Hairy sensors

 

Busy, busy as we approach the last of the Spring bank holidays. Looks like the weather is going to break with some more very welcome rain. Let's hope it is encouraging rain with enough dry breaks for plenty of visits to the plant sales areas!

We don't have a despatch team in on Monday but we will be preparing the paperwork etc for orders as usual over the over the weekend and on Monday. We will still need to book any longer deliveries onto Bleach by noon on Monday so please do order in plenty of time if you are a long way from Winchester.

I was only thinking a couple of days ago I have had very few van troubles over the last couple of months and perhaps everything had settled down to behave nicely. Bad thought. The newest one through its toys out of the pram this week with both a low oil level and low brake level warning. The brake level is easy to check, you just look at the little reservoir under the bonnet it was fine, but the oil level, as I have mentioned before, is a little more tricky. In their wisdom Fiat opted for a sensor to show the oil level with no dipstick, well not in the engine anyway. It showed 2 bars out of 8, so we topped it up, no change. topped it up a bit more still no change. I didn't want to overfill so we left it at that. Two days later engine warning comes on, oil below minimum. The driver was miles away so we suggested buying a litre of oil and tipping it in. Now we get oil over full warning. After some garage advice we plodded on and got home ok, but had to send it in to be checked over. Fiat have altered the software somewhere and it turns out that our garage can no longer run diagnostics on the newer Fiats so it has to go back to a main dealer and there is a two week wait for a slot. Can't use it before then. Hey ho. Looking forward to getting the electric one, not a Fiat!

Solar setting up progressed a bit this week with a visit from the tech man who sorts out the data collected from the various parts of our electric system, the solar, battery, wind and overall consumption. He spent a long time measuring things to come to the conclusion that they won't play nicely together on their existing software. They have parameters set and if the data doesn't do what is expected it produces lots of error alerts. The main hiccup is the turbines which behave very differently from solar arrays. Turbines will use power to initially start up after a stoppage and also to run the control computer when there is no wind. Their system can't cope with a generating system that uses power, even if it only a tiny bit. Anyway he made a few adjustments, but a proper separate 'on the wall' meter for the solar output will be the first addition. 

Availability list.

The increasingly popular less hardy Salvia varieties are showing great promise. Love and Wishes is well into bud, it just can't wait to flower! The Salvito Scarlet and Mauve, plus the Lip's series are also showing the first buds of the endless supply to come.

The Garden Pinks are peaking in their bud production, no colour yet but loads of potential. We just have the one crop this spring so get them while you can. The Dianthus Scent First series smell delicious, compact and bushy they make a lovely set. Then we have our two scented old school varieties, Doris and Gran's Favourite, both a little taller and more typical of traditional cottage garden types.

Oxalis are looking great with the first flowers just opening. Two very different varieties, the purple leaved triangularis with its pale pink flowers and the two tone leaved Iron Cross with the deep pink blooms.

Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list again, the second of several batches we have coming along. I obviously didn't make the first batch big enough as it only lasted a week. I'll try harder next year.

Summer is well on the way with Bidens Effrans Gold showing particularly well with a strong splash of gold flower.

Rhodanthemums are in bud, and several Coreopsis are ready to do their thing.

Strong bushy Osteospermum Tresco Purple are now budding up nicely. More to come so no need to overdo it straight away. We have a few small batches of fresh Erysimums now in bud again, with glimpses of colour, but they will be gone in a flash. Liatris spicata are a little way off colour but the flower stems are extending and buds just about showing.

The Erigeron Sea Breeze Pink are desperate to start their long flower displays but we keep selling them just as they hint at budding up! Great garden plants.

A small number of the ever popular Digitalis purpurea are back for a couple of weeks, just a few trays I put through the new seeder machine. Digitalis Arctic Fox Rose is different but looking smart and just beginning to elongate in the stem ready to produce its first flower stem. Not really in bud yet but well on the way.

