Hi
It's still all go, with plenty of lovely stock covered in lots of bud and flower disappearing off the nursery. It has slowed up a little bit but there are still plenty of late comer varieties still appearing for their summer show, and the herbs are still looking delicious.
The early hot weather slowed us up again this week, but a slight cooling later on has allowed a bit more work to get underway out in the tunnels. Tunnel clearing, shuffling about of odd batches of stock, a bit of pruning bed scraping and mulch applications to the bed edges are all needed before space becomes available for potting all the stock for next year. Unfortunately the module and home-grown stock coming on line is, as usual, winning the race, so the pressure and numbers are building to get stock into pots asap. What fun this nursery life is, as sales pressure lessens something else takes over!. One hugely positive thing is, at least we are potting into tunnels with the upgraded irrigation spray-lines and the improved growing results are obvious within a couple of weeks. It has been especially effective during the hot spells we have been having through June, which does increase confidence going into high summer. It will probably rain the rest of the summer now, but at least we are prepared for all eventualities.
Our solar project has been up and running for a couple of months now, although the last few tail-end jobs are still being dealt with. The solar generation meter was fitted this week so we can now officially register the site with OFGEM and start collecting our REGO certificates, which the energy purchasing companies need to prove the energy they are buying from us is renewable. Now we are waiting for SSE, our network operator, to give the go ahead for us to export more energy into the grid. At the moment we are restricting output to the wind turbine maximum output, which means we miss out on a little export income on sunny and breezy days, it's not a lot but it all helps.
The overall results have been very pleasing so far, the combination of wind, solar and a bit of battery storage has slashed our previous monthly energy imports from an average of 2,500 units to well under 150 which is a reduction of about 94%. So with a total consumption of about 5,500 a month we are over 97% self sufficient in our energy use and are also exporting loads back into the grid. To be fair we don't actually get very much income from the exported energy, but the savings on the imported are good. If we could just get our standing charges down from their monstrously high level we would be very happy. A word of caution for anyone thinking of installing battery storage, it isn't quite a efficient as you may be led to believe. The idea is that any spare power charges your battery packs rather than going into the grid, and the battery power is then used to run things when demand exceeds your solar supply (at night for example). It does do this, but if you have a 10kw battery pack it will discharge close to 10kw, but it will take 12.5kw to recharge it back to 10kw. So you use 25% more power to charge than they discharge. It is something to do with inefficiencies converting DC to AC and back again. The power is cheap, in that you have generated it yourself, but it isn't free if you could have sold it back to the grid, so the savings are knocked back a bit. This certainly caught me out, mind you it doesn't take much to do that.
Availability list.
Herb range still looking yummy, with plenty of fresh batches still coming through.
The summer flowering Allium Millenium is looking great. This very worthwhile allium is much tidier in habit and longer lasting than the spring flowering types, a proper impressive border plant.
We have a lovely range of very popular summer Gaura at the moment, in bud and showing some colour, with the final variety of the year making a show now. Rosy Gem is a pretty bicoloured variety but I just have the one batch this summer. It should stick around a little while as I splashed out on quite a big batch!
Hot high summer flowering Crocosmia are showing tight bud on a couple of varieties this week.
The first of the Aster Alpha series are now showing tight bud, surely summer can't be drawing in just yet! No, they are early. Mini Garden Chrysanthemums are here, masses of bud on the first batch already with a hint of colour too.
A fab range of the compact Helenium Hay Day series are budding well now, with colour showing. Fresh batches of the compact Achillea Milly Rock series are on line, both red and pink colours available. Big flowering but compact, strong and stocky Gaillardia Guapa series, looking at their best with colour on show.
Oxalis Iron Cross are looking great with its two tone leaves with the deep pink blooms. Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list again, with its pretty creamy white flowers and heady vanilla scent. Summer is well under way with all the Bidens range showing particularly well, with a strong splashes flower. Rhodanthemums are in bud and flower ready to bloom their socks off for the rest of the summer.
Strong bushy Osteospermum Tresco Purple are now budding up nicely. Liatris spicata are showing their first hint of colour with strong flower stems extending and buds on show.
Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.
