Wow, what a stunning morning. Bit nippy, but bright sunshine and mega white frost on everything. I’m sure Spring is just around the corner and plant sales will go mad after such a long winter. We had a couple of days when the sun struggled through this week and everything lifted, temperature, shoot appearance, everyone’s mood (from happy contented paupers to elated and excited peasants (picture, if you can, the street dancing scenes in Larkford after the discovery of the lost turnip)).

We saw the welcome return of some of our Polish agency workers this week which always marks the approach of spring madness, in more ways than one. They are slightly earlier in, than last year, as we are determined to be even more organised and prepared than usual, getting ahead on potting and pricking-out, label printing, plant prep etc. We have been lucky enough to get back the same star performers as we have had in 3 previous seasons, some coming back from Poland specially to help out. There were even a few hugs, although none for me (I prefer the mysterious, aloof, slightly scary air of a respected leader, or it could be I scared them off with a big hug when they all left last year!).

It’s been a very productive week, lots of orders and pricking out (microprop plants from our lab), a bit of potting, wooden label printing and a new job, label counting. Now we are sending nearly all our plants out in boxes of 12 we have identified a time saving tactic of bundling all labels in 12’s, description labels and price labels. This makes the skilled job of collecting together and distribution onto the individual trays, of the right labels, for each order, really quick. This has always been a potential bottleneck in the despatch process, especially when we get busy, and reduces the possibility of mistakes by some of the less experienced staff. Mind you it doesn’t eliminate the idiot driving the computer (me) where the occasional hiccup of info input may cause the odd problem. Rest assured we are trying hard to get it perfect.

Mr Oki hasn’t yet replied to my stiff note I sent last week, I expect, like me, he is busy getting his hands dirty and can’t find the time to do everything. However his printer is now working very nicely which is the main thing.

Tyranny rules ok

After several years of getting the nursery production into a more organised place, Richard, our production & despatch manager, has decided to spend more time with his new family and reduce his time and role on the nursery, so this puts yours truly back in charge! Ok, perhaps Caroline is really, but she does a great job making me think I have something to do with it.

Since Richard started we have radically changed the nursery production, we have now reached a period when things are much simpler than when he started. By the summer we will have finished with our two big ‘shed’ customers (one went 3 years ago) and the plant range will have consolidated to all 1 litre hairies. Although we will miss Richards daily input, with a small adjustment in roles we are determined to make this a positive change and despite a few jitters on the work-load front, we are sure that this arrangement will work well for everyone. You may well still see Richard about, but the main focus for order enquiries after this coming week, will be Caroline or myself (Derek).

Eco Update

Saw a great water recycling/storage project at Lowaters nursery last week, I want one. Actually we may look into this quite closely, as their payback period was 3 years (with grant aid) and using mains water is very inefficient on the eco front as well as becoming increasingly expensive. Unfortunately it’s another of those ‘jam tomorrow’ investments, but maybe the jam is looking sweeter now (they are bound to see us coming and remove the grant aid just before we do it!)

Very close to putting in planning application for the turbines, ooh tense nervous excitement.

Have a good week

Just had some very reassuring news. Two of our girls who were working today both confirmed that they too were wearing the double trouser look, and they are both youngsters. Perhaps all my old fart worries are groundless and in fact I’m cool & trendy, or maybe not.


It’s astonishing what you can fit in during just one week. We set up our stand at GAN on Tuesday for the show on Wednesday, which went very well, although we felt there was a shortage of punters overall. Still, the great thing is that it’s not the numbers, it’s the quality that counts, and we did see lots of high class interested parties, oh yes, and some existing customers too!
I have just added several more names we picked up from the show, to the weekly availability list, so a big welcome to those newcomers to the ramblings of the wandering mind of a hairy nurseryman. That reminds me, I did manage a haircut and shave before the show, mind you the haircut was risky, carried out late at night by a rather merry better half. There’s nothing like living life on the edge.