Our massive Hosta range is looking great with leaves now unfurled and showing off nicely. Big range of leaf colours and sizes all in good looking condition with no slugs yet and no late frosts to mess up the early leaves.

A nice range of the compact Helenium Hay Day series are just about ready and although I haven't marked them as being in bud, there are a few showing.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.

Hairy rain

Hi

Celebrations all round, we actually had some rain this week. We were so desperate and although it was a bit on the heavy side at least it did seem to soak into the ground a bit. With a bit of luck late next week we will see a bit of a breakdown into several Atlantic fronts coming our way. Not great timing with the bank holiday weekend being in the middle of it, but I'm sure a flush of green fresh growth in the garden will encourage everyone in the long run.

There is already talk of water shortages in some areas despite just coming through a very wet winter only a few weeks ago. We should be ok here, the aquifers in our chalk ground are still pretty high with the local brook still running strongly for the time of year. Fingers crossed it all works out ok, I know the farm are pretty anxious about the dry ground and slow growing and germinating crops. Rain in the next couple of weeks is going to be crucial to getting any sort of harvest gathered in the summer.

I'm going through yet another steep learning curve this spring with having to get to grips with machine sowing far more varieties than we ever have done before. Not only are some of these crops new to our propagation area but we are having to learn about the handling and use of new reusable propagation/module trays, new peat-free module composts and how to best deliver the nutrients needed by the emerging crops. Everyone seems very anxious about the potential dryness of peat- free composts but the prop mixes we are trying have the opposite problem in getting too wet! After a huge session sorting out the right nozzle sizes for sowing each plant (I have a choice of nine at the moment) I got off to a good start with some good germination percentages, but a lack of nutrients held things up dramatically after a couple of weeks. I was recommended an organic slow release fine granular fertiliser at a specific seed sowing rate, which I used for a couple of weeks. It became fairly obvious that germination outcomes were plummeting and after blaming several other things - too wet, sown too deep, too much 'suck' on the machines sowing head, it dawned on me that it could be the nutrition rate was too high. I halved it for the next batch and we were back in business, phew. A frustrating gap in some of the herb potting caused by the losses, but now the trays almost look professional in their uniformity and verdant growth. Just in time for the big sowing sessions coming up to produce the peat-free modules needed for potting next Springs stock. I may be an old dog, but new tricks are still on the agenda.

Progress on the solar panel project remains frustrating. We are at least generating, but the monitoring of the output is still proving a challenge for the software team. At least now we have the wind output accounted for in the computer sums, but the output of solar and wind aren't separated so we can't actually see what the panels themselves are generating. More measuring clamps were fitted to cables early in the week, with lots of excitement that this would solve it all, only to find the next day that the solar panels appeared to be generating all night! It was of course the wind turbines adding their output into the system. There is definite progress as we have much better control of the exported output levels and battery use, as things stand, but it just isn't quite right and a major rethink is on the cards.

Availability list.

Herb sales are still exceeding the rate of replacements which is frustrating, but we should have our first Basils ready the week after next, barring a sudden freeze up, so summer is on the way. More to come when the growth rates pick up. Nemesia Wisley Vanilla is back on the list again, the second of several batches we have coming along. I obviously didn't make the first batch big enough as it only lasted a week. I'll try harder next year. 

Summer is well on the way with all the Bidens varieties showing well with a splash of colour, Rhodanthemums are in bud, and several Coreopsis are ready to do their thing. Strong bushy Osteospermum Tresco Purple are now budding up nicely. More to come so no need to overdo it straight away. We have a few small batches of fresh Erysimums now in bud again, with glimpses of colour, but they will be gone in a flash. Flowers are opening on most of the Salvia nemerosa types and many of the Scabious.

Liatris spicata are a little way off colour but the flower stems are extending and buds just about showing. Plenty of the Leucanthemum varieties are showing their first many tight flower buds. The Sea Breeze Erigerons are desperate to start their long flower displays but we keep selling them just as they hint at budding up! Great garden plants. A small number of the ever popular Digitalis are back for a couple of weeks, just a few trays I put through the new seeder machine.

