Hairy Eunice

Morning all, 

Hope you are all ok after the Big Wind of Friday. Sitting on the side of a hill in a valley facing southwest we feared we were going to be a bit vulnerable, but despite some horrendous conditions, I think we have got away with it reasonably lightly. As the crow flies, if he could get off the floor, we are not that far from The Needles on the Isle of Wight (122 mph) so we definitely faced a good blow, but with a bit of planning and a good dose of luck we are still standing.

I'm touch late with this list, because we did lose power on the nursery for 24 hours, in fact the house is still off. It's only when you are without it that you realise how much depends on that power coming down the line. Even the oil fired kit won't go without the electric controller, so no hot water, central heating, phones (now we are internet run), the list goes on. On the nursery we do have a generator to keep the essential heating systems going but other than that it's a complete shutdown. Luckily we decided not to have anyone in on Friday, so that kept the tension a bit lower considering the conditions. It did get a bit exciting when two of the tunnel covers let go, but a bit of sensible cutting and dragging meant I was able to get the wildly flapping sheets off the tunnels and into some shelter. Then a small tree by our entrance fell across the road which disrupted the traffic, but we quickly cleared that with the help of a neighbours chainsaw skills and the forklift. There is a lot of stuff blown about and a few bits of other relatively minor damage to still sort out but, fingers crossed, that is the worst done and dusted.

Sadly we didn't even benefit from any extra turbine output, the wind speeds were forecast to be so strong that our maintenance company advised us to park the blades, just in case. Then with no power on the grid we couldn't restart them until this morning (they are understandably not keen on us putting power into the cables when someone might be up the pole doing repairs!). They are bowling along again now, so hopefully they will help pay for some new covers.

We whizzed out a few orders early in the week so we could avoid deliveries on Friday and I had in the back of my mind that we could have a thrash at cutting back a big dollop of the last of the crops that are still waiting for their winter trim. Events got the better of us which is a real pain, I just hope we aren't too busy this week and we get time for another go before the spring madness sets in. The forecast looks to be quite breezy and wet at times, which might hold sales back a bit and there will be quite a bit of tidying up for everyone to do after Friday, so maybe we will get that chance.

I should be printing labels now the power is back on but I'm just beginning to wonder if we are going to have to do some emergency decanting of the fridge and freezer this afternoon. There is a tiny freezer on the nursery we can use and the rest we might have to de-thaw and eat. I have already started clearing the fridge where there was a large collection of bottled larger getting too warm, although I didn't get very far through it last night before I fell asleep in front of the wood burner. Too old to cope these days.

Availability list highlights

Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not big, soft and lush. There isn't a lot of colour yet and where there is some, the plants are disappearing fast. A bit more warmth and we'll get another flush of varieties, I can see the signs of action, just not quite enough to send just yet.

Not in flower but always very popular at this time of year, the Alliums and Camassia bulbs are shooting nicely. It's a shame the foliage goes a bit tatty and they are impossible to handle in a pot by the time they flower, as they are both such great garden plants. Good ones for the pollinators.

Scilla sibirica have royal blue colour peaking through. An early spring stunner.

Our dwarf Narcissus varieties are starting to bud up now and look springy. They won't hang around long, as I try not to overdo volumes of this sort of plant, just in case the weather turns on me!

Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, especially in the red, but both now carrying lots of tight bud.

Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. The Red Jep and Pastel Patchwork have tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment.The all time favourite Bowles Mauve are there too but not quite as advanced as the others.

Scaboius Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist think it's spring, with bud on show.

Primula veris (Cowslip) have bud and the odd flash of very early sunshine yellow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy and bare root!

Morning all,

What is going on? Sales are through the roof at the moment, this week we reached levels not usually seen until early March. Maybe the wind and rain forecast over the weekend might slow things up a bit, although having said that we already have a few orders already lined up for despatch. I suppose we have been pretty lucky with the weather, considering the time of year, so I'm not banking on this excitement to be unrelenting until the end of the summer, I'm sure there will be some hiccups along the way.

We did manage to get some other work done too, with another little dabble into some bare-root potting and a bit of a tidy up in despatch were some of the winter projects had been based. With the box making finished and all the new POS boards and pot labels filed away, the debris created could be re-homed until next winter, creating a nice big open space for the orders again. You forget how big these areas are when they get cluttered up.