Also fitted in lots of plant orders, printing a large wooden label order, a day at the races, hosting a student visit from the local college and visits from a local conservative city councillor (planning head) and prospective con MP. The printer that died last week is up & running again after replacing the fuser unit, what a con. I got one of those messages that you get just as you relax thinking you’ve mastered the technology, ‘FATAL ERROR CALL SERVICE ENGINEER’. So I did the usual, turned it off & on again several times, but to no avail. Did a quick search on the internet and found a diagnosis, media wrapped around fuser init. Sure enough, there it was. Unwrapped it, but no go. Then I found out that the only way to reset the error fault was to install a new unit (£75), the cheeky monkeys I thought. So when I’ve finished this rant I’m going to send a message to Mr Oki and let him know what I think. I’m sure he will go straight out and change his strategy after a good ticking off. Luckily I don’t have a life so I can just about fit it in.

Having lost sight of my waist several years ago and hearing last week of a close friend (2 months older than me) having to have a stent fitted after a heart problem, I am determined to find it again. I have been trying for a while to get that energy/calorie balance right between input and output and it seems to be working. One tip I will pass on this week is the one about when given a choice, take the physical option, stairs not escalator, walk don’t ride and generally take every opportunity to move more muscles than you actually have to. This can include my own version of ‘Power Walking’ that I have developed over the last few months. Rather than just shuffling along while walking home (usually in the dark) I am now lifting legs higher, using more steps and swinging arms about (more effective when carrying something, as the journey tends to be longer when you have to pick everything up again!). Also warms you up in cold weather. I have now taken this practice off the nursery into our early morning Saturday shop at the supermarket while I push the trolley round, there aren’t many folk about and you can often find yourself alone in an aisle. Oh the joys of being old enough to think that this might be a socially acceptable pastime!

Eco Update

After a positive Lib Dem wind turbine visit last week, we had the Conservatives around this week. Still all very positive, the news has been out for 3-4 weeks now and no-one has approached either group, or ourselves, with any serious objections (one lady in one village who just doesn’t like turbines much). We are the first in the area to put in such an application, yet one of the councillors who is on the planning committee didn’t think it would even go to committee, as the objection level was so low, and the proposal so sensible. Still no reaction from Parish councils directly so I will have to chase them up and see what they would like us to do (presentation/nursery visit) to help.
Don't forget to do your bit

Still a bit wintery so, although we sent out quite a few orders this week and one or two top ups, we have not hit big time busy yet.  It’s a shame for the cash-flow but not the end of the world on the nursery.  We have been finishing off some off our contract potting, which was a bit later than planned, due to a late pot delivery (caused by the idiot who ordered everything else forgetting this one order, you just can’t get the management).
We had a bit of a team session and sorted out a more efficient despatch set up, with some new benches and an adjusted process, which will simplify things for when the seasonal staff start. We have just about finished our winter whittling, a new job this year, repairing any damaged wooden boxes and inserts. A good week outside.

More frustrating, was the fiasco in the office where our computer turmoil continues. A mega spanner fell into the works on Wednesday. Suddenly we lost all internet access on all computers. Turned it all on and off again to no avail. Naturally assumed it was something I had done, so spent ages messing about with settings and cables trying to sort it. I eventually phoned our broadband supplier spending a couple of hours trying to get it to go. They gave up saying they would call me back later, with a level 2 engineer. No call. While we were waiting Caroline suggested we test the dedicated broadband phone line, which I must admit I thought was daft, as the router it plugs into, showed it was connected. Anyway, as I always do as I’m told, we borrowed a neighbours BT phone (ours don’t work on direct plug ins) and plugged it in. We then phoned the line number which rang on our phoning out phone but not on the actual plugged in phone. We then did the opposite, and phoned into our system, everything rang ok, but a different appeared number on the phone display.  BT had accidentally changed our number at the exchange!  It then took them two attempts and 24 hrs to put it right, by which time it had completely confused the broadband connection back at the main server.  Once the line was corrected it took another half hour on the phone to Orange before it all came back on at 5.15 on Friday.  During the down time we also lost all the internal network, for several hours, when the confusion of extra test cables and various plug in combinations confused the whole system and particularly me.  Had to turn off everything in the end and refit cables before it all sprang back into life.  Such a silly mistake, not even by me, caused so much chaos it’s quite scary.

Oil delivery came on Tuesday (ordered on 5th Jan), but house boiler refused to start until man came to hit it on Thursday. A week with no heat certainly makes you appreciate the central heating system when it returns!

Other stuff generally going well, although this time of year always carries an air of PST (pre season tension) with its mixture of excitement of sales to come and fear of how we will get through the work load. Having been doing it for as long as I have, I now know that we can do it and do it well, but every year is different and throws up its own challenges (as above). I suppose in the end it depends on your approach to the challenges, you can dread them or relish them, and that is actually your choice.