Our massive Hosta range is looking great with leaves now unfurled and showing off nicely. Big range of leaf colours and sizes all in good looking condition with no slugs yet and no late frosts to mess up the early leaves. A nice range of the compact Helenium Hay Day series are just about ready and although I haven't marked them as being in bud there are a few showing.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy Renewables

Hi

Luckily it was slightly quieter this week, there were some good sized orders but manageable with our reduced driver numbers and short working week. We missed out slightly on a few late orders which in a normal week we could probably have squeezed in, but there were just not enough hours in the week in the end to cope with those.

Fingers crossed we might get a shower or two on Sunday, we could really do with a damping down, everywhere is so dry.

We had a few dust storms through the week when that cold wind picked up, dropping the temperatures and adding several layers to the working attire. Looks like it's warming up a bit again for a few days over the weekend, not quite warm enough for the beach, but good for getting out there and buying garden stuff.

This week was one of our three weekly bug predator deliveries, which we spread around the site earlier today. Little sachets on sticks, blister packs of pupae, bran mixes to sprinkle, tubes of mixed insect thugs to put on a stick in the propagation modules, beetles breeding buckets and sachets of nematodes for pushing through the irrigation system. This season we are having a go with some hoverfly larvae, they aren't cheap but if we can get them established they will help with aphid control. just 500 at a time covers the whole nursery. The larvae eat aphid, so we need to find some aphid for them to thrive and pupate into adults. The adults can fly and they will search out other aphid colonies in which they lay their eggs for the whole process to then repeat itself. There is a slight conundrum that we need to have aphids available for this to be an ongoing solution and we ideally don't want aphid to be too prevalent. It's a delicate balance, but it will be interesting to see if we spot more hoverflies in the tunnels over the summer, as they are apparently far less common than they used to be.

The robins in despatch have fledged, so now youngsters are crashing about, sitting in silly places and calling throughout the tunnel. I suspect they will quickly move out despite it being an area fairly predator free, but it's a fun sight at the moment.

My usual luck abounds on my major purchases, I have managed to crash the solar panel and battery store control program by doing things slightly differently to everyone else. We have state of the art battery packs, and fabulously efficient panels with a tilting mounting system, but we added it all onto the same supply as our existing three little wind turbines, and that is not very usual apparently. Everything was working far too well for the first 6 days, although fairly early on it did register a possible fault with the counters not quite adding up to the right sums. It was counting the overall consumption on site, the amount exported, the solar output and the battery charging and discharging, but it didn't add in the wind output so some of the calculations the software made just didn't add up to the computers expectations. After a few days of this the computer said 'No' and all control was lost on managing things like the battery charging and discharging. Consequently the batteries discharged into the grid and refused to recharge and we were getting some bizarre and obviously incorrect readings which didn't remotely match the real meter readings. All was turned off while the installers looked into it and now we are limping along with a bit of solar and battery and then moving over to the turbines if the wind is blowing. New software is being written for the control kit and new measuring clamps are to be fitted to the turbine cables early next week so their output can be added into the equation. Yet again, why me? I think maybe I'm trying to be too clever in mixing my Renewables, but it seemed like such a good idea at the time. We will get there in the end.

Availability list.

Herb sales are still exceeding the rate of replacements which is frustrating, but we should have our first Basils ready the week after next, barring a sudden freeze up, so summer is on the way. More to come when the growth rates pick up. Probably the last week for the spring flowering Alliums. Cristophii buds are just cracking open, and sphaerocephalon have popped up its flowering stems for its smaller more subtle flowers. Only a few left.

Summer is on the way with a couple of Bidens varieties showing well with a splash of colour, Rhodanthemums are in bud, and several Coreopsis are ready to do their thing. We have a few small batches of fresh Erysimums now in bud again, with glimpses of colour, but they will be gone in a flash. Flowers are opening on most of the Salvia nemerosa types and many of the Scabious.

The first of several batches of Tiarella (Foam Flower) are in bud. Very dainty flower heads with lots more to follow. Liatris spicata are a little way off colour but the flower stems are extending and buds just about showing. Plenty of the Leucanthemum varieties are showing their first many tight flower buds.

Camassia's are all hitting their prime with buds swelling and colouring up fast. The excellent blue Maybelle with its multiple flower stems is more prolific than most, There are limited numbers so don't hang about. The Sea Breeze Erigerons are desperate to start their long flower displays but we keep selling them just as they hint at budding up! Great garden plants.

Our massive Hosta range is looking great with leaves now unfurled and showing off nicely. Big range of leaf colours and sizes all in good looking condition with no slugs yet and no late frosts to mess up the early leaves. 

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy juggling

Hi 

That was a mad week. Not only has the weather been great and it's coming into a bank holiday weekend, again, but we hadextra excitement of multiple electricians here for 3 days actually getting some output from our solar panels and battery storage system. If you add into the mix losing Caroline for a couple of days and nights to help her mum out, it might explain why I can barely keep one thought in front of the other. It is already late but I wanted to get the updates out there so we can have a go at being super organised for next week.

It already looks like a challenge, even on top of the short week as we have managed to lose one driver for 3 weeks and another for one, with next week being the one week both are away. I'm sure it will be fine, we do have some backup but I suspect we may be having to use Bleach of Lavant more, to deliver some of the longer distance ones, assuming they can fit us in. This does mean that those of you more than a couple of hours away from us here near Winchester, will need to get your orders in by early Monday to be reasonably sure of getting a delivery successfully booked in.

We won't be delivering on Monday but we will be preparing orders in the morning to get off to a flying start on Tuesday. Well that's the plan anyway.

Just feeling slightly bewildered at the moment, I think I need some dinner and a lie down.

Just a couple of Spring highlights to report, the joyous swallows have returned to the nursery and the robins nest in despatch is now full of gaping young beaks demanding to be fed. The parents are diving around despatch getting under everyone's feet as they pick up little insects and goodies, but at the moment all looks as if it's going to plan. The nest is in an old hairy pot on the glove shelf, right in the middle of all the action, not a very quiet spot but I suppose it keeps the predators away and it's out of any wind or rain. I have the office door open now and I can hear them singing away, I don't know how they find the energy. There are also blackbirds out there and more than one song thrush which seem to be doing well around here at the moment. I have a great app on the phone called Merlin, which recognises bird calls, it's nice to take a moment sometimes and let it identify all the different birds having there say. Must go my brain is out of vim and my eyes keep sliding shut.

I will hopefully be back on a more alert footing next time. Have a great weekend and I hope all the gardeners and visitors out there are suitably loose with their purse strings, and getting those plants into the ground.

Availability list.

We have hit our 'very hungry patch' with the herbs. The overwintered range has been hit very hard and we have run out of quite a few lines. Demand has been very high and there were a few losses, some we are waiting to freshen up after the wet cold winter, and some of the newer stock is waiting to get big enough to sell. Please bear with us through what is a frustrating period. It's a price we pay for not overprotecting our stock overwinter, those that survive are nice and tough but, depending on the winter, survival, growth and demand can be very variable.

The first tight buds are appearing on most of the Salvia nemerosa types and many of the Scabious. Plenty of the Leucanthemum varieties are showing their first tight flower buds. Colour will be a little way off yet but plenty of spring promise.

Camassia's are all hitting their prime with buds swelling and shooting up fast. The excellent blue Maybelle with its multiple flower stems is more prolific than most but they are all stunners in the right space and will spread beautifully over time. There are limited numbers so don't hang about.

Stunning deep crimson red bud and flower of Primula japonica Millers Crimson looking at their best, fresh and fab. The repeat flowering and reliable Hemerocalis Stella D'Oro has its first of many flower stems on display. No colour yet but it won't be long.

The Sea Breeze Erigerons are desperate to start their long flower displays but we keep selling them just as they hint at budding up! Great garden plants.

Take care, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries.