. So it wasn’t my imagination, phew, there was a problem. Luckily we were now on a quieter road but we were now very stuck, the brakes were completely seized on (brake shoe had shed its lining and jammed the other shoe on). Luckily the local bus could squeeze through, so we put some cones out and left it for the garage to sort out. It completely messed up my day with all the waiting around, but in the end I think if we were going to breakdown we couldn’t have done it much more conveniently! The van is back on Tuesday with a complete set of new shoes on all wheels (not worn, but all a bit old and apparently the glue goes in the end) and I met three very nice understanding ladies in the houses nearest to the breakdown sites, who where most helpful despite my slightly grubby, unshaven, hoody wearing appearance!

Had a great day out last Sunday going to see Southampton play Carlisle in the final of the League Trophy final at Wembley Stadium. We won 4-1 which made it easy to enjoy, but the whole day was great, even the trip in & out was pain free. It was the first time I had been to the new stadium and it was very impressive, great atmosphere and we had a great view. I know it’s not quite the FA Cup but all 44,000 Saints tickets were sold which created a real buzz and a very friendly vibe between both sets of supporters. Now it we need a miraculous run to get to the play off’s to go again at the end of the season!

Eco Update

Wind turbine planning application was due to go in at the end of last week, I haven’t had confirmation yet so it may be this week instead, but it’s all getting close, and we will see if there is more reaction than there was to our initial announcement.

Nature notes

Tadpoles swimming about already, although the excess of rainfall has washed a few out of the overflow channel which is just the spot where they seem to congregate! I saved a few and put a bit of debris in the channel mouth to try and filter them out but I’m sure we have lost a few. Good job there are so many this year.

2010-03-29T19:10:00.001+01:00

Another month gone, and it’s Easter already. It’s great being this busy, lots of things to do and challenges to meet. Most of the time getting on top of those challenges can be very rewarding but I must admit it can get a bit much sometimes, especially when you can’t find enough hours in the day.
This week’s challenge was with the wooden label printer, all week it kept printing a black line where it shouldn’t and despite learning a lot about the little habits and tricks of this printer over the last two years, this one stumped us and we got quite worked up! After a lot of huffing and puffing, head and bottom scratching we did solve it on Friday. It turned out to be a bizarre combination of events involving the magnets in the ink cup picking up some metal bits into the ink which caused some damage and a slightly dislodged magnet position in the cup itself, caused in the same incident. Phew, what a relief and such a joy using the printer again without the frustration element.

When we get a bit pressed it can be quite easy to slip over the edge into doom and gloom, but a few years ago we did a bit of ‘happiness training’ involving identifying how the brain works and how you can influence moods. One of the key bits was recognising triggers which make you feel different things and using them when you need to. A trigger could be a smell, an object , a memory, a song, anything that provokes a mental response. You can use it to get your mood right for any occasion although I tend to use it to make me feel better if things are getting tricky. If I am in the right frame of mind it does make life easier for all around me. Anyway, I got a surprise on Friday with the arrival of a new and very expensive trigger. The new 3.5 tonne van arrived causing quite a stir. We bought it in a bit of a rush after being unable to get a suitable second-hand one having just worked out the minimum dimensions needed to get the trolleys on and minimise the weight. The resulting vehicle is great, quite different and has made several initial observers laugh out loud. It’s like a cartoon van in its proportions, but it goes really well, is super clean and efficient and we will get noticed! We haven’t done the sign writing yet but I’m sure we can come up with something appropriate when we do get round to it. We have parked it up in the yard and it is making a great impact, you just can’t help smiling everytime you look at it!

Currently we are saving about 17% on our electricity use, compared with last year despite the extra heating costs of the prolonged cold weather and the installation of sodium grow-lights in the microprop weening tunnel. The consumption in the office and print room has dropped 75% since the warmer weather arrived, which just goes to illustrate how much of our energy goes on heating. We will have a look before next winter to see if we can improve the heating efficiency and save in the long term. Maybe we can tap in to some of the grants and loans being used to promote better systems. I did get a call from the local Business Link office to say that they have up to £500 per business to give away on any energy efficiency project which can show savings, so there is help out there encouraging us to do more.

Nature notes

Mad excitement in the pond last Sunday and Monday, with loads of frantic amphibious activity creating loads of frogspawn. I had almost given up waiting for some action but they got there in the end. Because we had to line the pond (on chalk) I was wondering if it was too slippery /tricky for them to get in and out despite the overhanging foliage. I had laid a strip of carpet over the edge to help and it was at this end that all the activity was occurring. I expect it was the combination of an increase in temperature, a lazy Sunday morning, running their toes through the shag-pile and Spring in the air that did the trick.
Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week,

2010-03-23T19:13:00.000Z

Check out our mention in Julie Stringer's column in the Dailty Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1259742/GREEN-QUEEN-Hairy-plant-pots-return-Earth-Hour.html