Hairy coordination

Hi 

At last, the sun has made a showing today and Saturday looks promising too. This dull wet weather has affected a few plants, but most are now coming into spring growth with surprising enthusiasm. A little bit more brightness would be perfect but it looks like we are to return to topping up the groundwater levels again over the coming week, but at least it does help recover from last summer’s water shortages.

This week saw the first young plant stock arriving ready  for potting, so it really must be Spring. The potting machine has had its post-winter check-over and its chains tightened, and the tunnels are being prepared for their new inhabitants Over the past ten years or so we have  been gradually upgrading the site with what seems like miles of hand  dug and filled drains beside every tunnel on a mission to try and collect as much rainwater as we can,  to utilise in the irrigating of our crops. Over the winter, 3 years ago,  we had installed a collection of large interconnecting drains and sumps, together with pumps, a lot of pipework and cabling and a new large storage tank, all at huge expense. It has all been in use sporadically since then but has so far never  been the fully automated solution promised at the start. A series of issues kept tripping us up, incorrectly wired pump controls resulted in uncontrolled pump use on the auto settings, a faulty float switch which refused to stop the pump when running dry, silty water in the second ‘clean’ sump meant installing a large sand filter, a backflow of water in the main supply pipe from the tank to the sump needed a very large non-return valve inserting and then we eventually found an poorly fitted pipe connection 3 ft underground. This underground leak created the biggest mystery as we couldn’t understand why the storage tank was never  quite filling up despite the copious rainfall. What happened was, the sump pump would come  on, fill up the now empty large bore pipe work, and then turn off again before putting anything much into the tank. The pipe would then drain out again through  the leak before the pump turned  back on, and so the cycle would repeat. To add to the confusion the delivery pipe into the storage tank included a pipe that ran a third of the way down the inside of the tank, which would effectively syphon out all the water it could reach. Anyway, this week,  after a very long process, we have  achieved the initial aim of the project and the whole system now works as it should. Both pumps work together in a coordinated and automated fashion, so whenever we have  rainwater available in the sumps it gets pumped into the storage tank, and that water gets fed into the main irrigation tank, taking priority over the normal water supply. Result.  So now the system is working efficiently, the next fun job is to maximise the amount of run-off water we can capture and get flowing into the sumps. I have  a few ideas and fingers crossed they shouldn’t be expensive. Famous last words!

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. To help provide a longer lasting 'looking good' shelf life we are going to be 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.

Despite the very dull weather there  has been a surprising amount of growth over the last couple of weeks in both the perennial and herb ranges, things are beginning to look quite Spring-like.

The early spring bulbs are showing well with many of the Narcissus are now in bud, White Petticoat and the pale lemon- yellow Julia Jane, both are crackers.

There  are two Scilla showing bud and a good colour and Muscari Blue Magic are now up and in tight bud. The first of our naturalising Tulips is in bud, but don’t hang  about  I don’t have  a huge  number left.

Pulmonaria varieties are in bud, not far from showing colour. We don’t have  much Blue Ensign left but plenty of the others. Most Erysimum varieties are already showing bud and the odd flash of colour and stood up well after several hard frosts we saw a couple of weeks ago.

Polemonium Heaven Scent are looking great,  bushy tight bronzed bushy foliage with tight bud just appearing. Cyclamen coum Silver-leaved are flowering and will flower from November through to March and April. 

Seasonal best wishes from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.