The high early sales levels have caught us out a bit, because despatch should have been sorted out before we needed the space, but we got there in the end. Now there are just the rest of the overwintered plants to finish tidying up, out in the tunnels. Things were progressing as planned a month ago, but with so much time spent despatching over the last 3 weeks we have fallen behind, so time to add a few more hours to the week in order to catch up.

The irrigation treatment device is settling in nicely, as we get used to how it works and adjusting the settings etc. I still have one annoying leak, but to fix it I have needed to change about 6 parts and I never have the right combination of bits to fit. Pipestock.com must think I'm trying to buy up all their stock, as I'm ordering every other day. Glad to say that in the end the set up will be simpler and easier to maintain in the long run and in theory less likely to leak when we mess around with it. The rainfall water collection project is continuing to gather an expensive collection of parts, but has halted in actual physical progress for a few weeks. One additional feature added was that we picked up a mystery fog horn drifting across the site, which we just couldn't pin down. After blaming the local farmers for running noisy fans or similar, it turned out to be the large drain pipes we had parked under the hedge. On breezy days they act like blowing across multiple bottle tops, producing quite a deep eerie sound.

More delays on delivery of our new big truck meant we have had to have the old one serviced again and the tacho calibrated, as well as pressing it back into service in London, to cope with the delivery volumes. At £100 a day inside the M25, it's not a cheap option and one we had hoped would be well behind us by now. It must be a year since we ordered it, with the initial delivery estimate in October, which was bad enough, but multiple delays later we still don't have a date other than sometime in March. Lack of parts are taking the blame, very frustrating for all concerned.

Availability list highlights

Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not big, soft and lush. There isn't a lot of colour yet and where there is some, the plants are disappearing fast. A bit more warmth and we'll get another flush of varieties, I can see the signs of action, just not quite enough to send just yet.

Not in flower but always very popular at this time of year, the Alliums and Camassia bulbs are shooting nicely. It's a shame the foliage goes a bit tatty and they are impossible to handle in a pot by the time they flower, as they are both such great garden plants. Good ones for the pollinators.

Scilla sibirica have royal blue colour peaking through. An early spring stunner..

Our dwarf Narcissus varieties are starting to bud up now and look springy. They won't hang around long, as I try not to overdo volumes of this sort of plant, just in case the weather turns on me!

Pulmonaria varieties are shooting nicely after their winter trim. Trevi Fountain, Shrimps and Opal are showing tight buds. Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, especially in the red, but both now carrying lots of tight bud.

Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. The Red Jep and Pastel Patchwork have tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment and the Apricot Twist are looking strong and bushy too. The all time favourite Bowles Mauve are there too but not quite as advanced as the others.

Scaboius Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist think it's spring, with bud on show.

Primula veris (Cowslip) have bud and the odd flash of very early sunshine yellow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy deer

Morning all,

Touch of frost last week but overall pretty mild down here in the barmy south. No sign of a big freeze just at the moment, fingers crossed it just all rolls along quietly. We had our lowest January wind output ever (from the turbines anyway) after our lowest year in 2021, just hoping we recover over the next few months to get back to average at least, I'm not sure we can afford the new electric rates being proposed. We wait with baited breath to see what deal we are offered on our exported power in April, it only gets reviewed once a year and I am hoping to get a bit more than the 5p we currently get, especially with the wholesale price still above 12p. We will see.

The calm weather has prompted continuing higher than usual plant sales, which is great and kept us busy, however, we still managed to hit a wonderful milestone by finishing the box construction and the wooden POS boards for the year. It turned out to be a bigger than predicted job, but great to get it done before the sales madness really kicks off. Hopefully we will have enough boxes to see us through to next winter and I'm sure with some prompt returns we will keep everything rolling. Potting got underway this week with the bare-root strawberries tucked into their pots and I see we are due two more deliveries next week, one of our bare root perennials and a load of modules to be potted over the next couple of weeks. It really must be spring. Whatever happened to that long relaxed winter I was looking forward to?

The new water treatment system is up and running. Initially we had the usual numerous leaks, but they are down to one irritatingly small drip from one joint now, so better than before we started! We will have to wait and see if this investment improves plant quality, reduces the disease losses and the spraying needed to keep disease at bay. It isn't something we will notice over a day or two, we will just have to be patient.

