Hairy decisions

Hi

This week has felt like one of the longest in recent history as I have been stuck behind a desk slogging through multiple spreadsheets trying to make decisions on what young plants and seed to buy for next year's cropping. It's always a brain aching task but made far more complex this time by the need to adapt our young plant sourcing to finding a wider range in peat-free modules. While most young plant producers have been reducing peat use for a while, not all have managed to go completely peat-free, but by changing suppliers, some variety adjustments and by trying to produce more ourselves we can achieve a slightly wider range produced without using peat based modules. Then comes the numbers game, what reductions in volume do we make to those lines we can only get in peat-based modules, to keep the range up to date with the best new varieties for those non National Trust and RHS customers who are still allowing us to use these suppliers. There are also often huge cost implications to changing suppliers for many plants, they may use a bigger module size which adds to the costs or they are simply a more expensive supplier due to economies of scale or lower levels of automation, another factor that needs bringing into this years decision making.

We are still making good progress with developing more dependable propagation composts and using our newly acquired tray filling and seed sowing machinery, but the range we can produce is restricted. We are legally unable to propagate the newest and best licensed varieties and because we are buying seed in such small volumes our material costs are far higher than the big boys. A good example would be Calamintha Marvellete which is a seed raised range but we have to pay about £35 for enough seed to sow a tray of 250 modules but I could buy the finished tray ready to pot for £50. By the time you add costs of the tray, compost and labour it is not an attractive proposition. I sowed a test tray last summer and potted less than 50 plants from it due to losses during production, so there is the risk element to add in there too. Luckily not all seed is as expensive as this but then you can miss out on the new good stuff. While being 100% peat-free is a very commendable policy, it's a huge rush, effort and expense to remove the last 0.4% of peat left in our overall compost usage and rather detracts from our efforts to do all the other sustainable stuff we have been developing over the years, but hey-ho the customer knows best!

I've completed 2 plant orders so far, out of the 6 needed for the bulk of our crops, so a solid slog over today and the weekend might see most of the decisions made, I just need to stay awake long enough to get it finished. After collecting all the data for last year's sales for each variety, current plant and label stock levels and the above planned young plant purchasing and our own seed and cutting production for next year, the last spreadsheet to fill is the pot label order then I can relax and take a break. 

Back on the nursery the real work is ongoing with the spring bulb potting all but finished. It's a slow old job, even with the potting machine doing all the pot filling and hole drilling. It's the counting out of the little ones that takes the most time as well as getting the bigger ones all pointing in the right direction at a sensible depth. Luckily it's a time of year when there are not too many other demands on our time so it feels like we can afford to get it right. As usual several of the tastiest varieties have been potted, watered and mulched before loading back onto tightly shelved danish trolleys. This keeps them off the ground and hopefully out of the way of temptation from the mice which have in the past caused havoc. One year we lost the entire crop of Fritillaria, which is a big crop for us. The mice had been in and removed the vast majority of bulbs and hidden them away for winter feasting. We found a lot of them later in the winter, tucked away in heaps around the site, but unfortunately they were beyond recovery as a crop. Lesson learnt.

Wooden box collecting is well underway.

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

Availability list.

Get ready for late winter flowers by planting our Helleborus range now. Christmas Carol is showing some bud already and H. orientalis Halcyon Early Red is looking great with plenty of bud and some red colour too.

Cyclamen coum are coming on quickly. A winter and spring flowering form, the first odd flower is already now showing with heaps more to come over the coming months. This selection is a champion winter performer, very hardy and just keeps on endlessly flowering, usually from November through to March and April.

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

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.