Hairy labels

Hi Everyone,

Considering this is supposed to be the quiet time of the year, we are madly busy, the time just flies by. Not so much on the orders front, although we do have some lovely Helleborus, including some of the niger varieties with flower and bud, a few little hardy Cyclamen in flower and some evergreens still looking smart. With the lack of really cold weather even quite a few of the herbs are looking pretty fresh too. Anyway I'm not particularly looking to sell much at this time of year, this is the time for all the spring preparations. Another two tunnels had their drains installed last week, despatch had a curtain vent replaced and lots of bark mulch got laid to get those weeds under control around the tunnel edges, We managed a few hours potting on one of the chillier damp days, just to get a few freshly lifted strawberries potted, a chance to try out our new little IR heaters in a real world situation. They worked perfectly, not too hot but a lot more comfortable. At only 600W each and with them all individually controlled by thermostat and motion detectors, they hardly made a dent on the electric consumption for the day (yes, I record the meter reading every morning!), plus it was windy enough to be covered by the turbines, so happy people all round. I wonder if the potting tunnel and despatch area will suddenly become a much more attractive places to work now! I know it's not exactly world shattering high tech stuff, but for us this whole development is quite a radical change. The team working on the nursery have never had the luxury of heat before, other than in the staff rooms at break-time and in the loos. It was a nuts amount to install, but the running costs should be easily manageable and hopefully a more comfortable work environment will help boost both morale and output, we'll see.

I am currently fine tuning the pot label designs for next season. The colour labels all need updating, by Floramedia, with the new UK plant passport info and we have quite a few new varieties added too. Our own herb printing plates will all need to be remade to include the new format, so I have started on the graphics to change all those, that's going to take quite a few days even before I start etching the plates and start the printing itself. On the bright side we have started the process a few weeks earlier than last year, so it shouldn't be quite so much of a panic this time. I am still waiting to hear from our plant health inspector to see if we will be give some leeway to use up the EU style label stock within the UK, or if we will have to over stick them (again), the decision hasn't been made yet as far as they know.

We now are set up with an import/export agent account, but the VAT deferment account application is still ongoing. We are making ground, even if we are still not really quite sure what is going on! Now the plants and labels for the spring are organised I was able to turn my efforts this week to trying to remove the last of the plastic ingredients from our marketing package. We have been pushing our suppliers for ages, for non-plastic replacements of the header board sticky labels, the header board waterproofing coating and the sheets of blank pot labels that we print ourselves for those small batches of plants which don't have a Floramedia label. It didn't go very well, the brakes have been applied to quite a few projects due to the covid disruption, so I'm having a rethink on how we do these things. I can get hold of A4 sheets of the Floramedia B500 label material, and I can print directly onto these through our OKI printer, but I can't get them pre-cut so that they pop out of the sheet after printing. I trialled the B500 card in a tray all last winter, spring and summer, mocked up as a header board and it lasted really well, so there may be an opportunity there to redesign that part and print directly onto the board, rather than onto a sticky label first. This has led to a major trawl of the internet into the realms of die cutting, of which I knew nothing about. Live and learn.

Oh yes, I blew the budget on a new/replacement van this week. The same design as last year's new Fiat, which has a bigger payload than the Peugeot we are replacing, and is so easy to load. Sadly the electric version only has a short range, as well as being more than twice the price, but perhaps next time. Delivery won't be until the spring, but looking forward to its arrival already, when hopefully a lot more other stuff will be returning to closer to normal.

Availability list highlights

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage.

We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and only in limited numbers. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Prep

 Hi Everyone,

An excellent week on the winter prep of lots of plants out there and still bowling along on the site projects. The weather was with for most of the week, so there is just the Frankenstein tunnel to recover now, which will have to wait until we have installed the new lab store. Everything else is covered and dry ready to keep the worst of the weather off the crops over the winter. We are going to have to remove a door lintel to slide the new lab store (refitted shipping container) into position as it is frustratingly about a foot too tall to get under the door frame, then we can get the new cover on. Not a mistake this time, it was all in the master plan, honest. Both twin skin tunnels are now inflated and the fan on only half the time. Result.

This is the time of year when I try to find the time to decide on what plants to grow for next year, how many and how to schedule them. With over 600 varieties and multiple deliveries of each, it is a mind bending task that needs a lot of thinking about. That then leads into sorting out the perennial colour label order so that the printers (Floramedia) have time to get it all sorted by the start of the new season. They have to secure the starch waterproofed card for the job, which is still only made in quite small batches. Having our holiday cut short has helped hugely and I am a week or two ahead of last year, which will hopefully bode well for having everything in place, although you just never know what is round the corner.

Once these key orders are finalised I can get on with updating the online catalogue for 2021. I know it's all a bit late in the year but we'll get there. There are quite a few new varieties on the perennial side of things as well as bigger volumes to contend with, 2021 looks like an exciting year for us as we try to guess how things will go.

Early indications on demand for next season are looking like we will need all that extra stock, we are already turning away potential new customers who are just too far away for us to sustainably service and deliver to. In the past when sales have been tougher we have spread our net a little wider than we would have liked, but we are never 100% comfortable with that approach as we know it is so much more difficult to maintain our levels of service, achieve sensibly quick box returns, keep delivery costs down and keep that carbon footprint as small as we can.

It looks pretty chaotic on the plant importation front at the moment. There are lots of helpful adverts from the government urging us to get ready, but we are having a really difficult time tying down exactly what we need to do. Luckily many of our young plant suppliers have a UK nursery base to distribute from, which means we avoid a lot of the hassle of any VAT deferment payments, paperwork, phytosanitary certificates etc. It will all come at a cost to us eventually and there will still be some imports where we have to do all or part of it ourselves. We are on the way with setting up an import agent and getting a VAT deferment account in place, although the forms are pretty daunting and the time lag is quite long before anything seems to happen. It's been three weeks since the deferment account form went in and nothing back yet. It also looks like we are going to have to set up with a multiple number of agents as many importers seem to be arranging agents themselves, so that they are sure their entire load has everything in place before it passes through the docks. Luckily we don't have any plants coming in very early in the year so hopefully many of the wrinkles will be ironed out by the time they are due in.

That's not the end of the extra hassle, when the plants arrive here we now have to seal the plants off from all other stock so that the Plant Health Inspectors can come and clear them for use. We can only do this if we have declared ourselves a Point of Destination and registered the import on the Peach government website in advance of its arrival. The form for registering as a POD needs the deferment account details, so we are currently marginally stuffed on that application too! Still no EU trade agreement sorted either so that helps add to the pile of unknowns. Fingers crossed all the plants I ordered will arrive. 

Wooden box returns

We have visited most of you now and collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn andmwinter. If you still have boxes needing collection please do drop me a line and we will try and get to you. We may not pick up every last box by the end of autumn, just as long as we have most of them.

Availability list highlights

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage.

We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety.

The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy breaks

 Hi Everyone,

That was a hectic couple of weeks at this end. Electricians fixing up all the new heating and lighting kit in despatch and the potting tunnel, among lots of other site activity, digging trenches, mending machines and some unexpected extras. Two weeks ago activity was intensified as Caroline and I prepared to go on our annual holiday to sunny Cornwall. Getting everything lined up for a break always takes longer than expected and this time was no different. It didn't help that three more tunnels split their covers as the temperature fell away and I had to order some replacements. Packing for the break itself got a bit rushed in the end and despite copious lists we still managed to forget most of the food for the couple of eat-in meals planned early in the break. Not a problem really as not only did Cornwall have plenty of veg on offer, but we were home by Wednesday anyway, after the lockdown announcement caught us out. A bit of a disappointment after such a hectic year, we were looking forward to a change of scene and pace, but we still packed in plenty of treats over the few days we were there, so it really does feel like we have had a break. Assuming things relax in December we are going to try again, fingers crossed. 

Coming back so quickly I thought everything would be pretty much the same, but as usual everyone seems to get on better when I'm not here and lots of jobs have either been finished or are well under way. The lovely weather helped I think. Several orders got delivered and we picked up most of the remainder of our wooden boxes, the electricians have all but finished, two tunnels were recovered with the third ready to roll. The upgrading of the Frankenstein tunnel (don't ask) to an all slab floor is nearly complete and its side curtain vent and netting removed, re-timbered and replaced. Anyone visiting the nursery will be pleased to hear that we have put up new tunnel location signs on all the tunnels, inside and out, so you (and we) can find the plants more easily. Over time the signs gradually disappear and it's only when you are standing in a tunnel and think, 'where am I?', which is happening a lot now, that you realise you can't tell. One tunnel looks like another from the inside. All in all a very productive week.

Still lots of winter projects to do though, and next week looks promising with a mild dryish few days coming up. Excitingly (it doesn't take much) I fitted the connecting pipe this morning between the existing twin skinned prop tunnel and the new twin skin cover on the frost protected tunnel. The little fan we have should in theory have enough puff to inflate both, providing there are not too many leaks round the edges, time will tell. We can stick up a few leaks easily enough but just need to be careful not to do too good a job in case a cover goes pop! Hoping to make a start on remaking all the herb printing plates with the new UK plant passport details on it, replacing all the new plates I made last year for the new EU scheme! Once made I can gt started on printing a good stock of labels ready for the spring rush. It's all go.

Natural Energy are coming in to do our annual wind turbine service this week if it's not too windy. We've had a good year on output so far, the best yet, although there is still time for a lull in the weather to knock it back, you just never know. December and January are on average the windiest months so it doesn't take many still days to upset the average and fall behind. As we add more electric equipment on the site I keep thinking consumption will go up but we are currently on our lowest annual usage since starting accurate recording in 2008 (over 40% lower than then). The new despatch heaters will definitely increase consumption in 2021, but it will be cheap energy as we are producing most of it ourselves and the improvement in working conditions should be well worth it.

Wooden box returns

We have visited most of you now and collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn and winter. The barn is full of cleaned, repaired and mostly dried trays all ready for 2021 sales to get going again. If you still have boxes needing collection please do drop me a line and we will try and get to you. We may not pick up every last box by the end of autumn, just as long as we have most of them.

Availability list highlights

A nice range of Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have sold out of a couple of lines already but still have some great niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger already. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage.

We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. As the time moves on we are well into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now.

The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only a few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Heating

Hi Everyone,

The longer the year goes on the more there seems to be to do. What happened to everything slowing up? I know sales have slowed, although still at record levels for the time of year, and the potting is just about done but the list of jobs to get done just gets longer and longer. Just wondering if I might have been a bit over ambitious with the number of winter projects we have taken on this year, it all looked so simple on paper, but time is rushing by and its November in a week's time already. Holidays are being taken so team numbers are a bit down and the weather has delayed us a bit on some jobs. It seems to be an increasing priority to get the drainage sorted out after another week of on and off heavy downpours, but the difficult access means most of the trench digging is by hand and wheelbarrow so if it gets too sticky it becomes impossible. I must admit we are gradually winning this battle, there are only the occasional flooded tunnels now and most are draining away again quite quickly if they do get swamped, but whenever I see a flood I want to get the trench dug asap, then I see another, then it rains again. Best to go away and think of something else. It will take time but we'll get there one tunnel at a time.

Electricians arrived this week to start on the despatch upgrade. That caused more chaos, as we had to clear areas in there that hadn't seen the light of day for years, but at least it opened up the whole area and we could see even more potential for improvement. They hung up one of the overhead infra red heaters just to see how they performed and sort out the best position etc. Everything about the heaters is subtle, they are small, unobtrusive, silent, emit no light and use only a tiny amount of energy (600w each). Unsurprisingly they also emitted very little heat! After the initial panic that all that money wasn't going to do the main job, we lowered the position, so it was just a little ahead of you and a couple of feet above head height then suddenly the glow of radiant heat was nicely felt. Not too warm that it would feel too cold moving away, but warm enough to be more comfortable on those cold winter and early spring days when we are busy preparing the orders. The real test will be when it is properly cold, but I am hoping for sensible benefits, but with low running costs. Each individual work station heater has its own motion detector so it will only turn on when someone is in position and a master thermostatic switch will turn them all off when the general air temperature reaches an acceptable level. Being radiant heaters they don't heat the air itself, so the warm glow returns straight away after any sudden door opening event. Luckily our wind turbines electricity output is at its peak in the winter and early spring, so each unit used will only cost us 6-8p. With new PIR controlled LED lights in despatch, the store tunnel and the 'trolley park' tunnel, we will be both efficient and safer, no more rummaging around in the dark for light switches or loading vans and trolleys in the murk. The potting tunnel is getting the same treatment later.

The old loo block is booked for removal in late November and a temporary unit lined up to rent, while we prepare the ground and connect up the new one, so that is all go. The new lab store container should be with us in early December so we'll need to prepare for that too. Good job there's nothing else to do.

Couldn't believe it but the drive chain broke again on the potting machine, a small brush mount had come loose, dropped into the compost and jammed up the rotating stirrer. There was a big bang as the chain snapped and all stopped. Had to dig out every last bit of compost before finding the offending part jammed into its new home. What fun, but actually quite a relief to find the cause none-the-less. New chain next week. We can't complain we haven't got plenty to do, we are the lucky ones. 

Wooden box returns

We have made a good start on collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn and winter. The barn is filling really quickly with cleaned, repaired and dried trays all ready for 2021 sales to get going again. We are a week or two later than usual starting this task, due to the volume of sales still going on, but if you haven't heard from us yet and have a collection ready to be picked up please do drop me a line.

Availability list highlights

Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger already. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety.

As the time moves on we are well into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show and the odd open flower. They will often still be in colour at Christmas. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only the first few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Wheelbarrows

Hi Everyone,

Big week for wheelbarrows on the nursery. We are approaching the busiest time for wheelbarrow use as most of the team will shortly be taking off to the tunnels, to initially top the compost in all of the pots with bark to slow up the liverwort and moss growth which can take over during the winter, if we are now vigilant, and then cutting all the deciduous plants back once they die back. Everyone needs at least one wheelbarrow and finding one can become a bit of a battle. I'm hoping that an extravagant splash out on several new ones and several replacement frames will bring so many back into circulation, we won't know what to do with them all. Deposit is paid on the new loo block and the electricians are due to start work on the new lights and heating in despatch and the potting tunnel. It's all go.

The bulb potting is all but finished, just a couple of hours to go which is a relief. It always takes so much longer than you think especially when compared with the throughput we achieve when potting single plants. Normally we would surround the potting machine with lots of helping hands to get them all counted and placed in the pots super quick, but with social distancing in place we had to restrict the numbers in there. With long polycarbonate screens and divides in place over machine and conveyor belt we managed to get a couple of extras in there, while keeping them safe, but it's not the same. Quite pleased with the screens though which hang on chains from the roof. They seemed a little like overkill because there is plenty of room to keep apart in there normally, but it is difficult to always keep your distance when you are focussed on getting a job done. The screens reduce that occasional closer proximity but are not too much in the way and are adjustable in position, to accommodate different potting tasks . I suspect we will have to adapt them a bit as we go, but they just help reduce the overall risk which is the main aim.

Nursery drain improvements continued this week with another two tunnels protected from the flooding with new drains dug down their entire length, drainage pipe installed and gravel laid. Four lovely new small bunkers have been installed around the site, to empty the bulk bark bags into, making filling all those wheelbarrows so much easier. It is great to do some positive improvements around the place when the news generally is not terribly uplifting.

Talking of fun things to do, I have added another job to the list for this winter. The new format plant passports introduced last winter, are changing again. The paperwork should be fairly straight forward to update, but I am going to have to make another full set of printing plates for all the herbs (etched steel plates) so we can print the right info on each label. Ace. I'm hoping we will be given a little bit of leeway on using up last year's formatted labels for the perennials, otherwise it will be another winter of over-sticking the old passport details with the new, on about 200,000 labels. The main changes are the removal of the EU flag, changing the plant passport issuer number to just a number (no GB on that bit) and change the wording of the words 'Plant Passport' to 'UK Plant Passport'. I had tried to pre-empt the change last winter by including a version with the UK flag on my plate etching but I guessed wrong, there is no flag at all, and I failed to guess the other changes. 

Wooden box returns

We have made a good start on collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn and winter. The barn is filling really quickly with cleaned, repaired and dried trays all ready for 2021 sales to get going again. We are a week or two later than usual starting this task, due to the volume of sales still going on, but if you haven't heard from us yet and have a collection ready to be picked up please do drop me a line.

Availability list highlights

Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. Fresh batch of Scabious Butterfly Blue looking good with buds appearing. We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. It will lose its leaves in a few weeks before re-growing in the spring with a flush of pale pink flowers preceding the fresh new leaves.

As the time moves on we are well into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show with the odd open flower. In our garden they will often still be showing colour at Christmas. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list with some bud showing on the niger already. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days.

Cyclamen hederifolium on the list again this week. Not too many left but most of the flower has passed now. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum available now as well. Only the first few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy developments

Hi Everyone,

A bit drier all round this week, but wetter too! We had a couple of downpours which tested the drains again (passed) and we got the irrigation up and running after the excitement of last week. I lashed out, upgrading the storage tank and pump fittings to all stainless steel and the short flexible delivery pipe, to a 2 inch reinforced rubber version. All much more expensive than the existing set up, which was a combination of galvanised (rusting) iron, plastic and a very rigid but, in theory flexible, spiralled delivery hose. The spirals ran inside the pipe too, so it was almost impossible to seal and when plastic fittings meet metal it isn't always a good match, especially as you can't tighten the plastic as much as you would like. Anyway the fittings where lovely, strong and shiny and the hose, massively over specified, but exactly what I wanted, so well worth the extravagance. It went together like a dream with not a drip in sight, other than possibly the fitter!

We are looking to make a few changes round the nursery on the back of having to get ourselves more Covid safe for the winter. The old loos are on the way out, to make way for a new set of 8, with individual doors to the outside world. Let's hope the drains are up to it. It seemed a big price to pay to cope with a possibly short term problem, but we love the extra benefits we gain. PIR led lights, lots of insulation, lots of basins, more space, efficient heaters, easy clean surfaces, self closing doors, automatic ventilation and hopefully more a pleasurable, convenient and efficient use of everyone's time. It is a specialist local company building the unit, so we are getting cash back into the economy too.

We are also having a refresh of our despatch area and potting tunnel to provide a spaced out heated area, for people to have their breaks in some comfort. Our usual arrangement of huddling together round a couple of heaters in a small stuffy insulated rooms is the last place we would feel comfortable in now, so a new way had to be found. Despatch is a light, airy and open area, where, while the weather is warm enough, we often have our breaks, so an upgrade here was the only sensible option. Local electricians are coming in to completely overhaul the system, installing small suspended low power infra-red radiant heaters over each individual workstation. Several overriding controls will keep power use to a minimum, like PIR sensors so each one will only turn on when someone is under it. It is bound to increase energy use, but we export a lot of our power from the turbines in the winter, which gives us a return of less than 5p a unit, so the real cost will be manageable. Some payback over the years in extra output in such a 'happy and cosy' workspace might help too, fingers crossed.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of good news about at the moment but I have just heard about the new government 'Green Homes Grant Scheme' for domestic homes (announced this week), which could be useful to anyone looking to bump up their environmental performance. You can get a grant of two thirds of the cost of certain home improvements, up to a maximum of £5,000, but you will need to be quick as it has a limited total fund and when it's gone it stops. 

Wooden box returns

We have made a good start on collecting up our wooden boxes as this crazy season slows up for the autumn and winter. The barn is filling really quickly with cleaned, repaired and dried trays all ready for 2021 sales to get going again. We are a week or two later than usual starting this task, due to the volume of sales still going on, but if you haven't heard from us yet and have a collection ready to be picked up please do drop me a line.

Availability list highlights

Last few Verbena Lollipop with plenty of colour but not too big. Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. Fresh batch of Scabious Butterfly Blue looking good with buds appearing. We have a nice range of the evergreen Bergenia's in stock. Watch out for the more unusual Dumbo which as it matures produces really big fleshy and rather hairy leaves, but this is a actually deciduous variety. It will lose its leaves in a few weeks before re-growing in the spring with a flush of pale pink flowers preceding the fresh new leaves.

Strong batch of Nepeta Walkers Low back on the list. As the time moves on we shift into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. Healthy chunky stock most with buds showing. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show but no colour showing just yet. In our garden they will often still be showing colour at Christmas. Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list now with some bud showing on the niger already.

Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days. A few Tiarella have pushed out another flush of flower, but very few plants in stock. More in the spring. Cyclamen hederifolium on the list again this week. Not too many left. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum on the list now as well. Only the first few ready at the moment but they will flower all winter and into the spring. Only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Wet and Hairy

Hi Everyone, 

Bit of a washout down here. The last few days have been extremely wet, close to a month's worth of rain in 3 days and a lot more to come over the next couple of days. We are only half way through refurbishing the drains but I'm glad to say they have done a pretty good job so far. They have struggled to cope during the heaviest of deluges but once the rainfall eases a bit the floods are clearing quite quickly, which will save a lot of damage. There is still quite a bit to do, but it is encouraging to see some positive results already.

On the opposite side of the equation, where we are trying to add water rather than take it away, the irrigation pumps have been a nightmare this week. I had noticed that our electric use had picked up a bit in the last few days and put it down to the extra LED's in the prop unit we have just started using again as the days shorten. However a trip into the pump shed told the true story, our variable speed pumps were continually running, alternately accelerating and slowing, which is definitely not right when I knew the irrigation was off. The meter was turning correctly one minute then running backward the next (we are not directly joined to the mains, the reverse running would push the water back into our storage tank). Phoned the pump company, who of course had never heard of such a thing happening before and helpfully suggested we got a local water engineer in to have a look. Hero Rod arrived and we had a play with all the valves etc to see if we could see what was actually happening. I turned off the main gate-valve from the tank to the pumps which confirmed the backflow issue into the tank. We will need to install a non-return valve to prevent this and that should cure the issue. Spoke to the pump set makers and they confirmed that each pump had its own NRV and perhaps one had failed. Now you would think that was the issue sorted, but life is never that simple here. I tried to reopen the main gate-valve and it just went round and round in my hand, it had also broken! Now, to get the gate valve off means emptying the tank, which we couldn't do because the valve was stuck shut. Greg and I dismantled the top of the valve (in full waterproof kit) and took the top off, no problem, but the gate itself was still stuck in position, preventing the water flow. Next I pulled the gate out with some grips and the contents of the 2 inch pipe with 80 cubic meters of water behind it, erupted vertically getting into every nook and cranny! Luckily the volume of water now inside my waterproof suit warmed up pretty quickly so it wasn't too uncomfortable at that point. To stem the flow I just had to fit the top of the valve back on, without the gate, so I leapt back into the fountain and managed to screw it back on. Slightly hysterical by this point, we were feeling quite smug at having overcome this hurdle, until I looked into the pump shed to find the whole thing under about 4 inches of water with my coat and boots floating around. I stood in there wondering where it had all come from, there was no sign of cascades or fountains but I did eventually spot the end of a hose under the water which had been left open during the earlier testing. Shed is now dry, the tank is emptying and the parts are ready to install once the rain holds off. As always I'm sure the installation will go smoothly without any hitches.

Availability list highlights

Salvia nemerosa varieties are still showing some good colour. Particularly good this week are fresh plants showing colour of Blue Marvel and Compact Caradonna. Fresh batch of Scabious Butterfly Blue looking good with buds appearing.

Ajuga's are still looking great, bold fresh foliage. Strong batch of Nepeta Walkers Low back on the list. As the time moves on we shift into Aster season. Only a few varieties left now. Healthy chunky stock most with buds showing. Last few Verbena Lollipop with plenty of colour but not too big. The ever popular Erigeron Stallone with bud on show but no colour showing just yet. In our garden they will often still be showing colour at Christmas.

Fresh Helleborous are now on the list, ready to plant out now for a flower show this winter. We have niger and orientalis on the list now as well as a few of the larger argutifolius. Some bud showing on the niger already. Attractive foliage colour on our range of Heuchera. Young and fresh. Those were the days. Sedum Autumn Joy are in bud. Classic late summer flowering and so good for the bees, trimmed back earlier to produce nice short plants. Munstead Dark Red are nearly there too

A few Tiarella have pushed out another flush of flower, but very few plants in stock. More in the spring. The sharp sighted among you might spot the Cyclamen hederifolium on the list this week. We had trouble getting the young plants this summer so we only have very limited numbers available so please don't order too many, we will probably have to restrict supply to make it fair for all. We have the longer flowering little Cyclamen coum very soon, which flowers all winter and into the spring, although only available this year in a mixed colour range and again in limited numbers.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries