Yesterday was a bit of a wash out and today is Andy’s big day which might put the brakes on Sunday afternoon sales. Still can’t complain really can we, what a roll we are on, and I don’t mean just how many weekends in a season could be pants for selling plants! We got a men’s doubles winner yesterday, Andy in the final, the leader in the Tour de France, a nice wet Gran d Prix, England walloped the Aussies in the cricket, Southampton are in the premiership, loads of gold medals to come in the Olympics and the Queen won the Jubilee. Just so much excitement it’s such a shame about the weather, it just seems endlessly miserable for so many. We have tried to keep positive on the nursery and kept potting new stock assuming at some point things will move along a bit and we will need to find something to sell and to be fair we have kept up with last year for the last few weeks, but we had been hoping for a little more. Still we can’t do much about the weather, let’s hope the bank manager is understanding when he visits later in the week.


We’ve been looking to the future this week with the start of some Lean Management training for virtually all the crew. This spring has brought into focus how important it is going to be to run the business as efficiently and professionally as we can over the next couple of seasons to try and recover from this one year and we hope this training will help us all make a few tweaks towards that recovery. First day was fun after an early morning session on Health and Safety we progressed onto playing with Lego bricks by the afternoon which was much more my scene. I think it’s got people thinking a bit, now we just need to learn how we can apply some of what we saw into our workplace. We have got a bit of homework to do before next week but nothing too taxing, although it does involve looking at our work areas in different ways which could be refreshing.

I need to press on the morning is whizzing by and I have too much to do. 25,000 tubs and lids to count and pack for the lab, seeds to sow (do I leave these until after the bank manager has been? Might not need any plants for next year!), irrigation to sort out (yes even in this rain) and figures to conjure up for the visit (maybe the bank will be on the back foot after all the banking scandal’s of late).

Eco News

Cold wet weather probably not helping swallows and house martins. We seemed a bit short on young swallows last night in the roost but hopefully there are ok. We have certainly lost a few of the very young house martins which have fallen or been ejected from the nest although there still seems to be a reasonable amount of feeding activity going on.

Great year for slugs and snails and I am not sure the current frog and toad population is up to the task. There are plenty about but too many small ones without the stomach capacity for the size of brutes we have sliming about at the moment.

We moved our turbine FIT and export contracts this month to Good Energy from SSE. I haven’t heard a lot from either side on progress although I know the wheels are turning as I did get an email from SSE confirming a change. Because they were so proud of their customer service levels they did ask if I could let them know why we were changing. Usually I don’t bother with answering this sort of request but they caught me on a wet day and in the mood for a rant. I listed a whole host of cock-ups, inefficiencies and rip-off contracts that they dealt out last year and said if they needed some more feedback please feel free to contact me again and I will add to the list. Well they did ask. To be fair they did reply, not with any excuses but said that they would pass on my comments.

If you need a fax list please let us know, pick it up from the website or alternately send an email address.
Have a good week from all at Kirtonf Farm Nurseries