Hairy mist

Hi. 

Here comes the heat again, for the south-east and central southern areas anyway. Hoping it doesn’t get quite as hot as last time and that it passes by more quickly too. The way the heat is intensifying over Europe again doesn’t bode well for keeping things cool here, but a least for us there is always that cooler Atlantic air mass waiting close by to cool us down when the wind eventually turns again. The regularity of extreme heat patterns across Europe I find quite scary. I fear we are now too late to do anything about it? We are trying to do our bit here, but I fear the drive for commercial gain and self-gratification among the wealthier populations of the world is just too strong a tide to turn. It’s always someone else’s fault, I know. 

Our two young folk have travelled up to take a look at the HTA National Plant Show today and have a catch up on what is ‘going down’ among all the coolest production nurseries. It is a long time since we took a stand there to show our wares, I think it was 2014 and 2015. It was just after the demise of the Woking Show which was always our regular more localised event of the summer. We only attended the National Plant Show a couple of times, but despite the excited attention we attracted over the two days, it didn’t actually bring in much new business. Most of the interest seemed to be based in Scotland or other outer reaches of the country or was from interested visitors wanting to talk about the concept rather than actually buy anything. Since then, the demand for our stock has been such that ‘word of mouth’ has been sufficient advertising to keep a fresh flow of customers coming our way each season, which is a great way to progress if a little passive for modern business practices. We do tend to travel our own path anyway, which has taken us off the beaten track, creating a unique plant growing business which most of the time now advertises itself. Well, that’s the theory! 

After major expansion of our seed sowing operations over the last 15 months, to increase our peat-free propagated range, we have now also started rooting more cuttings too. I built a small mist unit last summer in our now unused micro-prop weaning tunnel, but the solenoid controller was never set up properly and we struggled with things getting either far too wet or too dry. This winter we installed a more sophisticated TomTech control computer in the prop tunnel, along with new temperature and humidity sensors and better control switch-work on the mist unit itself. It has taken a while to set things up just right, but the results have been really encouraging, to the point where it became apparent this week that we didn’t have enough capacity under the updated mist area. Luckily, I already had some spare mist nozzles in stock and plenty of pipework so after a £25 pipe fitting purchase, I was able to glue a load of bits together and double the area the unit covered. A great result which hopefully will extend our range of homegrown young plants even further.  

Social media on trend To find our Instagram content try our username @thehairypotplantcompany  or use the link below; https://www.instagram.com/thehairypotplantcompany?igsh=MXhhMGxhcjgzNGYydA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

Availability list. 

Plant growth is rampant, the plants loved the cooler temperatures and wetter conditions. Lots of bud and plenty of colour. Small and compact the Lewisia Elise have plenty of bud already and will flower all summer long. The ever-popular Erigeron karv. Stallone has loads of bud and flower, ready for a summer full of pretty little daisy flowers. The pretty Foam Flower Tiarella wherrii are now in flower and bud We already have several Asters in bud this week, which are usually something we associate with late summer!  The early summer flowering Allium Millenium is now producing bud. It’s a cracker, much tidier foliage and habit than the spring flowering Alliums, and it flowers for longer too. There are some cracking Verbena’s ready to go. Don’t miss out on these very popular lines Coreopsis are now in bud in a great range of colours. Summer must be here with bud on several of the Agapanthus varieties. Quite a few Leucanthemum in bud now, the first of many flowers to come. We have a few Scabiosa in bud, more to follow, another long flowering summer star. Garden Pinks (Dianthus) are back in bud again after recovering from our ever-hungry rampaging hares. The super popular Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list and there are follow-on batches coming too.  More summer stars are coming out now with bud appearing on the Gaura, Bidens and the Salvia’s too are now showing plenty of bud and now a bit of colour too. Oxalis triangularis is back on the list and in bud, after we took it off due to some frost damage on the leaf edges, just short time ago. We cut them back to compost and there now back on show again, looking grand. Phlox paniculata varieties are showing bud on super strong stems, get them quick before they go. Herb sales seem to be booming this spring; it must be all that healthy home cooking we are being encouraged to do. Lots of stock is coming through nicely now and even the tender herbs like Basil are now making their summertime appearance. Strawberries are looking great, especially those showing colour. Tarragon is back and the Mints have recovered too. 

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries. 

Hairy Jive

Hi. 

Another lovely week with plenty of showers although possibly a bit cool at times. Next week down here looks a cracker with drier conditions, more sun but temperatures still sensible rather than silly. Our single biggest young plant delivery of the year pitched up this morning, all looking strong and healthy. Most of it is for next spring although hopefully we may get a few out by the autumn. It has taken me most of the day to unpack it, give a few varieties a trim, put them down in the right place and check it all off. There are a few new varieties in there which will be interesting to see how they do, and best of all out of 396 trays only 5 still had some peat in them, so nearly all will be available to our National Trust and RHS sites. We definitely missed out on a few sales this winter with only a couple of varieties of our Helleborus being propagated in peat-free modules, but this time they are all peat-free. We have had notification of the date when our electric van will be finished, only a couple of weeks to go. We will then need to do a bit of tinkering at our end with registration numbers and one or two internal tweaks and then we will be ready to roll, using plenty of our home-produced energy to deliver our plastic free plants. Another big step forwards.  

We are installing a couple of new 3 phase 23 Kw chargers to supplement our existing one, in a position on the nursery that can serve two vans at a time, but the knock-on effect of a delay in our generator replacement means they won’t be operational in time for the van delivery. For the first few weeks we will have to block the farm track in order to reach the existing charger which isn’t ideal as they rapidly approach harvest time. One day one of my master plans will come together. As well as having a busy sales week, which always perks everyone up (we haven’t been perked much so far this spring!) 

I’ve had a brilliant time getting away from the nursery and onto the jive dancefloor! Last Saturday was one of Danny’s (our young good-looking driver) big events at the Winchester Guildhall, 3 dance floors and a D-Day themed Ball. There was a 16-piece 1940’s big band in the main-hall with most people dressing for the occasion. 4 hours of solid dancing is certainly a good way to keep fit, have a laugh and take your mind off everything else. By midnight I could barely walk back to the car.  That was followed by more moves in Basingstoke on Monday and Winchester again on Tuesday, My legs don’t know what’s hit them. 

Social media on trend I believe there might be a little video clip of the current batches of strawberry on Instagram. To find our Instagram content try our username @thehairypotplantcompany  or use the link below; https://www.instagram.com/thehairypotplantcompany?igsh=MXhhMGxhcjgzNGYydA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

Availability list. 

Plant growth is rampant, the plants are loving the cooler temperatures and wetter conditions. Lots of bud and plenty of colour. Small and compact the Lewisia Elise have plenty of bud already and will flower all summer long. The ever-popular Erigeron karv. Stallone has loads of bud and flower, ready for a summer full of pretty little daisy flowers. Compact varieties of Achillea Milly Rock are looking great, chunky stock with plenty of flower shoots appearing. The pretty Foam Flower Tiarella wherrii are now in flower and bud We already have several Asters in bud this week, which are usually something we associate with late summer!  

The early summer flowering Allium Millenium is now producing bud. It’s a cracker, much tidier foliage and habit than the spring flowering Alliums, and it flowers for longer too. There are some cracking Verbena’s ready to go. Don’t miss out on these very popular lines Nice chunky Lupins have the first of multiple buds appearing, They should flower for ages. Coreopsis are now in bud in a great range of colours. Summer must be here with bud on several of the Agapanthus varieties. Quite a few Leucanthemum in bud now, the first of many flowers to come. We have a few Scabiosa in bud, more to follow, another long flowering summer star. Garden Pinks (Dianthus) are back in bud again after recovering from our ever-hungry rampaging hares. The super popular Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list and there are follow-on batches coming too.  

More summer stars are coming out now with bud appearing on the Gaura, Bidens and the too are now showing plenty of bud and now a bit of colour too. Oxalis triangularis is back on the list and in bud, after we took it off due to some frost damage on the leaf edges, just short time ago. We cut them back to compost and there now back on show again, looking grand. Phlox paniculata varieties are showing bud on super strong stems, get them quick before they go. 

Herb sales seem to be booming this spring; it must be all that healthy home cooking we are being encouraged to do. Lots of stock is coming through nicely now and even the more tender herbs like Basil are now making their springtime appearance. Strawberries are looking great, especially the those showing colour. Tarragon is back and the Mints have recovered too. 

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy and rampant

Hi. 

That was a much better week, a lot cooler and a nice drop of rain spread over several days. Just what the gardens needed. Sales recovered nicely and productivity took a big step in the right direction. 

Realisation has crept in that we are getting into that mad period when sales are still bowling along, while at the same time we need to start clearing tunnels for next seasons crops. We had a good number of our Rosemarys for next spring arrive this week and the first of our big Dutch module deliveries for next year arrives next week. This usually sparks mild panic, with not enough time or space to cope with all the stock and nursery activity, but I’m hoping this year will be a bit more controlled. Mind you, I always think we are going to be better organised than last year and it’s never actually come true before. 

As I expected this probably wasn’t the best year to expand the workforce with sales not quite exciting enough and production knocked out of kilter last summer by the new demands for peat-free propagation material from some sectors of our market. We also shut our micro-prop lab last summer which created some disruption, although it freed up more of our propagation area for doing more of our own traditionally propagated stock. A new mist unit in there has helped keep the cutting propagation viable with very good success rates and the seed sowing has been better this year after several disasters with peat-free seed composts last season. The peat-free glue plug modules are still proving to produce better young plants than our loose-fill modules, especially with the slower growing varieties, but we can’t get those in our reusable trays which means more use of single use plastic, all very frustrating.  

Talking of frustration, the electric van should have been here a couple of weeks ago but the backdoor loading ramp, which is made by a separate company, has been delayed. Shouldn’t be long.  Don’t forget to get your stocks in of our ’take-me-home’ plants, good for physical and mental health of your staff and customers, great for wildlife and the environment and helps keeps our heads above water! 

Social media on trend I believe there might be a little video clip of the current batches of strawberry on Instagram. To find our Instagram content try our username @thehairypotplantcompany  or use the link below; https://www.instagram.com/thehairypotplantcompany?igsh=MXhhMGxhcjgzNGYydA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

Availability list. 

Plant growth is rampant, the plants are loving the cooler temperatures and wetter conditions. Lots of bud and plenty of colour. Small and compact the Lewisia Elise have plenty of bud already and will flower all summer long. All three Erigeron’s are nicely in bud and looking summery. The ever-popular Erigeron karv. Stallone has loads of bud, ready for a full summer of scrambling pretty little daisy flowers. Compact varieties of Achillea Milly Rock are looking great, chunky stock with plenty of flower shoots appearing. The pretty Foam Flower Tiarella wherrii are now in flower and bud We already have several Asters in bud this week, which are usually something we associate with late summer!The early summer flowering Allium Millenium is now producing bud. It’s a cracker, much tidier foliage and habit than the spring flowering Alliums, and it flowers for longer too. Not such spectacular flowerheads perhaps but a great garden plant. There are some cracking Verbena’s ready to go. Don’t miss out on these very popular lines. I am sorry we ran out earlier, there popularity caught me out again. Nice chunky Lupins have the first of multiple buds appearing, They should flower for ages. Coreopsis are now in bud in a great range of colours. Summer must be here with bud on a couple of the Agapanthus varieties. Quite a few Leucanthemum in bud now, the first of many flowers to come. We have a few Scabiosa in bud, more to follow, another long flowering summer star. Garden Pinks (Dianthus) are back in bud again after recovering from our ever-hungry rampaging hares. The super popular Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list and there are follow-on batches coming too.  More summer stars are coming out now with bud appearing on the Gaura, Bidens and the Salvia’s too are now showing plenty of bud and now a bit of colour too. Oxalis triangularis is back on the list and in bud, after we took it off due to some frost damage on the leaf edges, just short time ago. We cut them back to compost and there now back on show again, looking grand. Phlox paniculata varieties are showing bud on super strong stems, get them quick before they go. 

Herb sales seem to be booming this spring; it must be all that healthy home cooking we are being encouraged to do. Lots of stock is coming through nicely now and even the more tender herbs like Basil are now making their springtime appearance. Strawberries are looking great, especially the those showing colour. Tarragon is back and the Mints have recovered too. 

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries. 

Hairy Summer

Hi. 