The rain water collection project hit the buffers this week with all the farm team being tied up on ploughing in the nice weather. On the plus side I had a visit from a ground-works chap who is going to finish it all off for us by doing the rest of the digging, trenching, pipe laying, back-filling, block work, and laying of the two concrete pads. Not particularly looking forward to the quote arriving, but it is the only way we are going to get this done before the summer. He can't start until March at the earliest but at least the construction sites are away from our work areas so we can keep out of each other's way.

Having deterred the rabbits last year when they were eating us out of house and home, we have now moved onto a Muntjac deer for a bit of variety. We have started to move some crops into our one fully enclosed production tunnel to try and protect them, but it's not a very economic solution in the long term. It has been spotted a few times over the last month and the munching evidence is now fairly widespread. I saw it this afternoon as it wandered in a very relaxed manor up the back of the nursery and hopped over the fence into the field. Having secured the nursery fence again this winter against the rabbits, we aren't going to be able to deer proof it at this stage, so I'm afraid there may be a stronger deterrent in the pipeline. There are so many of them about now around here, barely a night time journey goes by without one being spotted by the road. New year, new challenge.

Availability list highlights

Most plants are still in their winter dormancy, but there are still a few stars shining out there. The spring bulbs are beginning to sprout with one or two hinting at some colour.

Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not big, soft and lush.

Both Scilla varieties are showing some colour already. Narcissus bulbocodium are looking fab, producing bud and look springy. They won't hang around long, as I try not to overdo volumes of this sort of plant, just in case the weather turns on me! Helleborus niger are still in strong bud and flower, looking like they should.

Pulmonaria varieties are shooting nicely after their winter trim. Trevi Fountain, Shrimps and Opal are even showing tight buds. Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, especially in the red. Centaurea Amethyst Dream showing bud and the odd flash of deep purple colour.

Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. Just the Red Jep has tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment, but the Apricot Twist and Pastel Patchwork are looking strong and bushy too. Scaboius Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist think it's spring, with bud on show.

Primula veris (Wild primrose) and Primula veris (Cowslip) with bud and the odd flash of very early spring sunshine yellow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy plumbing

 Morning all,

Wow that was a busy selling week. I know it's early and we are not at full barmyness levels yet, but that was our biggest week despatching in any January or February week ever, other than one week last year when the last week of February was a tiny bit more. Unfortunately we got slightly knocked off course on all the other jobs but still managed to make progress and the bank manager will be relieved that some money is already due to come in.

The overwintering plant tidying took a hit, but we ploughed on with the some of the biggest projects. We are so close to finishing the wooden box making, all the bits are printed, painted and treated and just a 100 or so boxes left to construct, a big relief to see the end in sight. We will have to do a stock take of bits left, once complete, because I know we are short of one component so I will need to order a few more to tidy up the last bits. The wooden POS boards for the season are nearly done too, just another days printing and treating and I should be there. Might get that done over a quiet day on Saturday.

Big day on Wednesday with the arrival of all our card based colour labels for the year. Nearly 500,00 to file away before Monday. Luckily I started earlier in the week by relabelling all their little storage boxes so we are just about ready to unpack and get filing.

Following on from last week, all my plumbing bits arrived for the installation of our new water treatment system. Today Greg and I spent the day dismantling all the pipe-work in the pump shed, repositioning the pumps to fit in the rather large new unit and then cutting and gluing the new bits together. Naturally the first fitting required was the wrong size, swiftly followed by two more and I wondered if starting this whole thing was a mistake. Luckily we found an old spare bit which sorted one issue and fitted a temporary bypass round the other. I have ordered a couple of reducers to sort out the ordering mistakes (yes me again) so that shouldn't be an issue. I must say the rest of the operation went really well and everything is now more or less in one piece but the test will come tomorrow when all the glues and jointing compounds have set and we can put the system under full water pressure. I know there is likely to be the odd drip, but fingers crossed for no major flooding. We still have to get the electrician in to do the final powering up for the control panel but we are nearly there.

We are progressing swiftly with the work to join up all our tunnel drains and start harvesting some decent volumes of rainwater. The last of the drainage pipe arrived this week, with water pipes and float cables etc coming on Monday. We have a monster submersible pump already here to drop in the water collection sump and today the farm pitched up with their JCB to dig out the hole for the sump. They are kindly fitting us in around all the farm work they should be doing, so progress may be a bit erratic but they are off to a great start, it would be a big hole to dig by hand! With 300m of trenching to do we will be very grateful for their mechanic assistance and hopefully we can get it all together before the season goes mad. It will be a close call.

