Had a scary visit to Roundstone Nurseries this week for a Grow-save seminar on heating and ventilation. What a place, lovely smart warm offices and a spotless despatch, potting and production setup on a big scale. We had a brief walk round and saw crops of Poinsettia coming on for the Christmas market, all very closely monitored and managed to keep inputs to a minimum and quality high. Many of the guests were more greenhouse orientated than ourselves so their interest in heating costs etc was probably more financially significant but the overall story of lack of margin for most on this crop or no margin at all, despite a crop waste rate of less than 3%, was sobering. The market is hugely supermarket led and ruthless. Stories of large pot cyclamen imports at 50p/pot were told and there were a few long faces at the longer term prospects if this sort of madness carries on. The depth of knowledge in the room was very impressive, with clever use of heat, irrigation and venting reducing and in some cases eliminating the need for sprays to control growth habits and diseases. These were very highly skilled growers producing fantastic crops yet they struggle to pay minimum pay rates to make ends meet and without better consumer appreciation will struggle to survive. It was interesting to see one large ornamental grower selling up two of their nursery sites over the last couple of weeks to a food producer, possibly a trend to watch. Luckily I did pick up a few useful pointers as to how we can eek our oil heating costs out a bit, while at the same time improving our propagation successes, so it wasn’t all bad news.

I’m not sure whether I should mention how well Southampton FC are doing on their return to the championship, riding high and playing pretty well. It’s amazing how far a bit of extra confidence can take you. We went into the city on Friday to see The Beat and a great young band called Will and the People, all of them oozed confidence but in a fun and non-irritating way. Even if you are not old enough to remember the Ska scene of the eighties look out for The Beat. It always seems slightly sad to be going to see a reformed band in a small local venue, but it was a great party atmosphere and the band very entertaining and talented. It’s always a good sign if the band look like they are having a good time!

Have you noticed the cooler weather has brought about a change in fly populations. We did have a big influx of quick moving little buggers who were very irritating and in my eagerness to catch & despatch them tended to get over splattered. It’s been a good time to avoid any homemade garibaldi biscuits in our house! Now we are into the cluster flies which tend to congregate at this time of year to hibernate. Fatter, dopey things, easier to swat but form ugly seething masses when they find a nice home. They used to be a problem in the loft until we put up an electric killing machine and now I’ve noticed them filling up the control boxes at the base of the turbines, not very nice when you open them up to check the readings. The joys of country living.

Eco News

We made page two in the paper with a reasonable splash. www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/9319823.New_wind_farm_near_Winchester_up_and_spinning

I would hardly classify us as a wind farm (too small and less than 5 in number), let alone a major wind-farm, but there you go why would you want the press to be accurate, there is no sensationalist or entertainment value in that! I may have accidentally invited a load of complaints by mentioning that only one person had complained directly since they went up 3 months ago, but hopefully all will pass off quietly.

We are having the first service of the turbines in a couple of weeks which should see the last of the setup stuff completed. Although they have been busy generating since we turned them on there are still a few bits of the installation to tidy up before all is signed off at which point we will have a look at getting some local groups/schools in to have a look at what is going on and how it all works.

Times are tough and sustainability rules. Even our labels get the chop. Apparently the huge tongue depressor market is saving resources by now making them 1mm narrower so I will need to remake our wider printing plates to accommodate the change, I bet they didn’t think of that when they changed.

Skylarks are back in the field already singing and fighting over territory.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

What a week. We were hoping for a lull in proceedings to allow us to catch up a bit, but despite doing a Monday shift we didn’t get as far as we had hoped. We have even more staff in (when not off ill) and another starting on Monday, but it just seems that everything was against us to get very far.
Sales took quite a dip after the poor weather last weekend and I suspect will continue to be limited with the continuing coolness. We are quite relieved as it does give an opportunity to catch up, at least in theory!
The week started badly with a virulent cold sweeping the nursery (hitting me particularly hard!), I haven’t can a cold for ages and I usually save them up for holidays anyway, so this one was a surprise and the head numbing features make running the nursery even more of a challenge, although Caroline says she hasn’t noticed any difference.

The other weeks hiccups included the potting machine dying just when we need it most. Every now and then the wear in the chains reaches a point when the adjusters can’t cope and one of the chains jumps a cog or two.  This messes up the timing of the drill and makes it start drilling into the machine rather than the compost in the pots! So potting comes to a standstill while I dismantle everything, remove the chain and shorten it by removing a link. All went swimmingly until I tried to refit the chain which was now about 2mm too short to fit back together, oh fiddlesticks. After much stretching, nut loosening, hammer hitting and words of encouragement we got it back together, only to find I had knocked over the crate where I had put the chain link retaining bits and they had disappeared somewhere on the compost covered floor! That took another 20 minutes with a magnet being waved over the debris before they were reclaimed. Anyway it’s all up and running again now.
Later that day I managed to get bitten by a local dog just above the knee, when redelivering some post (I ignored the sign on the gate!) and ended up with a hole in my best work trousers (the least ink covered) and a leaky sore leg. Looking on the bright side, at least the dog wasn’t taller.
Other than the wonderful nursery life this week, the highlight was going to see The Beat in concert at Salisbury Art Centre. For those too young to remember they were a ska band from the late 70’s early 80’s (Mirror in the Bathroom, Best Friend, Too Nice to Talk Too among there many hits) and they were brilliant. Lots of sad old folk there reliving their past and judging by some of the outfits and kids in tow some still living in the past! The support band were a very talented young ska band, attired in a more up to date fashion and I must admit to desperately wanting to answer the call for any requests with ‘Yes, pull your trousers up’!

Eco Update

Still no news on wind turbine planning, but they have cashed the application fees so it must be in there somewhere.

Nature notes

House martins have been spotted, arrived on Saturday, so summer is here.

Don't forget to do your bit. Have a good week.