I hope you coped ok last week especially if you got baked like us in the south.  With a bit of luck that is summer done and dusted. It was a crazy hot week for May and disrupted so much stuff, from irrigation nozzle blow-outs where the rubber flanges softened in the heat, to the air compressor not working after midday when it’s thermal cut-out clicked in. Productivity dropped through the floor as people struggled to cope as we had to find jobs they could do in the shade and by a fan. The now redundant lab buildings were restarted so we could get some air-con relief during break times, although there were a few who seem to revel in the high temperatures and they did allow us to get some things done as planned.  Sales were hit fairly hard which is understandable, but with cooler weather and some welcome rain due next week hopefully things will bounce back. 

One of our drivers commented on how exciting and attractive our stock was looking in several sites he visited this week. The larger stock supplied by others at much higher prices appeared to be less attractive having moved into a less impulsive price bracket and of course lacking the extra feel-good factor of a plastic-free hairy pot purchase! The trouble is that we are so used to handling our own hairy pots and wooden boxes, anything incorporating plastics seems a bit run-of-the-mill, unnatural and off-trend. 

Don’t forget we will be keeping a wide range of attractive perennials and herbs going in our 13cm pots right through until the Autumn, and all at take-me-home prices! Big day today for Caroline. Not allowed to say how old other than she hasn’t caught me up yet. We celebrated in the usual way, cake for all at coffee break and another late night on the nursery. Luckily with being slightly less busy than usual I was able to slip out for a couple of hours over the Bank Holiday and make some special purchases, mostly involving a small collection of terracotta planters to freshen up the back door area. It went down a lot better than the bag of organic spinach I produced one year! What a lucky girl. 

Social media on trend To find our Instagram content, I am told you can try our username @thehairypotplantcompany  or use the link below; https://www.instagram.com/thehairypotplantcompany?igsh=MXhhMGxhcjgzNGYydA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

Availability list. 

The heat this week has pushed a few more varieties into bud which is great for adding even more excitement on the sales benches. We even have a few Asters in bud this week, which are usually something we associate with late summer! Compact varieties of Achillea Milly Rock are looking great, chunky stock with plenty of flower shoots appearing. The pretty Foam Flower Tiarella wherrii are now in flower and bud All three Erigeron’s are nicely in bud and looking summery. Tight growth making neat compact plants. The early summer flowering Allium Millenium is now producing bud. It’s a cracker, much tidier foliage and habit than the spring flowering Alliums, and it flowers for longer too. Not such spectacular flowerheads perhaps but a great garden plant. There are some cracking Verbena’s ready to go. Don’t miss out on these very popular lines. I am sorry we ran out earlier, there popularity caught me out again. Coreopsis are now in bud in a nice range of colours. Summer must be here with bud on a couple of the Agapanthus varieties. 

Small and compact the Lewisia Elise have plenty of bud already and will flower all summer long. Quite a few Leucanthemum in bud now, the first of many flowers to come. We have a few Scabiosa with their first buds, more to follow, another long flowering summer star. Garden Pinks (Dianthus) were coming ready with bud appearing fast, but the hares have had all but two varieties for dinner!  The ever-popular Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list and there are follow-on batches coming too.  More summer stars are coming out now with bud appearing on the Gaura, Bidens and the Salvia’s too are now showing plenty of bud and now a bit of colour too. A nice illustration of the contrast in weather patterns over the past few weeks, is that Oxalis triangularis is back on the list and in bud, after we took it off due to some frost damage on the leaf edges, just a couple of weeks ago. We cut them back to compost and there now back on show again, looking grand. Erysimum Bowles Mauve are still flowering. A couple of fresh batches of Fire and Sunset are back on the list, full of promise. Summer cliff top walks always spring to my mind when I see Armeria coming into bud, and now’s your chance to take a stroll. Many Hosta’s have put in an appearance. Always a precursor to Spring proper, they are up and away. Phlox paniculata varieties are showing bud on super strong stems, get them quick before they go. 

Herb sales seem to be booming this spring; it must be all that healthy home cooking we are being encouraged to do. Lots of stock is coming through nicely now and even the more tender herbs like Basil are now making their springtime appearance. 

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries. 

