More hairy tech

Hi.

What a joyful week that was. Wall to wall rain and wind made everything very challenging. It was so dark first thing in the morning, we had to delay picking up the orders until it was light enough to see clearly what was being selected. On the plus side the wind turbines have been bowling along, generating plenty of excess power to send back into the grid. We have had momentary glimpses of brightness which give a taste of spring potential, so we are hopeful there will still be a few plant sales out there somewhere.

Work on the nursery continues apace whatever the weather and the overwinter plant cutting back and mulching is coming close to an end, perfect timing for the anticipated upturn in sales volumes (fingers crossed). Most of the team are out there in the unheated tunnels beavering away so another 2 or 3 weeks and we should be ready. 

Big turmoil this week with the upgrade to our IT system. A more up to date system, and a secure setup were the key attractions. We had been lagging behind on software programs, as I tried to resist setting up multiple subscription services but the time has come to drag myself into the new way of doing stuff. Hopefully you may notice more user-friendly versions of Word and Excel appearing on our weekly availability updates and we should see fewer file reading issues on the various formats that return to us as orders.

Monday saw the bulk of the IT installation done and the rest of the week has been spent trying to sort out multiple issues as they have arisen. The support desk has been great at providing quick fixes, although the monthly subscription rates have already gone up, because MS One Drive cloud storage is not quite what I thought it was! It gives us a massive volume of storage and backs up most stuff as you go through the day, so there is little chance of losing potentially precious data. The storage of data and computers is nearly all offsite now, so it makes us safe from being left in the lurch if there is an overnight fire or break-in. However, the nursery program which handles all the plant growing and order processing can’t be saved to One Drive because it needs scheduling to be done once or twice a day rather than continually. I have now learnt that One Drive can’t do this, so we must subscribe to another cloud, running a different type of backup. Ace.

I was anxious that we broke 365 Outlook which threw a wobbly as soon as we switched over to it and was intermittently bouncing emails back to us. The tech team have spent 3 days trying to sort it out, only to see that Microsoft announced this morning that they had server issues and it wasn’t just us. It is still happening but at least I don’t feel guilty about it now!

Summary of the improvements to shelf life for 2026

We are introducing three changes this season in how we prepare our plants for delivery to our lovely retailers. We know some sites struggle to maintain the quality of our plants once they arrive on the retail plant sales areas. Peat-free compost mixes struggle to hold onto as much water as peat and also don't grip the nutrients as tightly either. When added to the extra breathability of our Hairy Pots, quicker drying out can be an issue, especially if the ideal of 'little and often' applications of water is not a practical option. When the plants dry out they then tend to get over watered which flushes out the available nutrients resulting in premature deterioration in condition. To help reduce these stresses and provide a longer lasting 'looking good' shelf life we are doing the following;

1/ Adding a reusable, recycled wool capillary mat in the bottom of each tray which will hold onto extra water for the plants to take up. These are expensive and will need to be returned for reuse with the boxes.

2/ Adding extra wetting agent at despatch to allow the compost to hold onto more water and rewet more easily if dry.

3/ Adding a dose of organic slow-release feed as a top dressing to compensate for any leaching of nutrients.

Do your 2026 retail prices need changing?

We have increased our cost prices for 2026 by just 5p per pot, which is a little under 2%, to partially cover our ever-increasing costs. If you have your stock pre-priced by ourselves, perhaps now would be a good time to let us know any changes you would like to make for the coming season. We can then adjust our records accordingly and get started on printing the correct price labels in advance of the fast-approaching madness of those spring sales.

Availability list.

Cyclamen coum are coming on quickly. This selection is a champion winter performer, very hardy and just keeps on flowering, usually from November through to March and April. 

Some Erysimum varieties are already showing bud and the odd flash of colour, but this has been brought on by the mild winter so far. They are all pretty tough and are standing well against the frosts so far.

The first spring bulbs are here, and a few are already showing their first buds. Not much in the way of colour but it won't be long. Two of the hoop-petticoat Narcissus have bud, White Petticoat and the pale lemon-yellow Julia Jane, both are crackers.

Best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy tech hopes

Hi.

Nice to see the back of the cold snap, although I know some of you suffered from wind and a few flooding issues over the last week. Still ploughing through those root vegetables! We were lucky this time and missed the worst of all of it, although the amount of surface water washing about on Thursday was pretty significant.

Things here are beginning to wake up with a small flurry of orders this week, waking us up from our winter slumber. It's about now I start to panic that we aren't actually quite ready for spring just yet. All those overwinter sales preparation jobs I thought we had plenty of time for are now in demand. To be fair I think we are ok for a few weeks, we have a little of everything ready now (POS boards, price labels, boxes, capillary mats, plant labels etc), but we will need to push on now to get all those things ship-shape and totally pre-prepared for when all hell breaks loose and orders start flying in.

Monday should see our annual label delivery arrive, which will need decanting from the pallets and filing away in their appropriate boxes. It's a big one this year with over 500,000 labels to find a home for, it might take a day or two.

Tension is already building for a major change which is also happening in the office on Monday. We are having some new computer kit installed and the whole data storage system changed to hiding it all in the clouds, or something like that. In theory it should make everything more flexible, accessible and much more secure. which would be a major improvement on the current system. The other big thing that will change is that we will lose our old MS Office suite in favour of the subscription based MS 365, which should bring us more up to date on file production and readability etc and of course cost more! The big issue for us oldies, is how much things have changed since we last updated and whether we will be able to find our way around the programs. Please bear with us if things go a bit pear-shaped for a few days!

Our old system works very nicely as it is, with a myriad of other bits of kit and old programs chugging away in the background, so this is another area of concern with the changeover. The many printers and multiple printer settings we have installed, on each current computer, for all the different printing tasks and materials we use, is finely tuned at the moment, what position it will be in by Monday afternoon we will have to wait and see.

This is all being overseen by a very confident young company with very youthful experts, one of which will be on site all day. Let's hope their confidence is justified, although history here is not on their side, but you never know, fingers crossed it will be a seamless and successful changeover. What is that flying by over there?

Summary of the improvements to shelf life for 2026

We are introducing three changes this season in how we prepare our plants for delivery to our lovely retailers. We know some sites struggle to maintain the quality of our plants once they arrive on the retail plant sales areas. The plants thrive over long periods when kept here on the nursery, the irrigation is pretty accurate and applied in a timely manner in the correct volumes, and the nutrition levels are set to give long lasting healthy growth. But once we set them free, the real world isn't always so kind to them. Peat-free compost mixes struggle to hold onto as much water as peat and also don't grip the nutrients as tightly either. When added to the extra breathability of our Hairy Pots, quicker drying out can be an issue, especially if the ideal of 'little and often' applications of water is not a practical option. When the plants dry out they then tend to get over watered which flushes out the available nutrients resulting in premature deterioration in condition. To help reduce these stresses and provide a longer lasting 'looking good' shelf life we are doing the following;

1/ Adding a reusable, recycled wool capillary mat in the bottom of each tray which will hold onto extra water for the plants to take up. These are expensive and will need to be returned for reuse with the boxes.

2/ Adding extra wetting agent at despatch to allow the compost to hold onto more water and rewet more easily if dry.

3/ Adding a dose of organic slow release feed as a top dressing to compensate for any leaching of nutrients. Do your 2026 retail prices need changing?

We have increased our cost prices for 2026 by just 5p per pot, which is a little under 2%, to partially cover our ever increasing costs. If you have your stock pre-priced by ourselves, perhaps now would be a good time to let us know any changes you would like to make for the coming season. We can then adjust our records accordingly and get started on printing the correct price labels in advance of the fast approaching madness of those spring sales.

Availability list.

Cyclamen coum are coming on quickly. This selection is a champion winter performer, very hardy and just keeps on flowering, usually from November through to March and April.

Some Erysimum varieties are already showing bud and the odd flash of colour but this has been brought on by the mild winter so far. They are all pretty tough and are standing well against the frosts so far.

The first spring bulbs are here and a few are already showing their first buds. Not much in the way of colour but it won't be long. Two of the hoop-petticoat Narcissus have bud, White Petticoat and the pale lemon yellow Julia Jane, both are crackers. 

Seasonal best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy turbines

Hi.

A big weather week around the UK with snow, rain and wind aplenty. We were very lucky to be in an area avoiding all the main weather warnings. We had one night of light snow and one of -8C, which is the coldest here for a couple of years at least. We haven't yet noticed much cold damage, despite the plants looking very sad for a few hours until they thawed out. Next week looks much warmer if a little damp, not quite sure which I prefer, warmth seems quite attractive when your fingers hurt so much in the cold, but the lack of sun when it's very grey doesn't exactly fill you with vim and vigour.

I forgot to mention last week Caroline's exciting Christmas trip out. If you can remember as far back as Christmas Day it was pretty stormy and at 03.00 we had a short power cut during strong winds, and as a result, one of the turbines threw a wing tip. With the wind forecast to blow for several days that was a potential loss of significant income, so I was fairly keen to get the tip reset. It was way too windy on Christmas day itself, when you are perched on a ladder 15m up in the air you (as in Caroline you understand, not me!) feel pretty exposed even with a full multi-anchored safety harness on. 

The weather forecast was spot on when it predicted an early Boxing Day lull in wind speed and up she went, under expert guidance from the ground crew (this is where I step in). It was close to freezing, so a good job there was only one tip to reset, as the wind chill was quick to do its thing.20 minutes later and all was completed, A quick warming hug. a hot chocolate and it was back to more traditional Christmas holiday fun.

The production of our 12,000 new little capillary mats for the marketing trays, came to a grinding halt this week with the demise of our rotary cutter. It probably wasn't the best purchasing decision I have ever made, although I have made a lot worse. It worked a treat to start with and proved it was the right type of tool for the job, but it was a bit of a dodgy looking make and design, and after just a few weeks it coughed and spluttered before giving up completely. I have now sourced two battery operated ones of a more respected make, which arrived this afternoon. They work a treat, even better than the previous one, and slice through the mat like butter. There is no cable to get in the way and the blade is much better protected from any stray fingers etc. Touch wood they last a bit longer this time, the cutter that is, not the fingers. Summary of the improvements to shelf life for 2026

We are introducing three major changes next year in how we prepare our plants for delivery to our lovely retailers. We are aware that some sites struggle to maintain the quality of our plants once they arrive on the retail plant sales areas. The plants thrive over long periods when kept here on the nursery, the irrigation is pretty accurate and applied in a timely manner in the correct volumes, and the nutrition levels are set to give long lasting healthy growth. But once we set them free, the real world isn't always so kind to them. As I have mentioned previously peat-free compost mixes struggle to hold onto as much water as peat and also don't grip the nutrients as tightly either. When added to the extra breathability of our Hairy Pots, quicker drying out can be an issue, especially if the ideal of 'little and often' applications of water is not a practical option. When the plants dry out they then tend to get over watered which flushes out the available nutrients resulting in premature deterioration in condition. To help reduce these stresses and provide a longer lasting 'looking good' shelf life we are doing the following;

1/ Adding a reusable, recycled wool capillary mat in the bottom of each tray which will hold onto extra water for the plants to take up. These are expensive and will need to be returned for reuse with the boxes.

2/ Adding extra wetting agent at despatch to allow the compost to hold onto more water and rewet more easily if dry.

3/ Adding a dose of organic slow release feed as a top dressing to compensate for any leaching of nutrients.

It will be interesting to see what a difference these measures will take over the coming season, hopefully it will lead to longer lasting displays and lead to more sales for all.

Do your 2026 retail prices need changing?

We have increased our cost prices for 2026 by just 5p per pot, which is a little under 2%, to partially cover our ever increasing costs. If you have your stock pre-priced by ourselves, perhaps now would be a good time to let us know any changes you would like to make for the coming season. We can then adjust our records accordingly and get started on printing the correct price labels in advance of the fast approaching madness of those spring sales.

Availability list.

The winter flowering Helleborus Christmas Carol is showing some bud already and H. orientalis Halcyon Early Red is looking really good with bud and some red/purple colour showing too.

Cyclamen coum are coming on quickly. This selection is a champion winter performer, very hardy and just keeps on flowering, usually from November through to March and April.

Some Erysimum varieties are already showing bud and the odd flash of colour but this has been brought on by the mild winter so far. They are all pretty tough and are standing well against the frosts so far.

The first spring bulbs are here and a few are already showing their first buds. Not much in the way of colour but it won't be long. Two of the hoop-petticoat Narcissus have bud, White Petticoat and the pale lemon yellow Julia Jane, both are crackers. 

Seasonal best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy New Year

Hi.

I hope you all had a great Christmas break. It was nice to have a few days off even if it all seemed to pass by so quickly. A rotation of visiting and hosting various groups of family and friends whirled by, with lots of fun and laughs and a tear or two for those not with us this time round. We set ourselves a challenge before Christmas to clear the 'dining room' and upstairs office in order to accommodate all the beds needed. Both had become dumping grounds for various stuff which couldn't find another home and it us took three weekends to find both floors again. The loft had to be thinned out for all the excess from the office to be relocated, and then the dining room excess was thinned before relocating the remaining treasures into the new spare space in the office. Finding lots of old photos, wage slips and other memorabilia did delay the process somewhat and also make us both feel a bit ancient! Still, on the bright side, I was able to put together my 4 lane Scalextric track in the dining room and reconstruct the four cars necessary to run some great races for the 50+ year old children who visited over the break.

Winter seems to have arrived at last. No snow here just yet but it looks like we might get a flurry or two early next week. We are putting the final touches together to be ready for the upcoming plant sales season. This year's label delivery should be delivered late next week or early the following, and I hope to have the new capillary mats cut very soon, together with this year's batches of wooden POS boards and latex notices all printed and treated. Most of this winters marketing box production and repairs are complete, just waiting on another small wood delivery to finish those off. Weather permitting, in a couple of weeks time I will be looking to start the first seed sowing sessions to germinate under the heat and LED lights in the propagation tunnel, getting us off to a quick start in the spring, and trying to cover the gap that can appear between the overwintered herb stock and the spring potted batches.

Summary of the improvements to shelf life for 2026

We are introducing three major changes next year in how we prepare our plants for delivery to our lovely retailers. We are aware that some sites struggle to maintain the quality of our plants once they arrive on the retail plant sales areas. The plants thrive over long periods when kept here on the nursery, the irrigation is pretty accurate and applied in a timely manner in the correct volumes, and the nutrition levels are set to give long lasting healthy growth. But once we set them free, the real world isn't always so kind to them. As I have mentioned previously peat-free compost mixes struggle to hold onto as much water as peat and also don't grip the nutrients as tightly either. When added to the extra breathability of our Hairy Pots, quicker drying out can be an issue, especially if the ideal of 'little and often' applications of water is not a practical option. When the plants dry out they then tend to get over watered which flushes out the available nutrients resulting in premature deterioration in condition. To help reduce these stresses and provide a longer lasting 'looking good' shelf life we are doing the following;

1/ Adding a reusable, recycled wool capillary mat in the bottom of each tray which will hold onto extra water for the plants to take up. These are expensive and will need to be returned for reuse with the boxes.

2/ Adding extra wetting agent at despatch to allow the compost to hold onto more water and rewet more easily if dry.

3/ Adding a dose of organic slow release feed as a top dressing to compensate for any leaching of nutrients.

It will be interesting to see what a difference these measures will take over the coming season, hopefully it will lead to more sales all round.

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. We have increased prices by just 5p per pot, which is a little under 2%.

Availability list.

The winter flowering Helleborus Christmas Carol is showing some bud already and H. orientalis Halcyon Early Red is looking really good with bud and some red/purple colour showing too.

Cyclamen coum are coming on quickly. A winter and spring flowering form, the first few flowers are already 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.

Some Erysimum varieties are already showing bud and the odd flash of colour but this has been brought on by the mild winter so far. They may take a slight backward step if it gets properly cold, but they are all pretty tough and are standing well against the frosts so far.

The first spring bulbs are here and a few are already showing their first buds. Not much in the way of colour but it won't be long. Two of the hoop-petticoat Narcissus have bud, White Petticoat and the pale lemon yellow Julia Jane, both are crackers. 

Seasonal best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.