We very nearly did our first bit of spring potting this week, but ran out of time. The weather next week looks reasonably settled so with luck we can catch up then. It's a our annual crop of bare root strawberries which always seem to do so well, although they are a bit of a pain to get in the pots as they are so chunky. It might well be the last time we use the old potting machine because the new one should be here very shortly. It has done us proud over 23 years, but it's only the rust and paint that holds most of it together so we will be glad to see the replacement. It should more than see me out!

Availability list highlights

Things are still pretty quiet during this cold snap with most plants still in winter dormancy, but there are still a few stars shining out there. The spring bulbs are beginning to sprout with one or two hinting at some colour.

Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not soft and lush.

Helleborus niger are still in strong bud and flower, looking like they should.

Pulmonaria varieties are shooting nicely after their winter trim. Trevi Fountain and Opal are even showing tight buds.

Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, especially in the red.

Centaurea Amethyst Dream showing bud and the odd flash of deep purple colour.

Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. Just the Red Jep has tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment, but the Apricot Twist and Pastel Patchwork are looking strong and bushy too.

Scaboius Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist think it's spring, with bud on show.

Wild primrose with bud and the odd flash of very early spring sunshine yellow. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy aprons

Morning all,

Despite the winter weather the plant sales are already ticking over with quite a busy coming week already lined up. Slightly scary that it is the new plant season already, but it does give us a bit of a push to get all those winter jobs tidied away. The only fly in the ointment I that keep adding to the job list which might turn round and bite me in a few weeks time. However if it goes well we should be well set for an exciting year with a few new toys to play with.

This week's 'dressing up' went brilliantly with all manner of Hairy Pot customised kit on display. We did have a few sizing issues so we ended up doing a few swaps between us all, and we will need to put in another order to fill in the gaps. There was a second order on the cards anyway as a few items wanted were out of stock. The layered look was definitely 'in' this week with the cool temperatures, shirts, sweatshirts, then body warmers, fleeces and coats, plus for me an apron in the mix too. Very cosy. The aprons are proving to be a hard sell, despite them looking really smart (navy organic cotton blue bib apron with the Hairy Pot Plant Company name and logo, embroidered discretely, centre front), the chaps and a few of the girls are definitely anxious about their image and the idea of a flouncy apron just doesn't hit the spot. I on the other hand think they look very artisan and craftsmen like (and keep my other kit clean), it just shows how your minds image can shape your view of the world.

I came embarrassingly close to a possible harassment charge earlier in the week, when I brought down a couple of polo shirts I had tried on at home, for one of our ladies to try for size. She took one home and all went well, but later in the week I found I had lost my yoga 'safety pants' (I'm a boxer man usually), and where did I find them? In the office wrapped up in the second shirt. That was a close call!

One of this winters projects is to install a new irrigation water treatment system, which will improve the water quality, help control fungal diseases and reduce any spraying we have to do to control the occasional outbreak. It was a tad expensive at over £10,000, but the running costs are tiny, especially in comparison with any chemical treatments we might otherwise have to use. We only have to save a few plants each year and reduce our sprayer operator time a bit, to make it pay. I think they call it a long term investment rather than a quick fix, but it does tie us into sticking it out a few more years yet! All the kit arrived this week on one pallet and I must admit to being slightly taken aback by the size of it. It was a classic case of eye's bigger than stomach. I had originally worked out the sizing and fitting based on a lower range model but had been tempted into a higher rated one, based on easier and more efficient operation, but failed to notice the larger dimensions (it looked the same in the photo). It wasn't until I actually measured it and then visited the pump shed that I realised my error. There then followed a major re-jig on how the pumps and pipe-work are to be repositioned so we can squeeze it in. I now have a sizable order in for new pipe-work bits to make it all come together and will have a very nerve racking day or two while we dismantle the existing system and rebuild. All the time we are off there will be only a small mains supply so no pressure there (no pun intended if you can believe that). The amount of kit in there, all joined together using combinations of BSP and metric threads, male and female ends and various pipe diameters, is daunting, I just hope I've ordered all the right bits. Of course I have every confidence it will go as smoothly as these things always do.

Availability list highlights

Things are still pretty quiet during this cold snap and most plants are still in winter dormancy, but there are still a few stars shining out there. The spring bulbs are beginning to sprout with one or two hinting at some colour.

Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth, although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in habit and not soft and lush.

The long flowering Cyclamen coum varieties are coming along with flowers opening already. This coum series we are growing, flowers continuously from September to April given reasonable winter conditions, it is really hardy although the number of flowers open at any one time gives a more subtle and modest appearance than some of the very showy modern and less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours,

Helleborus niger are still in strong bud and flower, looking like they should. Pulmonaria varieties are shooting nicely after their winter trim. Blue Ensign and Opal are even showing tight buds. Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some occasional flower colour showing, especially in the red.

Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. Just the Red Jep has tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment, but the Apricot Twist and Pastel Patchwork are looking strong and bushy too. Scaboius Butterfly Blue think it's spring, with bud on show, although the cold may stop full colour showing just yet. 

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy irrigation

Morning,

Hope all is well. Nice to be a bit of sunshine and some cool winter temperatures. Although it is much easier to get stuff done in the warmth, I always get a bit nervous at this time of year that if it's too warm now we will pay for it later. Much better to get the cold out of the way early. Not a lot we can do about it, but it's comforting to have a belief system, no matter how nuts, lurking in the background.

Still very early in the year but we are back into exciting stuff already. The updated printing screens for the wooden POS boards arrived on Tuesday, just in time to get a few printed off to go with most of this week's orders. It was all a bit hand to mouth with liberal splashes of permanent black ink decorating the surroundings, but the combination of new screens, new ink and kind weather worked pretty well and we got there in the end. You may notice that we have changed the mounting arrangement for the larger boards so they are now screwed to a box base only, without the wooden box sides. This makes them a bit more versatile in what you can do with them, they should be easier to hang or screw to a display area or bench. It also saves on a few resources at this end and with timber prices the way they are we are going to need to hold onto all the savings we can make. Once the boards are all done we can finish off the box making which will complete this winters investment in new box stock (3,500 boxes at £10 a pop, ouch!),

For the last 4 winters we have been preparing the nursery for rainwater harvesting. We have hand dug over 1.5km of french drains between all the tunnels (too restricted to get a machine in there), initially with the intention of reducing the flash flooding we were regularly experiencing on the production beds inside the tunnels, but with the hope that we could start harvesting the output to use in the irrigation system. This week I had a chap out to give us some advice on the next step in the process, and what a revelation it was! It was one of those rare occasions when someone comes up with a series of practical, sensible and economic ideas that fitted perfectly with where we are at the moment. I was envisaging sumps, filter beds, a banked and fenced reservoir, multiple pumps and a whole heap of work and expense. But by working out what we needed to achieve, applying it to the site and looking at the work we have already done, we just need a small settlement sump, a single pump and an extra water tank to store some of the water. We don't need to save all the water we get overwinter, just the rainfall when we are in the growing season. We can fairly easily feed the proposed sump with all our drain water and any excess can overflow back into the chalk aquifer. By positioning the new storage tank with the top of the tank at the same height as the existing one we don't even need to pump from one tank to the other, just leave them joined together and they will equalise levels. That is the sort of planning I like. We will need to trench from the sump at the bottom of the nursery to the new tank at the top, but we can utilise the same trench to send some of the tunnel drain water back to the sump at the same time, so that works joyously as a double ended solution. It just gets better and better. Generally 50% of the annual rainfall is in the winter when we don't need it on the nursery but the rest falls when we are irrigating so we should be able to get a good proportion of the rainfall recycled through the irrigation to take the pressure off the borehole use. Can't wait to get started, just wondering if we can fit it in before the season gets going full tilt.

Watch out this week if you get a delivery, there may be a flash of Hairy Pot livery on display. First batch came today, it's like Christmas again! 

Availability list highlights

Things are pretty quiet now and most plants are still in their winter dormancy, but there are still a few stars shining out there. The spring bulbs are beginning to sprout up with one or two hinting at some colour. There will be more appearing over the next few weeks I'm sure, especially if we don't freeze up too solidly. Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in its habit and not soft and lush.

The long flowering Cyclamen coum varieties are coming along with flowers opening already. This coum series we are growing, flowers continuously from September to April given reasonable winter conditions, it is really hardy although the number of flowers open at any one time gives a more subtle and modest appearance than some of the very showy modern and less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours. Some of the Helleborus niger are still in strong bud and flower,

Pulmonaria varieties are shooting nicely after their winter trim. Blue Ensign and Opal are even showing buds. Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some flower colour showing, especially in the red. Most of this crop came to grief last year in a batch of dodgy compost, but thankfully it is looking fab this time. Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. Just the Red Jep with tight bud lurking among the foliage at the moment, but the Apricot Twist and Pastel Patchwork are looking strong and bushy too.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Energy

Morning all,

Happy New Year to all and I hope you all had a lovely festive break. We had a lovely time, not hugely social but a lot more relaxed than 2020.

Managed to squeeze in a few days screen printing boxes, in that bonkers mild weather, which was great to get done. Back to reality this week with early starts and some pretty cold nights again. The forecast doesn't look too bad for the next week or so, once Saturday is out of the way, cool but not frozen and not too wet either.

Not quite got a full crew back yet with a few elongating their break and making the most of our relatively quiet period before the madness descends on us again. The first couple of retailer orders went out this week so spring must be on the way. It is obviously very early I know, but I was quite impressed at how nice the plants looked considering it is the first working week of the year. I already have a couple more lined up for next week so we am going to have to brace ourselves for getting properly organised for some serious despatching again. It always catches me out, December is so short, and sales get going so quickly once those bulbs start popping into view. Those winter jobs we were going to do in the quiet spell become more and more difficult to shoehorn in, but hey-ho, the cash-flow will be relieved at some income again.

Still slogging away at box construction with our small gang of 'craftsmen', and I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have never had so many stacked pallets in the barn at one time, fingers crossed it will be enough for the peak sales in the spring and we don't have to rush about making more when we have no spare time. I am currently awaiting the arrival of a new set of printing screens for the wooden POS boards that will be accompanying everyone's early orders. I have updated the wording to be more up to date with current developments on the nursery. All the wood has been prepared for the printing and we just need the screens to get going on the refresh. We are going to be so organised this year!

Another job that will end up being a rush I suspect, will be the sign writing on the vans we are hoping to get sorted. We were waiting for the new 7.5 tonne van to arrive to get them all done at the same time, but it hasn't pitched up yet so we are going to have to start without it. No slipping quietly in as just another unmarked white-van man, this season you will know we have arrived. When we add the new staff kit into the equation it could almost be called professional, which would be a novelty!

We are having a serious look at bolstering our energy production by putting in a few solar panels to top up the wind turbine output. It's not many because our system can't handle too much extra generation without major upgrades which would be too expensive. With more kit being electrified and prices increasing alarmingly it seems like the right thing to do. Just found out we will have to get planning permission first, which might delay things, we'll see.

Sadly our plans for driving around in a nice electric car have gone on hold with delivery delayed from January until late April at the earliest. Good job we aren't busy then, I will have loads of time to cruise around showing off to the locals. 

Availability list highlights

Things are pretty quiet now and most plants in their winter dormancy, but there are still a few stars shining out there. The spring bulbs are beginning to sprout up with one or two hinting at some colour. There will be more appearing over the next few weeks I'm sure, especially if we don't freeze up to solidly. Please do bear in mind that it is still mid-winter so our unheated plant growth although healthy, is likely to be winter 'tight' in its habit and not soft and lush.

The long flowering Cyclamen coum varieties are coming along with flowers opening already. This coum series we are growing, flowers continuously from September to April given reasonable winter conditions, it is really hardy although the number of flowers open at any one time gives a more subtle and modest appearance than some of the very showy modern and less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours,

Some of the Helleborus niger are still in strong bud and flower, Helleborus orientalis are looking strong with the occasional bud showing. A slightly enlarged range from us this year with the introduction of the Pretty Ellen range of a red, white and a pink.

Spring bulbs are shooting and there are a few on the list this week, so more exciting sales levels are on the way.

Pulmonaria varieties are shooting nicely after their winter trim.Blue Ensign and Opal are even showing buds, so the rest won't be far behind.

Aubretia in blue and red shades are looking bushy, nice and tight in growth habit with some flower colour showing, especially in the red. Most of this crop came to grief last year in a batch of dodgy compost, but thankfully it is looking fab this time. Another spring favourite are the Erysimum's which are coming on line now. Just the Red Jep with tight bud lurking among the foliage at he moment, but the Apricot Twist and Pastel Patchwork are looking strong and bushy too.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries