Hairy and free

Hi 

A week of big events with the Budget yesterday having more leaks than our Hairy Pots, and a day out attending the RHS Peat Free Conference at Wisley. The Budget has been talked about enough already with endless coverage on the telly for what seems like weeks, so I will concentrate on something a bit closer to home with a fun filled conference report.

I do have to say the attendance was really encouraging with the hall packed with growers, most of whom seem to be well on the way to getting to peat-free potting, if not quite so close to managing to cover all areas of their propagation supply. It's coming together but just not quite there yet.

There were some blasts from the past present which stirred up a few feelings I didn't expect on the day. The opening speaker was the chief cheese from a multiple DIY retail chain who we had some dealings with 20+ years ago, in those heady days when we thought we would do ok selling in bulk to the big boys. It took 9 years of painful stress, hard work and losses, combined with the bullying arrogance that most supermarkets seem to employ when handling grower/farming suppliers before we could extradite ourselves from a very negative position. A bit of NLP training reminded us that we did actually have a choice in how we went forward, either go bust being beaten up by the big boys, or downsize and lose it all, doing something we believed in, by going Hairy! Luckily the latter option turned out to be a good call in the long run.

The focus was very definitely on peat-free at the conference and there was quite a bit of debate as to how it was being accepted, or not, by the gardening public. The performance and quality of many retail composts was questioned with a lot of consumers losing heart in going peat-free after some bad experiences. There appear to be two main reasons behind this, one being the variable nature of available retail mixes, with a lack of clarity as to which ones were any good. and the second being the big differences between how you look after a peat compost compared with peat-free. It looks like the quality variability will have a solution fairly soon with new standards, testing and certification coming in over the next couple of years to flag up those that will do the job intended.

The change in compost management may be slightly more tricky to achieve, as it does involve a bit of a rethink in how peat- free composts are treated to get the best out of them. Here in a nutshell is the theory behind the changes needed. Firstly the micro structure of peat fibres is naturally brilliant at holding onto water and fertilisers, whilst the ingredients of peat-free mixes are pretty good at it, but not as good. So a peat-free compost will run out of water quicker, and although the plants grown will not use more water, the compost may not have it available over the whole period the plant needs it. The solution is not to increase the amount of water given but increase the regularity of application. Little and often is the key. The fact that the plant nutrients are also not held so tightly in the mix means they are more susceptible to leaching out if over, or too heavily, watered. Little and often is again the solution.

Interestingly the RHS surveyed their members and the number one concern is the environment and climate change and the RHS seem to have interpreted this reply to mean that everything must be peat-free asap, conveniently forgetting about the widespread use of single use plastics within the industry. Be careful what you think you understand from surveys, it's all in the wording of the question. Personally I suspect that plastics pollution and it's use is higher on most gardeners agenda. 

Prices for 2026.

As all years seem to be, it's been a challenging one, with one big increase in particular adding to our costs, on top of all the usual inflation+ pressures on virtually all materials and young plant costs. I know it's the same for everyone, but the 10% addition to labour costs, made up of the minimum wage increases and higher NI payments, has hit us hard. Labour is far and away our biggest cost and although we try to be more efficient year on year, it is impossible to keep pace with such big changes. As optimistic as ever, we have increased prices by just 5p per pot, which is a little under 2%, possibly not enough, but it is what we believe to be an acceptable change. We are hoping that even more improvements in productivity, together with growing sales volumes, will help us maintain a sustainable margin, but we will have to review the position again in 12 months time.

Wooden box collecting is just about done..

We have already collected up most of our reusable wooden boxes ready for cleaning, drying and repair if needed, before they go into winter storage. If you have any boxes 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.

Availability list.

Get ready for winter flowers by planting our Helleborus range now. Christmas Carol is showing some bud already and H. orientalis Halcyon Early Red is looking really good 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.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.