Hairy and out of date

Hi. 

Here we are, the last of the Spring bank holidays is upon us, and the sun has come to welcome everyone into their gardens. Slightly frustrating that we move from vests and jackets to too much exposure over 24 hours, but a change from cold nights to a heatwave is where we are. Looks like it will calm down again in a week, but let’s hope the brief heatwave and holiday spirit will get everyone excited enough to loosen those purse strings over the next few days. We were hit this week with a combination of holidays and a lot of illness among the team, some more serious than others but all throwing a spanner in the works. Luckily the drivers all showed up so we still managed to get all the orders out before the end of the week which is always the main focus of a spring week. The biggest invalid was of course myself, hit with man-flu since last weekend, so everyone else suffers too. I’ve been dosing up on Lemsip and honey which has worked a treat in subduing the symptoms, I think the vintage state of the Lemsip added an extra kick as Caroline had me using up her parents old stock which had a use by date of 2020. Don’t care, it got me through. 

Electrician has been on-site all week again setting up a new distribution board and cabling for the replacement generator that is on order and tidying up the new charging station for the new EV van due in the next couple of weeks. The special automatic transfer switch which starts the generator in the event of a power cut was due to be ready for delivery in 2 or 3 days from ordering, it is now going to be 3 weeks. They saw me coming. Good news from the DVLA this week as they have announced that from June 1st 2026, you will no longer need to use a tachograph in an EV if the GVW is under 4.25 tonnes. Ours will be 4 tonnes, so that will save all the drivers having to get a ‘drivers card’ to put into the tacho recorder. Not quite sure how hauliers are expected to plan their investments in EV’s when these announcements are made at such short notice. There were very strong rumours that this was going to happen, but we weren’t sure quite when. We have been so lucky to order ours several weeks before the rush of orders that is likely to follow this change in the rules. There will still be a speed limiter, keeping the top speed to 57 mph, but that should reduce the temptation to go faster and keep efficiency up on the battery usage. 

We should have cleared most of the vital potting before the weekend, so that frees me up for another batch of seed sowing in the peace and quiet. Caroline should have been going to Wembley to watch Southampton on Saturday, but the embarrassing spy-gate scandal has put an end to all that. That is one PR exercise I’m glad I don’t have to deal with, the tarnish of cheating at such a high level  will be quite hard to remove.  Must go, I am under orders to get home 15 minutes ago so I can clean up before visiting relatives. What fun. 

Social media on trend To find our Instagram content, I am told you can try our username @thehairypotplantcompany  or use the link below; https://www.instagram.com/thehairypotplantcompany?igsh=MXhhMGxhcjgzNGYydA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

Availability list. 

The early summer flowering Allium Millenium is now producing bud. It’s a cracker, much tidier foliage and habit than the spring flowering Alliums, and it flowers for longer too. Not such spectacular flowerheads perhaps but a great garden plant. Coreopsis are now in bud in a nice range of colours. Summer must be here with bud on a couple of the Agapanthus varieties. Small and compact the Lewisia Elise have plenty of bud already and will flower all summer long. Quite a few Leucanthemum in bud now, the first of many flowers to come. We have a few Scabiosa Butterfly Blue with their first buds, more to follow, another long flowering summer star. Garden Pinks (Dianthus) were coming ready with bud appearing fast, but the hares have had the lot for dinner!  The ever popular Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list and there are follow-on batches coming too, but possibly not quite enough to maintain a constant supply, but it will keep reappearing! More summer stars are coming out now with bud appearing on the Bidens and the Salvia’s too are showing the odd bud although still a week or two away from colour I think. Erysimum Bowles Mauve are still flowering.  Summer cliff top walks always spring to my mind when I see Armeria coming into bud, and now’s your chance to take a stroll. Many Hosta’s have put in an appearance. Always a precursor to Spring proper, they are up and away. 

Herb sales seem to be booming this spring; it must be all that healthy home cooking we are being encouraged to do. Lots of stock is coming through nicely now and even the more tender herbs like Basil are now making their springtime appearance. 

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries. 

Hairy suprise

Hi.

I can’t believe another week has passed already and it’s halfway through May. Unfortunately, outside it still feels like March or early April at a push, we’ve had very cold winds, frosts, heavy showers of rain and more dramatically hail. Looks like it is going to warm up a bit over the next week and with a few showers to dampen the ground a bit more, we could be in for a good gardening session. Hopefully a boost in plant sales will benefit everyone, fingers crossed. Our drivers are still coming home which very positive responses from our delivery recipients, which is always great to hear. When the season isn’t quite as exciting as perhaps, we may have hoped, it is very easy to blame yourself for not doing a good enough job in growing and preparing the plants for sale, so some positive feedback is always nice to hear about.  

After last week’s panic about the phone system losing the plot, after another IT ‘upgrade’, everything has now settled down. It turned out to be a setup issue with the new network switch and not a problem with the phone box on the wall, so no phone system upgrade required just yet. Pete the electrician has been on-site most of the week setting up new 3 phase cabling and distribution boards for the van charging stations, A bigger job than I expected but what’s new there. Next week he is back to sort out the cabling and more gear for the new generator, which although I was told it might be delivered in a couple of weeks, won’t be here for at least another 5, possibly longer.  I’m really looking forward to getting all this electric stuff sorted and plugging in the new electric van. We are producing all this excess power at the moment, from the solar array and wind turbines, and we really need to be using it ourselves to get some decent value out of it. We only get 6p/kWhr for exporting it and if we used it ourselves, we would be saving 28p. What will be exciting, will be seeing some of our plants being delivered to our customers using our own generated energy, it feels like another big step in doing what we do as sustainably as we can. 

Had a surprise late on Sunday evening, with a call from the driver of the Dutch potting compost lorry. Could I let him know when we would be open in the morning and had I any idea where he could park up overnight?  Once he told me he was actually already outside the nursery gate, it was always going to be easier to deal with it straight away. Not the perfect Sunday evening, but it was good to get him in and unloaded while the place was quiet and he was very pleased to be on his way home 12 hrs earlier than he expected. It meant we could start the week with plenty of potting materials ready to go, as well as not having a big lorry messing about in the yard while we are trying to get started on picking and processing all the orders. 

We’ve had a good week on the production side of things, as there is plenty of tunnel space ready to fill, after a reasonable run of sales over the past few weeks. We set a potting team going on Tuesday for a bit and then full-on before Wednesday lunchtime while the rest of the team finished off all the orders. Running both teams at the same time is always a bit tense and very hand to mouth in its operation, but there is simply no substitute for running the potting machine for more hours to pot more stock. The later in the week you start the machine to less gets done.  Lovely fresh stock of wooden box parts arrived this week, only 7 months after ordering. It is just me, isn’t it?  Social media on trend To find our Instagram content, I am told you can try our username @thehairypotplantcompany  or use the link below; https://www.instagram.com/thehairypotplantcompany?igsh=MXhhMGxhcjgzNGYydA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

Availability list. 

The early summer flowering Allium Millenium is now producing bud. It’s a cracker, much tidier foliage and habit than the spring flowering Alliums, and it flowers for longer too. Not such spectacular flowerheads perhaps but a great garden plant. Quite a few Leucanthemum in bud now, the first of many flowers to come. Our Garden Pinks (Dianthus) are coming ready with bud appearing fast.  The ever popular Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list and there are follow-on batches coming too, but possibly not quite enough to maintain a constant supply, but it will keep reappearing! More summer stars are coming out now with bud appearing on the Osteospermum Bidens and Lewisia. The Salvia’s too are showing the odd bud although still a week or two away from colour I think. Erysimum Bowles Mauve are still flowering and follow-on batches of Superbowl Mauve are also ready to go, but with bud only just beginning to appear. Summer cliff top walks always spring to my mind when I see Armeria coming into bud, and now’s your chance to take a stroll! The Phlox subulata varieties are nice and compact with colour showing. And finally, many Hosta’s have put in an appearance. Always a precursor to Spring proper, they are up and away. Herb sales seem to be booming this spring; it must be all that healthy home cooking we are being encouraged to do. Lots of stock is coming through nicely now and even the more tender herbs like Basil are now making their springtime appearance.  

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries. 

Hairy and hectic

Hi. 

Just a quick one as I’m struggling to keep up this week. The orders have been rolling in after a better bank holiday weekend than predicted, and everything else seems to be kicking off, some exciting, but most of it very expensive. Preparations for the electric van continue with a couple of 3 phase 22kw chargers on order and the electrician running up a quote to install a new distribution board, cabling and sockets for those chargers. As part of the electric re-jig we are having to replace our ancient and unreliable generator with something a bit quieter, cleaner and cleverer. It is going to be installed on an existing concrete pad next to the meter shed, which seemed like a cheap and easy option, but by the time new wiring, auto transfer switches and new distribution boards are installed the cost of the generator is likely to double. It’s like a roller coaster I can’t seem to get off, one positive advance turns into a waterfall of extra costs.  To add to the positive financial mood of the day, our new IT people who successfully helped us update onto the cloud, have today upgraded our Wi-Fi hubs, firewall and network switch gear so that we are ‘more secure’, plug and play, it’s all so simple. Now the telephone system won’t work correctly (so if you can’t get through please try emailing us at nurseries@kirtonfarm.co.uk) and they say this nothing to do with them, but if we changed from our reasonably new box on the wall to an on-line system, it would all be better. Also, the CCTV system which they said would work better once everything was upgraded, has also been written off because it doesn’t fit with the new levels of firewall security and we would need to replace it if we wanted to be secure on the whole network. So it looks like we have to replace a perfectly good phone system and cctv (it is Chinese!) to fit in with the new level of cyber security. Yet another rollercoaster I got stuck on. 

I had a very interesting visit from one of our Dutch compost makers this week. After some poor results using loose fill peatfree propagation composts last summer, when compared to the peat-free glue plugs we have used for many years, I developed a little theory that the problem was the fine particles in the loose mixes moving into the air spaces when watered over a period. This doesn’t tend to happen in peat-based mixes due to the different physical properties of peat. In conversation today he confirmed that the glue plugs hold the finer particles in a solid structure so the blocking of the air spaces doesn’t happen, but my idea to ask the manufacturers to try and remove some of these finer particles would fall on deaf ears because it is just too much trouble to go to, for the relatively small UK peat-free propagation market. The coir propagation mix we are using now is much better than others we have tried but still has too much dust to make a perfect mix, but they won’t take it out. I suspect we will have to adjust our sowing strategy and move the slower germinating, more difficult lines, into glue plugs which would mean new seeding bars, dibbers and delivery tubes to fit onto the sowing machine. Looks like another rollercoaster to ride. On the positive side the weather is lovely and the birds are singing.

The solar is generating nicely again now the cable has been repaired, and tomorrow is the day to tilt our panels to their full summer setting of 17 degrees. They will stay there until August when they start to stand up again. Hopefully in a few weeks we can really start to make good use of all that solar generation when the electric van arrives, and we can soak up a big dollop of energy each day. Something must go in the right direction soon. We had a fab holiday weekend here when I managed to talk Caroline into potting Saturday, Sunday and Monday, so we got lots done. I think she is hoping for a rest this time, and she might be lucky as we look like running out of compost by the end of Friday and the next load isn’t due until Tuesday. I’m sure I can still think of a few things we can do together, that repaired solar cable still needs re-burying! 

Social media on trend To find our Instagram content, I am told you can try our user name @thehairypotplantcompany  or use the link below; https://www.instagram.com/thehairypotplantcompany?igsh=MXhhMGxhcjgzNGYydA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr 

Availability list. 

Our Garden Pinks (Dianthus) are coming ready with bud appearing fast.  The ever popular Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list and there are follow-on batches coming too, but possibly not quite enough to maintain a constant supply, but it will keep reappearing! Erysimum Bowles Mauve are still flowering and follow-on batches of a couple of other varieties are also ready to go, but with bud only just beginning to appear. The Phlox subulata varieties are nice and compact with colour showing. And finally, many Hosta’s have put in an appearance. Always a precursor to Spring proper, they are up and away. 

Herb sales seem to be booming this spring; it must be all that healthy home cooking we are being encouraged to do. Lots of stock is coming through nicely now, although it will still be week or two before the more tender herbs like Basil make their springtime appearance. We only have a tiny amount of heated production space, so we are limited on production timings of these more tender subjects. 

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.