Don’t forget the GAN trade show on Wednesday, we’ll be there.
Eco Update

Had a visit from prospective MP and a city councillor this week, very positive on wind turbine plans.  A couple of other positive letters from neighbours and still no negatives, so quietly pleased.  Still no reaction from Parish councils directly so I will have to chase them up and see what they would like us to do (presentation/nursery visit) to help.

You can access the outline proposal in our ‘Dear Neighbour’ letter and the full details of the planning backup documentation at;

http://www.kirtonfarm.co.uk/ and http://www.hairypotplants.co.uk/

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

Sitting here in my cosy office (now the only warm place I can find), on a bright frosty morning, I can imagine you all out there beavering about in all that glorious fresh air and sunshine.

Caroline and I are having a challenging week, for a change. All the usual stuff, vans breaking down, water purifier died, heating oil delivery didn’t arrive (again) (ordered on 4th Jan), ran out of oil on nursery on Monday and in the house yesterday. We have only one heated tunnel, for our microprop weaning, and it only runs at 10C at this time of year but still worrying as we have a lot of high value young plants in there. We put emergency electric heating in there for 24 hrs, before managing to get some oil transferred from my brother-in-laws tank to get the boilers restarted. Didn’t have enough to top up the house tank, so we now have the electric heaters in there, no Aga for cooking (microwave or eating out) or heating, no central heating, a weenie bit of hot water and a rapidly cooling house. It is amazing how cold a house can get when your main heat sources are lost. It reminds me a lot of many places I lived in as a youngster, caravans, chalets, rented flats etc where it never got warm and going to bed fully clothed was a regular winter occurrence. This has happened once before when someone, who shall remain nameless, forgot to order the oil at all. I’m telling you, that was a frosty few days in more ways than one! I am now very much looking forward to the simple pleasure of having a shower in a warm bathroom with a warm towel.

The two trouser regime is running even stronger now, due to the position we are in, and despite her best efforts Caroline was unable to wrestle them off me for a wash this morning (normally a tussle I would enjoy, but there was too much at stake!). I very nearly wore them out on the street yesterday, but luckily caught sight of myself in the mirror as I was leaving the house.

Eco Update

After last week’s excitement when we went public with our plans for erecting 3 ‘small’ wind turbines on the hill above the nursery, it has gone suspiciously quiet. So far the feedback to us has all been very positive, we’ll see. The project has been picked up in a couple of the local papers and reported quite positively. The local LibDem man is coming to see us to help promote the sustainable direction we are taking our business. Just need to get the other political groups behind us and it could be quite exciting.

You can see the outline proposal in our ‘Dear Neighbour’ letter and the full details of the planning backup documentation at;

http://www.kirtonfarm.co.uk/ and http://www.hairypotplants.co.uk/

Nature notes

Big garden bird watch this weekend. We have no Ospreys to report, lots of finches, tits (no long-tailed recently), a couple of blackcaps, robins, lots of blackbirds, too many pigeons and a big seed bill.

It’s great to be able to see into the ponds again after all the ice, no frogspawn yet, but a surprising amount of things swimming about. It doesn’t seem possible that such little things could survive in such a long cold period then be active again so quickly, I suppose they have their own version of the ‘two trouser regime’.
Don't forget to do your bit.
Have a good week.

I hope everyone is well and building themselves up to selling and buying a lot of plants this coming Spring. Hopefully the worst of the weather is behind us now and both the plants and I will start to look happier as the spring sap rises. I reckon that we have now got used to a bit of colder weather as we have geared ourselves up to cope. I certainly am having trouble giving up my second pair of trousers I started wearing during the snow, it’s just so cosy and does confirm, that comfort scores much higher than fashion now(oh no I’m doomed).


We’ve had a very hectic week whizzing about doing orders and setting things up for the spring rush. We have 2 more qualified forklift drivers after they finished their training and passed their tests this week and the eco activity went off the scale (see below)!


Can’t really get through another newsletter without mentioning the terrible trouble in Haiti, the scale of such an event is impossible to imagine. I just think back a week or two, to the fuss made over a bit of cold and snow and the difficulties in travel, water supply and the odd power cut. It does make you grateful that most of our problems and worries are relatively minor to those being experienced over there, but also highlights how easily the whole thing can suddenly change.
Make the most of today, the sun is out here!

I was reminded while watching the news of a very lovely lady, Annie, we know in St Ives who runs an amazing shoe shop. The shoes, made by Jan Jansen, are only sold through 4 or 5 outlets around the world and are a bit mad. Sadly after many years the exchange rate, over the last 18 months, has scuppered the business and she has spent this year selling off the accumulated stock of the past seasons. Although very sad about the shops demise, she was still so bubbly and positive I asked her what her secret was. Rather surprisingly it was that every morning when she watched the news she would have a good cry, which set her up for the day because she recognised how luck she actually was. Mind you she is as mad as the shoes.
Do you feel better now? How about buying some plants!

Eco Update

Big, big week this week, as we went public with our plans for erecting 3 ‘small’ wind turbines on the hill above the nursery. We haven’t actually put in a planning application yet, this is a pre-planning notification exercise to get some of the anticipated questions and excitement sorted out and hopefully some support mustered. We notified the 3 local parish councils and delivered (by bike!) over 400 ‘Dear Neighbour’ letters. I got invited to introduce ourselves and the idea to one council meeting on Thursday, which went ok and we have received some feedback directly already.


Perhaps surprisingly the feedback has all been very positive so far, although it is early days, but best of all, those positive responses have been from our closest neighbours, big and small (by big I mean organisationally (local college), not physically!). I do suspect that any protests will be made via the councils, newspapers and planning departments rather than direct to us. We’ll see.
Anyway, you can find out loads more if you click the turbines on either of our two websites http://www.kirtonfarm.co.uk/ or http://www.hairypotplants.co.uk/ you can even read our ‘Dear Neighbour’ letter and see full details of the planning backup documentation.

At some point this week we will have a specific ‘wind response’ email account running from these web-pages where everyone can let us know what they think, good or bad, and we can then keep them up to date with progress of the project. Obviously we are after any support or input we can get and hope that we can generate a good positive result. Please do bear in mind that those protesting against something, tend to make more noise about it than those supporting it, or are just ‘ok’ about it. Don’t you worry, I will be keeping you all up to date and pressing for your input over the coming months.


I also attended another PLATO Sustain meeting this week inputting loads of data into a mega spreadsheet recording our use of stuff over the last two years (all forms of energy input, transport records, waste and recycling breakdown, company detail (staff, turnover etc) and procurement volumes (for the material items we buy most of)). We are top of the class at the moment on our recycling record with 89% of our waste being recycled (by volume), mainly helped by the fact that we compost all our green waste, of which there can be a lot! We could reduce that further by compacting the waste we do put to landfill but we don’t really have enough to justify it and I suspect it gets quite compacted by the collection vehicle. We are still looking to reduce landfill and are hoping soon to reduce our weekly collection to one domestic sized wheelie bin, not bad for a company employing 22 permanent staff.


Yesterday, I entered our figures into our 10:10 database for our 2009 energy use. It has come up with a calculation of 112 tonnes of C02 produced by the company and given us a target of just over 100 tonnes to achieve by the end of the year. I reckon we are well on the way to achieving that reduction already, despite the cold weather. Check out the campaign website; http://www.1010uk.org/

Please do join in, we are only weenie and can’t make that much difference, but if we can get everyone to think a bit differently and do their bit we can work together to achieve something very positive.


We finished our hedge planting on Tuesday and now have 300 native whips in and raring to go.

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

PS I will try and contain my excitement next week as I know life is short!

The snow has suddenly all gone. After a big top up of snow earlier in the week it all disappeared over the last 24 hrs leaving everything rather damp, cloudy, misty, drizzly and gloomy.  What we need is some bright shiny stuff to get us all going.

Despite the difficult conditions we have achieved quite a bit this week. We have finished the bulk of our wooden box mending, with all the old 9cm box inserts taken apart and remade into 1 litre inserts and the odd broken tray repaired where possible. A new set of work benches (x6) have been knocked up from old trolleys and recycled timber, together with 20 new wooden clip boards and a couple of steps to help load the higher shelves. We have printed thousand of labels, propagated lots of plants in the microprop lab, and even delivered a few orders.

During all this time I have been busy soaking up the heat from the little heater in the office, it’s ok for some! I have at last sorted out the faxing software on the new computers, which ended up an expensive exercise due to my attraction to bits of computer kit which don’t fit in with ‘normal’ practices. I am now the proud owner of a faxing programme that will support up to 60 workstations! After downloading 6 or 7 other trial programmes to test, I got to the stage that anything that worked would do, whatever the cost. Anyway, it does seem like a better programme than we had before so it’s not all bad news. I am still sorting out the backup software, the accounts and payroll and the banking system. At least when the banking is sorted it will be cheaper than the system we have now and cleverer (direct info input from Sage Accounts), however it is has taken 4 weeks so far plus another 6-7 to complete the setting up. They must have someone as good as me doing their IT!

There was a big Christmas Exhibition in Harrogate last week which reminded me of something. I know Christmas was a long time ago but I have an ace tip for next year. When your other half says they don’t want anything for Christmas, they don’t necessarily mean it!

Eco Update
Despite the significantly higher heating costs over the last few weeks our energy consumption is falling. We have changed our lighting schedules in the microprop lab growth rooms, which made the air-con units run much more efficiently, improved the insulation in our one heated tunnel and repaired a broken time clock. Over the last 6 weeks we have reduced our consumption by about 15% which if we can keep it up over the year will more than achieve our 10:10 campaign targets. Check out the campaign website; http://www.1010uk.org/

Caroline & I have also downsized the car and moved from 30mpg to 53mpg and reduced the emissions to a lower tax bracket. Now I just need to try and remember how to start the thing as it is keyless(ish).

Nature notes
The sudden disappearance of the snow, resulted in lots of bird song this morning. I suppose the desire for food had been replaced by other desires as temperatures and hormone levels rise! Don’t you love the spring?

Spring starts on January 4th?

We have had about 4 inches of snow overall and it's been quite cold as well, yesterday was our first day above freezing for ages. However with a bit of luck we are over the worst of it and this week will see a gradual thaw. We have had all the usual problems associated with the cold, freezing pipes, all stop on plant work, too many coffee breaks to thaw out fingers and a lack of bodies. Most of our part timers have taken the cosy option to stay at home but the rest of us are busy making preparations for the approaching Spring sales.

Our wooden label production is whizzing along building up a handy stockpile and we have made a load more benches, clip boards & steps to use in our upgraded dispatch area.

Although it can get a bit scary when I think about the losses in efficiency, the backlog of work building up and the knock oneffect a prolonged cold spell could have on the cash-flow, it is stunningly pretty. Even in the dark the amount of extra light bouncing about is amazing.
Despite the extra 'office time' created by the cold weather (no such thing as 'bad weather' just the wrong kit) we are still working from a double set of computers as we continue to iron out the change over problems with the new setup. What fun. It continual surprises me how poorly prepared the makers of new stuff are. I ordered a networked back up drive complete with super easy software to store all our important data in a different building. It looks lovely but they don't include the instructions or drivers for Windows7 or the right software version. After several emails (48hr response time) I have got the right driver and an up to date version of the software only to find out that the software can't back-up from more than one computer which is a bit of a hiccup on a network back-up system! Another email is awaiting a response….

Eco Update
The cold weather has messed up our energy saving plans! After some encouraging savings early on, the extra heating to keep things unfrozen has more than tripled one of our meter readings. It's not as if we are toasting in the here, I am sat here writing this in hats x2, trousers x2, and multiple top layers, although I have taken my gloves off to press the keys more efficiently.

The second meter that reads the larger proportion of our usage is doing better with savings of 15%+ so far (2 months in) due to more thoughtful planning of lighting and heating/cooling regimes in the microprop lab growth rooms.We still have the new hedging in store ready to plant after the thaw.

Our new recycling 'centre' is working well with a few extra bins for some odds and ends. We are saving all incoming packing materials to reuse on outgoing packages, scrap metal bits and bobs, batteries, waxed cartons, as well as all the usual paper, card, plastic etc. Things like printer cartridges and stamps are also collected for a local charity.


Nature notes

This winters introduction of regular feeding has been very popular in this cold spell, we are getting through about 10kg a week on the nursery and the same in our garden next door. It's surprising those birds can get off the floor!  We have had a few extra visitors in the cold, a Brambling is mixing in with the Chaffinches, a female Blackcap regularly feeds on the nuts. Fieldfares are coming in for apples and seed.

Have a good week