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

Hairy team

Morning all,

Christmas is creeping up quickly, it's Secret Santa on Monday, I must get out and to do my gift shopping. In the light of high covid rates and the appearance of the new variant, we opted for an in-house socially distanced gathering in despatch, which is big and airy. Jacket potatoes and a selection of stews is the order of the day, followed up with mince pies and brownies, and all is, I believe, organised and ready to roll. Our decorating expert Danny is currently erecting a light display to rival any Mickey Mouse grotto and the heaters will be turned up to max. What excitement there is in store for us all.

The first set of replacement printing screens arrived this week, along with some slower drying ink and thinners, and yesterday I bit the bullet and had a go with them. It's not a job I used to look forward too, as it was fraught with impending disaster. Large volumes of permanent quick drying thick black ink and clumsy old folk are never a comfortable mix. Last time I managed to relegate a perfectly nice old sweatshirt to decorating duties within minutes of starting to 'help out'.

Thankfully one disastrous session actually prompted new investigations and some major improvements. Conversations with experts prompted a change of ink, some tweaks in technique and the production of the new set of screens The upshot of it all was a relatively stress free and very productive session, of fairly mess free printing,. Quality and consistency of print improved and output rate more than doubled. Who says you can't teach an old dog and all that. Ok, so I won't remember tomorrow how we did it, but luckily with a few younger minds about someone will remind me. Just another 9,500 slats to go, no worries.

With confidence in screen printing revived, this week I sent off our old printing screens for the wooden POS boards for re- hanging. A refresh of the wording on some of them to bring them up to date, and we will see a fresh start to everyone's displays in the New Year, when you receive your first orders. It might mean getting right into the printing groove very early in the year, but now we are so much better at it I'm sure it will be fine.

I finalised the staff kit range early in the week and put out a display of the stuff on offer so everyone can make their own decision on what they would like to adorn themselves in. It was surprisingly tricky selecting for the variety of weather conditions, peoples individual dress styles and jobs we have to endure on the nursery, and at the same time sourcing only sustainable items, When buying in quite big quantities the temptation is to go cheap and cheerful, but I eventually bit the bullet and went for the right kit, not based solely on price. Some of the designs look really sharp, so I think we will get more for our money than just organic or recycled, time will tell. With a choice of 22 items, some in a choice of colours, it is going to be quite a mash up of looks, but being a member of an exciting team shouldn't stop you from standing out.

Despite the covid scares we squeezed in a bit of socialised this week, pub quiz with fab food Monday and a great blues gig on Thursday. Oli Brown at the cosy Farnham Maltings venue was sensational and luckily not too crowded. Such an astonishing talent on guitar, with a great voice and very, very loud. It was only his bands second gig of the year and the last, such was the disruption caused by the chaos of the last 20 months, but he was so excited to be there doing his thing, it was infectious (but in a good way!).

Autumn wooden box collections are now just about done

Most of our wooden trays have now been collected up, but if you have a collection of trays ready to go, please do drop us an email and we will call in a pick them up as soon as we are in your area. At a replacement cost now in excess of £10 a box now, we can't afford to lose too many. Just been informed of another timber price rise, so definitely need them back!

Availability list highlights

Things are getting really very quiet now and most plants are settling into their winter rest. There are still a few stars shining out there, but fewer each week.

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 is more subtle and modest than some of the very showy modern and less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours,

Some of the Helleborus niger are in bud and flower, Christmas has come early. 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.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy charging

Morning all,

Getting some nice results now from our winter endeavours which is great for feeling like we are making progress again rather than just juggling endless demand. I was surprised how exciting it was to get the new EV charging station wired up and running. We have had the trench dug and concrete pad prepared for ages, just waiting for the kit and installer to arrive, which they all did on Tuesday. By lunchtime we were up and running with a system that more than surpassed my expectations. It is a Zappi smart charger so it doesn't just charge up the vehicles, it manages itself over the Wifi and selects when and how to do the charging. We have it set so that it only charges when the wind turbines are generating more than we are consuming and it constantly adjusts the charge it uses to match the amount being exported. This means the effective cost of charging comes down from about 18p/unit if we used imported power to 5p which is what we get paid for exporting it. That brings to fuel cost down to just over 1p a mile, once we get our car delivered. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can get our first delivery van plugged in as well, although that might be a year or two yet. The electrician has an electric van so we were able to test charge that for a while just to make sure it all worked ok. An app on the phone gives us real time data and records of all power imported from our site, exported and used for charging, so we can see what's going on whereever we are. Can't stop checking it out now! Luckily it's been fairly breezy over the last few days so the graph looks pretty good at the moment, even though I know in reality that the year as a whole has been the lowest turbine output since the turbines went up 10 years ago.

We have got through all our end of season wooden tray drying and cleaning and the barn is full of pallets of neatly stacked trays, very satisfying. Now we are getting stuck into the construction of the new tray stock. As demand has increased and some of the old boxes bite the dust, we are having to replenish supplies in a fairly major way. The huge increases in timber prices and difficulties in getting the components printed and constructed has meant we have had to bring the job in-house. It's a monster amount of work but at least at this time of year we have a few of the team more available to get it done. We had a problem with the screen printing last week but a new set of screens and fresh supplies of ink should see us back into full production again. It gets a bit scary when I think about 4,000 new boxes being made at about £10 per box, but because we started some in the summer we are nearly halfway through, so we will soon be on the easy slide down to completion. The propagation tunnel had its climate control computer repaired and reset on Monday and a heater fan repaired on Wednesday, so fingers crossed it will hold out through the cold weather keeping all the microprop crops toasty, although it sounds like the whole system may be close to the end of its serviceable life. Might be time to check out the air source heat pumps suitable for the job.

The tunnels are looking more organised with each passing week, as the rest of the team crack on with tidying and top dressing the pots and cutting the dormant plants back. It's surprising how much growth is still going on despite the cooler weather, I think winter has still to really get a grip on things.

Nursery Christmas lights are on already around the mess room entrance, anything to brighten up a December day and alleviate my guilt at sitting in a comparatively warm office while everyone else wraps up and gets going in the unheated net- sided tunnels. Now where are those crumpets?

Autumn wooden box collections are now just about done

Most of our wooden trays have now been collected up, but if you have a collection of trays ready to go, please do drop us an email and we will call in a pick them up as soon as we are in your area. At a replacement cost now in excess of £10 a box now, we can't afford to lose too many. Just been informed of another timber price rise, so definitely need them back! 

Availability list highlights

Things are getting really quiet now and most plants are settling into their winter rest. There are still a few stars shining out there, but fewer each week.

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 is more subtle and modest than some of the very showy modern and less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours,

Some of the Helleborus niger are in bud and flower, Christmas has come. 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.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Hairy projects

Morning all,

A very productive week, most of it done in the warm, but with a fluffy brain produced by the end of today! Battled my way through the last of the plant orders for next year, a job I started over a month ago. The numbers are mind numbing and the decisions needed endless when you are looking at over 600 lines, multiple deliveries of each and probably ten different suppliers. Then the whole lot has to be juggled onto a label ordering spreadsheet, along with the current stock of plants and left over labels from this season. I stick in a column for this year's sales for each variety, just to add an extra level of thoroughness and complication and then pluck out a number of labels I think we will use. Then there is the final jiggle to make the total number ordered add up to a multiple of 72,000, so that they fit onto the label printing sheet efficiently. What fun. 

Now I can get back to some more fun planning and spending. I only get a very short time frame to get the winter projects ordered and underway and although some have already started like the new vehicle charger, the new van, new electric car, new potting machine and the wooden box production programme, I have a few other bits up my sleeve waiting for the go ahead. The hairy pot plant themed work-wear is coming along, just need to get the next batch of samples ordered. I know lots of people cover this sort of thing, but it adds another whole level of complication when you try to pick out sustainable items to use rather than just the cheapest. 

The irrigation water collection system should take another step forward this winter but I haven't quite decided on the scale yet. I think we will take a steady route into more investment into water storage, which we will have to fund ourselves, rather than spend £90,000 and maybe become eligible for a partial grant. I saw a very interesting bit of water treatment it this week, which I first saw 8 years ago, it should improve our plant health and resistance to disease so reducing the amount of spraying we have to do. I was a bit sceptical originally but after many years use it had proved itself to be very effective on this particular nursery. A good test was when it broke down this summer the diseases returned and once repaired it all settled down again. We don't do a huge amount of spraying but any reduction will be welcome in labour saving and fewer chemicals being needed. This will be another valuable experience we will have picked up from being part of the NBIS scheme which has served us so well over the 25 years or so we have been members, although the best bits are the talking therapy, which I need a lot of, and the pub lunch. I don't get out much. Everyone in the group is still pretty anxious about what lies ahead and the news of the South African new variant is an added worry, but I'm glad to say Caroline and I got our boosters done today so feeling slightly smug. So many ups and downs. Might go for a lie down in a minute just in case I am overcome with weakness and fatigue. That log burner is beckoning.

Autumn wooden box collections are now just about done

Most of our wooden trays have now been collected up, but if you have a collection of trays ready to go, please do drop us an email and we will call in a pick them up as soon as we are in your area. At a replacement cost now in excess of £10 a box now, we can't afford to lose too many. Just been informed of another timber price rise, so definitely need them back! 

Availability list highlights

Things are getting really quiet now and most plants are looking for their winter rest. There are still a few stars shining out there, but fewer each week. The mild weather is keeping things ticking over at the moment but the coming cold snap might slow things up.

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 is more subtle and modest than some of the very showy modern & less hardy pot cyclamen. A favourite of ours, Some of the Helleborus niger are in bud and flower already, Christmas has come early. 

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.

Take care out there, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries