Just a quick message to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a jolly festive break.

It continues to be very busy this end, getting things sorted for the winter and attempting to get through the list of jobs to do that were left for the long winter period when we have loads of spare time! We have got through a few of them but spring will be here in a couple of weeks and most of that time will be spent doing Christmas stuff. I’m looking forward to my annual Christmas shopping trip in a couple of days, there’s nothing like a bit of pressure to get things done! Why don’t they just move Christmas to a quieter time in the shops? It would be so much nicer. Mind you it sounds from the TV reports that there may be no-one in there when I go anyway.

All the Christmas decorations are up here. We ran our usual competition for the best decor in the style of Blue Peter and I must say the standard was well up, or should that be down, to the usual level. Hugh won with a very tasteful window decoration and Jamie was runner up with his food contribution, shepherd’s pie! My nativity scene which took minutes of my valuable time to put together, was the equivalent of the UK in Eurovision and received nil point in the judging, must try harder.

Our old homemade tree is all decorated again up in the house, so we are ready for all the fun to begin. As we are expecting guests we are considering turning on the central heating, it is Christmas after all!

Eco News

After a quiet November for wind, December looks to be recovering well so far. The storms early in the month kept things moving although we are finding that the turbines tend to be more productive in steady moderate wind conditions rather than in the more erratic storms. We have not quite caught up yet with the anticipated output, due to a sensor problem on one of the turbines, but our continued success in reducing consumption has meant that we are generating more than we are using.

The trial of LED lighting in the lab growth room is going well so far despite initial concerns that the light distribution on our closely spaced shelves didn’t look brilliant. The Phillips units use a combination of red and blue lights, selected specifically for plant growth. They look bizarre, dark and not very plant friendly but the growth under them is really good and may be even better than the old fluorescent tubes. We will continue with the trial until the summer when we will make a decision on expanding their use. They are expensive to install but with potential savings of over 60% on energy use they could save us loads as we do have a lot of them.

Novembers figures on electric use are still encouraging, a saving of 4.5% on 2010 and 36.82% on 2009. If we include the turbine output in the figures that brings it down to 26.65% and 51.50% savings for the same periods. For 2012 we should be in generating surplus all year with the turbine contribution, which will help offset our heating and some of the transport carbon output.

Please enjoy lots of sprouts and parsnips to keep the wind speeds up.


Have a good Christmas and New Year, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

What a lovely bright spring morning, primroses in the garden and grass growing away well. What is going on, this time last year we were getting cold and snowy. We haven’t even put our central heating on yet, although that is mainly due to all the insulation and the wood burner we put in last autumn, smug, smug, smug. Actually the insulation didn’t get finished until nearly Christmas so we have still to see the full benefit of a whole year’s savings but it looks good so far with our heating oil consumption nearly halved for the last year, although the cost per litre went up hugely (over 30%). It has turned into one of those frustrating situations that we have ended up with a similar bill despite the investment and we just have to hang onto the fact that the bill would have been much higher if we had done nothing. It reminds me of the time we bought a very expensive automatic price labelling machine to stick the prices on the pots going to one of the multiples. The theory was that the kit paid itself back out of the labour savings over a few years but what happened in practice was everyone else did the same and the customer demanded a lower price because the production costs had fallen. In the end we effectively bought the machine to keep the customer and we got no extra profit to pay off the cost. You live and learn.

We have just got back from our annual break to sunny St Ives. What a fantastic couple of weeks, warm, mostly dry, lots of visitors came to stay and plenty of healthy outdoor activities were undertaken. There are now so many more people taking a break at this time of year in the area and most of the restaurants were open and much busier than previous years. We had some fantastic meals, a couple of special treats in our favourite (Al Fresco’s) on the harbour-side and some delicious more modest treats in other spots. We even managed Sunday Lunch at the Gurnards Head (as recommended in the Sunday Times) followed by an Italian in the evening. Needless to say I put on a little extra ballast, just the 9lbs (not a record), and we are now on a strict winter vegetarian soup regime to get back in shape for Christmas. It was worth it.

One thing I like doing on holiday is to stretch sides of me that don’t get much exercise the rest of the year and this involves taking a bit of the art scene which is so active in the area. Tate St Ives is always a challenging place to start and this year was no different with their current exhibition ‘The Indiscipline of Painting’. This was a collection of abstraction painting from 1960 onwards which can be a struggle to get to grips with for a simple nurseryman from the country. I have to go on the guided tour first to get an idea of what is going on but with that extra input I always find something of value to take away. Mind you it didn’t help me in the Exchange Gallery in Penzance where there was an exhibit of a young man in a just a loin cloth crouched in a large dog cage with a muzzle on. He was going to be in there for 5 days but there was no way of really getting to grips with what the intention behind it was. Then there are all the deep intellectual questions you want to ask but can’t, are you going to wash over the 5 days? Or are they after creating more of an atmosphere by day 5. Are you feeding through a straw and how about loo breaks? Have Health & Safety at work assessed your working conditions? Back to reality I think with bills to pay and a winter to get through before another exciting Spring starts in January.

Excitement on this week with one of our long serving youngsters slipping away to a new exciting life in Australia with her young man, and our longest serving young lady Elaine reaching an astonishing age (because she doesn’t look it). Loads of cake all round, bang goes the soup diet.

Eco News

The solar FIT rates are changing more or less as I expected and although there are a lot of complaints about how quickly the large reductions were brought in I feel sure that it is the fair thing to do. The rates of return on the investment were getting silly as the price of the panels fell and I have heard rumours already that the panel costs are set to reduce further especially after the FIT readjustment dates pass. This will hopefully take the jumping on the bandwagon element out of the solar industry and get back to a value and service approach. I have already heard from one business who are still looking at solar as an investment because even after the changes the rates of return are likely to recover to sensible levels very quickly.

Turbines had a quieter period with the rather slack southerlies we have been getting for the last few weeks. Did ok yesterday!

Cornish nature notes

Spotted; 6 Common Cranes (bizarre sight in UK field), Desert Wheatear, Marsh Harrier, Bittern, Cough, Great Northern Diver.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Morning all,


Big numbers this week. Population of 7 billion by next week, 49% income increase for top business directors and 50% cuts in Feed In Tariff payments for new solar panel installations.

There is a popular belief that history repeats itself but a rapidly expanding and enormous population is going to be a new challenge to all over the coming years. It’s a situation that not many have faced up to yet but there must be some major redressing of resources if it isn’t to all end in tears. I wonder if that is part of the reasoning behind the hoarding of the obscene amounts of wealth by those at the top of the business pyramid, because they can see tough times coming. It is difficult to morally justify the top directors income rises when the rest of the population and I suspect many of their own employees are struggling to make ends meet. I would like to think that the money won’t bring them satisfaction and happiness and guess that they haven’t noticed the shallow and selfish action they have taken or just don’t care, which is sad. If it makes anyone feel better many of the directors I know in smaller businesses struggle to take home the minimum wage for the hours they put in. Mind you that might be something to do with knowing a lot of people with nurseries! Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not particularly envious just a bit frustrated and worried that the system doesn’t seem to be set up to cope well with future challenges. I see Carlos Tevez was fined two weeks wages (£400,000) for his misunderstanding with the Man City management, are we on the same planet?

Meanwhile back on earth we installed our trial LED lights in the growth room this week. Just red and blue lights which look very odd but the plants are supposed to like it. We could save 70% on our lighting energy use but we have to be sure they will work with us first. The theory looks brilliant, but the practice is never that simple. Fitting them was very easy but we seem to have an issue with the distribution of light across the shelf due to the fact that our growth room shelves are so close together. We are returning to the drawing board with Phillips to find another way of using their LED’s. I’m sure we will get there in the end.

Eco News

No negative only positive responses from last week’s local paper coverage which is great. www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/9319823.New_wind_farm_near_Winchester_up_and_spinning

I have held back from stirring things up about the ‘Hampshire’s first major wind farm’ statement when we are only a ‘micro-generation project’ and take comfort from the fact that is has been so well received overall. It’s interesting how many individuals you speak to say how much they like their appearance but think they are in the minority and how it is assumed the ‘anti’ lobby are in the majority. Such is the power of the media and the weak position created by a silent majority.

There has been a bit of a solar rush in the last few months as many people have cottoned on to the falling installation costs and high current rate of solar Feed in Tariffs resulting in ever shortening payback periods. Lots of little installation companies appeared offering all sorts of deals and the ‘clever’ buyers were holding out for lower prices for maximum return. This balloon was due to pop in April when the annual FIT review comes into force and the government adjust the FIT rates to compensate for falling costs. However it was leaked last week that the new rates are coming into force for all solar systems installed after 8th Dec (still to be officially confirmed). There is a big cut 50%+, new rules and the quick implementation of the changes which has put the wind up a few but it is something that had to happen. The good news for all is that solar costs are falling rapidly which brings it a lot closer to being an economically viable asset to have as part of the energy supply system. The high rate of FIT support was a tool to get these things started and it has succeeded in that, but when monetary gain becomes the main aim things do need looking at. I’m sure after a few months of readjustment the solar industry will settle into a more sensible phase of development. One company I was speaking to was looking at designing ground mounted tracking systems where you can increase output by up to 40% which sounds very sensible especially in a country where we need to make the most of our limited sunshine levels use the same panels and get more output.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Had a scary visit to Roundstone Nurseries this week for a Grow-save seminar on heating and ventilation. What a place, lovely smart warm offices and a spotless despatch, potting and production setup on a big scale. We had a brief walk round and saw crops of Poinsettia coming on for the Christmas market, all very closely monitored and managed to keep inputs to a minimum and quality high. Many of the guests were more greenhouse orientated than ourselves so their interest in heating costs etc was probably more financially significant but the overall story of lack of margin for most on this crop or no margin at all, despite a crop waste rate of less than 3%, was sobering. The market is hugely supermarket led and ruthless. Stories of large pot cyclamen imports at 50p/pot were told and there were a few long faces at the longer term prospects if this sort of madness carries on. The depth of knowledge in the room was very impressive, with clever use of heat, irrigation and venting reducing and in some cases eliminating the need for sprays to control growth habits and diseases. These were very highly skilled growers producing fantastic crops yet they struggle to pay minimum pay rates to make ends meet and without better consumer appreciation will struggle to survive. It was interesting to see one large ornamental grower selling up two of their nursery sites over the last couple of weeks to a food producer, possibly a trend to watch. Luckily I did pick up a few useful pointers as to how we can eek our oil heating costs out a bit, while at the same time improving our propagation successes, so it wasn’t all bad news.

I’m not sure whether I should mention how well Southampton FC are doing on their return to the championship, riding high and playing pretty well. It’s amazing how far a bit of extra confidence can take you. We went into the city on Friday to see The Beat and a great young band called Will and the People, all of them oozed confidence but in a fun and non-irritating way. Even if you are not old enough to remember the Ska scene of the eighties look out for The Beat. It always seems slightly sad to be going to see a reformed band in a small local venue, but it was a great party atmosphere and the band very entertaining and talented. It’s always a good sign if the band look like they are having a good time!

Have you noticed the cooler weather has brought about a change in fly populations. We did have a big influx of quick moving little buggers who were very irritating and in my eagerness to catch & despatch them tended to get over splattered. It’s been a good time to avoid any homemade garibaldi biscuits in our house! Now we are into the cluster flies which tend to congregate at this time of year to hibernate. Fatter, dopey things, easier to swat but form ugly seething masses when they find a nice home. They used to be a problem in the loft until we put up an electric killing machine and now I’ve noticed them filling up the control boxes at the base of the turbines, not very nice when you open them up to check the readings. The joys of country living.

Eco News

We made page two in the paper with a reasonable splash. www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/9319823.New_wind_farm_near_Winchester_up_and_spinning

I would hardly classify us as a wind farm (too small and less than 5 in number), let alone a major wind-farm, but there you go why would you want the press to be accurate, there is no sensationalist or entertainment value in that! I may have accidentally invited a load of complaints by mentioning that only one person had complained directly since they went up 3 months ago, but hopefully all will pass off quietly.

We are having the first service of the turbines in a couple of weeks which should see the last of the setup stuff completed. Although they have been busy generating since we turned them on there are still a few bits of the installation to tidy up before all is signed off at which point we will have a look at getting some local groups/schools in to have a look at what is going on and how it all works.

Times are tough and sustainability rules. Even our labels get the chop. Apparently the huge tongue depressor market is saving resources by now making them 1mm narrower so I will need to remake our wider printing plates to accommodate the change, I bet they didn’t think of that when they changed.

Skylarks are back in the field already singing and fighting over territory.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Triumph! Computer security upgrade successfully sorted last week but as is the way with all messing about with computers it’s never that simple. The instant I had finished we had a huge Windows 7 update which loaded the latest Internet Explorer 9. It took ages to download and completely messed up any internet browsing, within 30 seconds or so it would freeze and refresh. Naturally I assumed it was a cock-up on my part with the security update but after a bit of investigation it was the new IE9 upgrade. It automatically sets itself up for the very latest video software which of course we don’t have and can’t upgrade with a compatible driver despite the computers only being a couple of years old. Anyway by ticking the right box in ‘internet tools + advanced’ we sorted it. Another productive few hours!

Caroline came back down to earth last week, quite literally. She did her tandem skydive which she got as a birthday present from a load of ‘friends’ a few months ago. I wasn’t too worried as I had topped up the life insurance and I know she loves that sort of thing, about as much as I hate it. It hit the spot and the ‘money off your next jump’ voucher is now burning a hole in her pocket so I doubt it will be long before she has another go.

Sad news this week that the Woking Nursery Show is no more. We have been exhibiting there for a very long time and it was always a productive and lovely day out for us, but the competition from the new HTA National Plant Fair just a couple of weeks before was just too much to bear and perhaps it was time to move on. It will be interesting to see how the shows get on over the next few years, particularly the national ones especially when I think things are likely to turn more in favour of more local supply with increasing demand for local produce, transport costs and possible future plant movement restrictions. I’m not 100% sure of our future strategy on the show front, we have now lost both of the shows we attended this year but it looks at the moment that the favourite option may be to buy a pig and eat it! As a sideline we might invite a few folk to come and see what we are up to at the same time. We have done quite a few tours already with local interest groups, nursery visits and students and we seem to have built up quite a variety of different things to show, there is all the hairy stuff, production facilities micro-prop lab, sustainability stuff and the turbines and nearly all the people who come have managed to stay awake for most of the time. Perhaps one in early February and another in the summer, we’ll see. Mind you by the time we get too February we might be down to cabbage soup rather than suckling pig!

With perfect timing through our contacts in Plato Sustain we had a very entertaining & productive visit from a marketing strategist from URS Scott Wilson who has done us a quick review of all things hairy. I am always a bit sceptical about consultants especially when they are not horticulturaly orientated but she was brilliant, very sharp, practical and astute. We discussed all sorts of options from very short term ideas on a shoestring budget to longer term business strategies. It was certainly a great way of bringing some of our ideas into sharper focus and finding practical ways of bringing those ideas into reality. Watch this space!

Eco News

The local paper caught up with us this week with a call asking if the turbines were up yet. The reporter lives in Winchester but such is the uproar created by their erection that he hadn’t realized that they had been up for over three months. It won’t be in until next week (Hampshire Chronicle) but hopefully it will get a sensible reaction and not stir up too many negative thoughts. The photographer came in on Wednesday to take some pictures and I look great, so that’s ok.

I have been doing a bit of internet research on UK average monthly wind speeds this week to try and get a more accurate idea of how the turbines are fairing. It will still need a long term review for sensible analysis but it looks ok so far. I found a couple of graphs for UK winds over the last 21 and 34 years and they gave me the percentages to adjust the annual estimate we were given by the turbine installers. By the end of September we were 2.88% under estimate, although if I adjusted for the time one turbine was out of action with a set up problem it would have been 3% up. So far in October we are fractionally up but it is so tight that a day of light or heavy wind could swing it one way of the other.

The recent wooden tray returns have gone pretty well, we still are a few short, but looking back over the three seasons we have been using them we have achieved a return rate of 97.5% which is brilliant. Well done everyone, especially those who have achieved a 100% return of which there are many.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Back to autumn which is good news for turbine production and my body. Might have been a bit over optimistic playing hockey twice last weekend in all that heat as it took me a while to get upright on Monday, in fact it wasn’t until Thursday that I felt I could give it another go. Better day yesterday with perfect cool weather and a more forgiving rubbery pitch and a 7-0 win, we won’t talk about last week’s results. Most parts are moving ok this morning, well, as many parts as usual anyway. Shame about the England performances this weekend, on the football and rugby pitches, but there you go, good job it’s only a game and played for fun.

We had another very full week again, I keep thinking we will get a quiet week but there seems to be so much going on Monday saw my last official PLATO Sustain meeting and a résumé of all the things we had all done over two years which was a surprising amount. The timing seems to have been perfect for those of us who stuck the course (9 out of 13) with sustainability coming much more to the fore in businesses of all sizes. OK I know some may only be playing lip service to it at the moment but those of us who are embracing it are seeing some valuable returns already with plenty more to come. We are going to continue our local group on a self financed quarterly basis, meeting up at each other’s premises to try to keep up the momentum and I’m looking forward to the first one at a rubber mouldings manufacturer!

The changing weather prompted some pre-winter repairs this week which seem to have gone really well. The lab growth room and mess room roof’s had sprung a few leaks where the covers had split. The mess room we re-sheeted which looks good and the growth room we repaired with some very expensive but hopefully effective tape (Eternabond). We have tried repairing this roof before with bituminous stuff, but it has dried and split again, the tape looks much more suited to the job was quite easy to apply. What did we do before the internet!

Had a trip to the solicitors to sort out the official lease paperwork for the turbine sites which are on the field above the nursery. 28 pages of legal stuff and a bill larger than the rent for 20 years! Everything odd ‘little’ job done for this project costs another couple of thousand, whether it’s bat survey, archaeologists, solicitors, planning stuff, servicing contracts, electric extras. If only we could charge these labour rates for our skills in horticulture, still at least we are not bitter, we do have such a lovely lifestyle after all!

It is that frustrating time of year when our computer security software comes up for renewal. Every year what should be a simple renewal of licensing turns into a long winded, hair pulling cock-up. That’s the advantage of having me as the IT department! I got a reminder from Symantec that it was coming up to renewal time and they gave me a renewal code number to use. Looks easy and if you have a domestic version or have a business in the USA or Canada it is, but in the UK you have to buy it through a reseller. Went to the company who sold it to us last year, sorry we don’t do renewals, searched the internet for the UK and no obvious candidates, it was easier and cheaper to buy from new again. Bought it and tried to load it, slow start as no instructions as to what to do until one of the 6 disc’s supplied goes in (no indication of which one first). Then have to stop loading to remove the old version first. Remove that then try again, window appears to say that this version won’t load onto Windows 7, hurrah guess what we have. Spend the rest of the morning finding and reloading the old version as
we have now have no protection on our main computer. Then I find out that I can load the new one onto W7 if I use another loading method. I’ve decided to take a break from this and will try again tonight, could be a long one.

Eco News

The turbines have been productive this week and are whizzing around again today, pushing up the daily average closer to what we were hoping for. Still need a few more breezy days to catch up with the plan although we are continuing to produce more
than we are consuming which was one of the main aims of the project.

We have been researching the latest Phillips LED Growlights to trial in the lab and have now ordered a couple to try out. They look bizarre as they only have red and blue bulbs so the overall effect is quite dark, but apparently the plants like it and they are said to be 60% more efficient as well as a lot cooler in operation which saves on climate control costs too. We will see how they do over the winter and when the cash-flow recovers in 2012 we will look at making another significant sustainability investment. One financial hiccup is that this investment isn’t as obviously beneficial as it could have been as we are now generating cheap electricity so the savings aren’t as great in £’s only in carbon.

The recent wooden tray returns have gone pretty well, we still are a few short, but looking back over the three seasons we have been using them we have achieved a return rate of 97.5% which is brilliant. Well done everyone, especially those who
have achieved a 100% return of which there are many.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Summer at last. A bit late but a nice vitamin D boost before the long haul through until next summer, which is due I believe in March. Not the best of weekends to make my hockey debut for this season with two games in two days. I’m still standing after yesterdays jog about on the wing but I suspect I will be suffering after today’s fixture. Luckily it’s the over 50’s cup so not too many younger than me this time.

A lot of rubbish in the news this week. There was one day when I think the boys and girls in charge thought we needed a bit of uplifting after months of doom and gloom with economic woes and cut backs so they threw us a couple of token bonuses. All I felt were shockingly negative and wide of the mark but pandering to a perceived public demand. Just as we are getting into the swing of living more sustainably and doing lots more recycling we get told that weekly mixed rubbish collections are going to be encouraged, relying on investment in clever sorting equipment to get the recycling done. First of all the equipment is not there at the moment to achieve this with completely mixed waste and how good is that equipment anyway, surely there will be huge cross contamination between all the different wastes that can go into the domestic bins. Then there is the negative message which comes across that we can go back to not thinking about where stuff comes from and where it goes. Sorting the recycling can have a very positive influence on attitudes over a long period, as annoying chores become inbuilt ‘feel good’ habits, at which point we can move on to the next stage whatever that might be.

Another rumour of change was the discussion on raising the speed limit which seems to go against most boring but sensible thinking. Although car development and safety has come a long way they are still heavy fast moving objects controlled by rather unpredictable organic life-forms on increasingly crowded roads. On those roads there are even bigger objects that are restricted to 56mph so the contrast in speeds will be even greater which looks to be asking for trouble. On top of that the loss in fuel efficiency is already big between 60 and 70, let alone at the higher speeds, so carbon output will increase instantly.

Then the BBC were warning one morning about the dangers of handling and eating veg that had been grown in the soil, potatoes and leeks getting particularly bad press, all due to a tenuous link to a very widespread, but not huge, e-coli food poisoning outbreak for which they could find no other explanation. They couldn’t pin anything down to a single farm, district or even county but ran out of other possible links. Now I don’t know much about medicine but if the soil around the whole country was widely infected and soil on veg was the real source of this outbreak why haven’t we seen it in all those other years when soil appeared on fresh veg? I hope no-one took this too seriously as veg growing is tough enough without silly rumours hitting the markets.

Now for the rubbish good news. Recycling for small businesses is getting more efficient and the result is falling costs to us. This week we reviewed our waste disposal choices and managed to simplify our sorting/storage choices by picking more comprehensive disposal packages now being offered to businesses in our area. Because we produce relatively small volumes of waste we have had to work quite hard to get our various different recyclable wastes taken away. This has involved several different contracts, lots of individual costs and plenty of inconvenience, but it would appear that there is now enough organisation in the waste industry for more inclusive flexible solutions to be offered at lower cost. This means that most of our recyclable waste can go to one contractor in one bin, in one collection, once a fortnight at far less than we were paying before. Not only that but we are now recycling so much of our waste that we are reducing our non-recyclable waste collections to once a fortnight rather than weekly which means another saving. We also found out that our mixed waste goes to energy generation (incinerator) rather than landfill which is not perfect but better.

Eco News

The dominant high pressure system has slowed up the turbines somewhat this week but we are hopeful that the autumn storms will return soon (every cloud has a silver lining). We heard from the SSE Feed in Tariff people this week letting us know that we would need to obtain an export meter number, a half hourly export meter and an export contract to be eligible for FIT’s. I informed them calmly that all this was already in place (all installed and contracted to SSE!) and we had been generating and metered since July 21st. Am I the only one that has any idea what is going on? They said they would check it out and get back to me. They must have sorted it out as the contract turned up the next day and we are now signed up and have sent in our first quarterly reading (end Sept), hurrah. Despite the generation slow down over the last week and a bit we still managed to generate more than we used, not just September but over the whole period since the switch on. So some of that carbon surplus can go towards balancing the next big carbon user our delivery system.

Have a good week.

A slow start this morning after a big day yesterday. It was our first go at entering the Lowaters Nursery (Garden Beauty) 5-a-side football tournament followed by a night out at a local charity ball. Considering I was still up after 10.30 and the fluid intake was above average my head feels fine unfortunately the rest of my body has let me down.

The only way I could make it into the team was to play in goal as we had plenty of volunteers to play on the pitch but I underestimated the effort involved in repeatedly lying horizontal between a couple of posts. Actually the lying horizontal bit was ok it was the getting down and back up again that did me in. My thighs are very stiff and sore, I’ve got carpet burns and bruises on knees, elbows and hips and one wrist doesn’t work anymore. I was like the six-million-dollar-man in the first game, if anyone remembers that far back, everything I did was in slow motion but unfortunately the shots weren’t. A pint of Guinness and a sausage and bacon roll put that right and things did improve in the later games, in fact much to our surprise we won with a 100% record through the whole day. We had one or two very useful players but the thing that swung it was the team work, if we used everyone together it worked fantastically well most of the time and the occasional cock-ups were soon forgotten. It was a perfect sunny autumn day for it and Lowaters did a great job organising it and raising valuable funds for the Greenfingers charity, so well done them. I had hoped a bit of jigging about in the evening would help stretch things out but I fear the only thing really stretched was the waistband. Hopefully things generally will have loosened up a bit by tomorrow and I can start moving around again without quite as many old person’s moans and groans.

2012 is creeping up very quickly and I saw this week that they have already announced the Great Britain sailing team. I don’t know much about sailing but I hear that Ben Ainsley has made it into his fourth Olympics which is a great achievement especially when you think of all the time he spends cooking and hosting Ready Steady Cook.

Back on the nursery, the herbaceous bulbs have just arrived so that means another last few days potting and we will be done for 2012. All the seasonal helpers have gone back to college or other jobs now and we are back to our core backbone of hardworking regulars. That must mean those days are returning when we treasure every penny that comes in and dread each that slips out as the cash-flow issues build through winter until the spring income starts again in a few months time. At least we can see how much better the nursery, stock and business look at this point in comparison to other recent years, real progress and excitement for the coming seasons.

Hopefully the wind keeps the turbines turning over the next few months which should give us a handy boost to the autumn and winter income, it is not quite like printing money but it does provide a regular bonus. On top of that we will have a whole winters benefit of the extra house insulation we put in last winter which will save several more hundreds of pounds. Slowly, slowly catchee monkey.

Eco News

I went to a PLATO Sustain conference last week which was very good but rather disappointingly attended, lots of up to date sustainability info and I learnt a bit about effective business governance. Sounds very dull but was actually quite inspiring. One thing an effective company board can do is take a step back from the everyday fire-fighting that tends to dominate general management in challenging times and take a look at longer term strategy. This can cut back on the fire-fighting which is an obvious immediate bonus and also identify opportunities or approaching challenges in the coming years, sustainability being one of those. Then the very next day we had a sustainability issue reappear in conversation with our plant health inspector. This is something we have started addressing quietly ourselves over the last couple of years and may become a much bigger issue in the coming years for the whole horticultural industry. The advantages of local purchasing of stock is likely to become more obvious as transport costs (in £’s as well as carbon) continue to escalate. But there may be a more urgent issue that could create a real strategic challenge for plant growers and retailers and that is the increasing spread of non-native pests and diseases. One pest we have had come onto the quarantined part of our nursery on imported cuttings is the tobacco whitefly. It is known to carry 152 seriously harmful plant viruses that can devastate commercial food crops and is already seriously affecting production abroad of all sorts of crops. At present it is a notifiable disease in the UK and is being stopped from spreading by effective monitoring and control by importing nurseries (us) and the plant inspectorate. Although this has worked so far there is the possibility that regular offenders (propagation nurseries abroad) could be banned from sending stock to the UK. This could produce sudden serious loss of supply and shortages and in the future could result in a lot more restrictions of plant movements between countries and even within countries. In the longer term there are even fears of plant movement restrictions within the UK, resulting effectively in forced local growing and purchasing. Something to think about for all you buyers and growers out there.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Very autumnal at the moment, sun, wind, rain, then no wind and that’s just in the last couple of hours. Naturally the morning that we had a few visitors on the nursery this week was the time when there was no turbine movement at all.

A disappointing labelling issue came up last week when a large supermarket got away with labelling a range of sausages as Hereford sausages despite the fact that they were made with meat from Argentina! Some of the meat was from the breed of cattle called Hereford which were produced in Argentina, hence the allowed description. There are similar issues with things like English butter which can be made of milk from anywhere as long as it is actually turned into butter in England. Tesco’s got caught out too with their latest sausage advert where it appeared that the meat content was from free range pigs when in fact only some of the meat was free range and the rest was from crated pigs, oops. Having dealt with several multiples ourselves I know that however much you want to trust them you just can’t, they will pay lip service to what they think you want to hear and then do whatever they like to make more money. To be fair I have heard much more positive things said about Waitrose but then they are a worker owned business so perhaps the culture is more positive.

Very sad news about the miners in Wales, but the scary thing for me was the reaction of a guest commentator on the BBC who said how shocked he was that anyone was still working in conditions like that. It might not be as common in the UK as it was but all around the world there are miners working in appalling conditions and dying to extract minerals cheaply to make what we consume. The fact that we choose to ignore that and assume everyone works under the same conditions as us is a comforting thought but a long way from reality.

Now the nights are drawing in there is more time to do some star gazing. I can only recognize a very few constellations and at my age I forget any new ones I get shown with a few minutes so it has been great to find the Google Sky app for Caroline’s smart-phone. Once loaded you just hold it up to the sky and it will show you what you are looking at. Brilliant.

Although we are dead keen on keeping things as natural and sustainable as we can that doesn’t mean we don’t use technology to help where we can. We are after all a plant manufacturing unit and have to produce as efficiently as we can to keep our prices as competitive as possible. One of the latest toys we have to help is a rugged handheld mini-computer which will put up with outside nursery use and help us be more efficient in updating our stock info and availability lists. In the past we have had to input updated info manually into the computer system which was always slow and sometimes inaccurate. Over the past 6 months we have been working with a company (Qsys) developing the software to use on the new device and we are now in the last phase of fine tuning this first phase. It works nicely already and has lots of scope for later development (photos, videos, barcode scanning, GPS positioning for batch location are all possibilities). If only nursery work was as well paid as software programming!

Oh yes, there are some yummy plants to buy on the nursery if you want some.

Eco News

Overall it had been a good sustainability week, we generated 2,500 units and we collected a large number of our wooden trays to dry out, clean, repair and get into storage ready for next season. Hopefully we will recover enough trays to get through another season without having to invest in any more trays which is the sort of result we had hoped for when we set off down this particular packaging route. If you have any tray stock ready to be returned then please let us know and we will pop in next time we are in your area. If you are unsure of the balance of trays owed please contact me and I can print off a report and we can sort out things before any shortage bills go out.

Nature notes

There are some great seasonal treats about at the moment, we’ve had some great blackberries and now the apples are coming on stream too. We’ve been through the early Discoveries and now the Worcester’s are in the shops, crisp & delicious, miles better than the foreign stuff in taste and sustainability. For those who struggle with getting through their quota of daily fruit get your storage right. In the past we used to buy fruit and watch it rot in the bowl or just go wrinkly. Pears were always a nightmare, hard for a while, ripe for 30 seconds and rotten minutes later. Then we started keeping apples and pears in the fridge and they are fantastic, keeping crisp & juicy for ages. Look out for some tasty late soft fruit in the shops but keep an eye on where they come from (blueberries this weekend are coming from Argentina!). For a free treat go for a walk in the woods and hoover up the hazelnuts which are now falling. If you’ve got squirrels around you will need to be quick. I’ve picked a good lot up and started working through them even though they are a bit green, the flavour develops as they mature and they keep for months

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Sun is shining and the wind is breezing by, perfect for us. It’s funny how a change in circumstances alters your perception on everyday stuff. I always found windy weather a bit tense making, especially at this time of year when the impending dark winter days loom together with all the associated issues that present themselves at this time of year. The reducing sales and cash-flow panics, short days, colder temps, leaking roofs and still lots to get sorted before Spring sales kick off again in January. The autumn wind blasting by was often the last straw in focusing the tension but now I’m watching out for them with glee, checking on the meter to see how much we might generate. This week has seen a big jump in production with just under 3000 units over 7 days which is nearly half of the months anticipated amount. This is now helping catch up with the shortfall of the first month and the next few days look promising too. At times it was too windy and the turbines production started to fall slightly where the efficiency falls away slightly in the stronger winds. This is a feature of our inshore turbines where they reach peak efficiency at relatively low wind speeds to make the most of the lower speeds experienced inland and that efficiency tails off very slightly at the higher speeds experienced in stormy weather.

It was a very busy week with plenty of orders whizzing out and several box collections made which was great. I also managed to squeeze in a PLATO Sustain meeting, a trip to Mums, a day at Four Oaks trade show and a morning in Wem (Shropshire) picking up our new hand held rugged computer (like a big smart phone) and learning how to make it fit on our system. I haven’t been to Four Oaks for years and saw lots of interesting stuff. Unfortunately Caroline has confiscated the cheque book so I didn’t come away with anything other than a handful of brochures and a few ideas lined up for next year’s improvements. Philips lighting were showing their range of LED lighting for use in growth rooms which looks promising for the microprop lab, I expect we will get a trial going in there soon to test them out. They can reduce the direct energy cost by 60% and lower the requirements for cooling on top of that (it’s cheaper to heat than cool with air source heat pump systems like ours). If the plants like them it will pay back within 3-4 years. I must admit they look odd as the lighting arrays are made up of a mix of just blue and red lights and look quite dark. They only add white lights (if needed) to help us see what we are doing!

It was noticeable on several stands that sustainability was shooting up the agenda although it is still shocking to see some of the lack of thought and amount of waste created at this sort of event. One example was the lunch boxes delivered to the exhibitors of which there were hundreds. Organised by Four Oaks and sponsored by Horticulture Week, they were corex (corrugated plastic) suitcases holding the sandwich, apple, crisps and possibly a drink. They looked wasteful, dated, out of touch, and dominated the rubbish bins. Luckily I am now so old I can make a fuss without embarrassment, well not to me anyway, so I stirred it up with most of the exhibitors I spoke to and went to the Hort Week stand to see if they had registered what a poorly thought out promotion this was. The two youngsters on the stand had differing views, one asked if they were really that bad and the other hung his head in shame admitting that they had paid for these and perhaps they could have done a better job. There is still a long way to go in this world to get things going in the right direction and it gets a bit scary when horticulture, a fundamentally green industry, still has such a blinkered view. Luckily I do get to hear from some of you about how much you are doing at work and in your own homes to move things forward so well done you lot, keep it up.

Nature notes

House martins still in the nests but feeding well. Although our swallows have gone I still saw lots in Shropshire so it might not be too late.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

September already, how did that happen? I’m not desperately keen on sunshine and heat but it doesn’t feel like summer has happened yet. An unsettled and windy (hurrah) week to come is going to feel autumnal but we could still have a couple of summery weeks yet with a bit of luck. Anyway I’m not too worried now as we had our summer break last Sunday with a lovely day trip to the sunny Isle of Wight. Beer and sandwiches on the beach and slight sun scorch after rashly removing my socks from under my sandals. The beach cleared after a short shower just in time for a quick game of beach cricket where I took the ‘catch of the day’ before retiring hurt with a groin strain after doing the splits trying a bit too hard stretching for a wide ball. I missed our first hockey game yesterday because of that, claiming to have picked up the injury training in preparation for the new season. It’s a good job I only went for the day or I would be in a wheel chair by now.

We are just coming towards to the end of the potting for next spring’s crops, the last compost load comes in on Monday and we just have a few more tunnels to clear to make room for it all. We can then get stuck in to some nursery maintenance to get prepared for the winter. With a bit of luck it won’t be as dramatic as the last two, we are not very good with snow down here and we did loose quite a lot of the less hardy stock in the very cold snaps. With a bit more preparation we will hopefully avoid that level of loss and come into a nice sunny spring with even better stock than ever before. We have got to recover the despatch area, the mess room and the lab very soon as all are leaking badly and internal running water in the winter is no fun when it’s not in the pipes.

One thing that will be interesting to see is the performance of the house heating over an entire autumn and winter. Last year’s insulation efforts (roof, cavity walls and under-floor) and wood burner fitting were only completed in mid December and the reduction in oil consumption was dramatic even for part of the cold season. The oil savings made have already paid back the insulation costs and part of the burner fitting so a whole season’s savings should go even further. If you have not looked at insulating recently, take a look, the benefits to the environment and the annual financial rewards are impressive and in our case the comfort improvement on cold nights is luxurious.

Although we didn’t have a particularly breezy August the figures for the first month of turbine generating look ok. Not earth shattering but a reasonable start. We won’t really know how things look on the production front until we have been going a couple of years as the wind does vary so much. Overall we generated about 2/3rds of the average monthly output needed to reach our estimated annual generation, but our consumption reduced a bit too with a replacement air source heat pump with a more efficient model. If we not had the set up problem with the one turbine which put it out of action for several of the windiest days we would have come very close to a carbon neutral electric supply which had been one of our main targets for the project. The month ended on a whimper with our first nil generation day, but hopefully this week we might see what could be done in a breezier spell.

Nature notes

Swallows have all gone and a lot of the house martins too although there are at least three if not four nests of house martins still with a late second batch of youngsters in residence. Hopefully they haven’t left it too late and they get airborne soon before the cool and wet gets a grip.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Morning all,


After a disappointing few days on the wind front we are making up for it this morning with over 20 units an hour since 8.00. This will make up a lot if it carries on over the next day or two. First excitement of each day is to pull back the curtains to see if they are turning. Yes I am old.

So now the turbines are sorted, what’s next? Well we are still adding to the irrigation efficiency with our evapo-sensor control system to set up, which should reduce water use by adjusting application rates to each days weather changes more accurately than I can, and the new variable speed pump to plumb in which is energy efficient and will make irrigating quicker and more versatile. Then I’m off to the Four Oaks trade show in a couple of weeks to check out LED lighting for the lab growth room, bio-mass boilers for our propagation needs and any other helpful stuff I can find. We can’t do it all straight away as the cash flow is so tight but it gives us some things to aim for. We are still trialling box inserts for the wooden display trays we use to make it easier to maintain the stock in their display areas. They are very shallow inserts which just hold the irrigation water around the pot base a little longer to allow the water to absorb before draining slowly away. They are looking very promising, we are just fine tuning the sizing and longevity before taking the plunge.

Started shopping for a replacement 7.5 tonne van this week. The old one is getting more expensive to keep on the road and the newer models are that bit more efficient and cleaner running. Not only that but the new emission controls in London come into effect next year and we need a cleaner vehicle to avoid the huge penalty charges involved. I know it will be another added burden on the cash flow but we can’t manage without a reliable workhorse at the centre of a busy spring. We can always resort to hire vehicles in an emergency but having a purpose built van to hand is essential if we are to get everything done effectively during the busy times. The cost of using specialist trolley carriers is getting very expensive too with charges ranging from £45/trolley for very local delivery to £85 + fuel surcharges for East Anglia, Cornwall and the North Midlands. These costs are going to have a bigger impact on trade overall as the years pass and costs continue to rise. Buying from local suppliers is going to have a real financial benefit to all sides in the future, something to bear in mind as you plan for the medium term. ‘Free delivery’ doesn’t exist, someone pays and at the moment that will be the local customer rather than the distant one and that can’t continue as it simply isn’t fair or sustainable.

Off on our summer break on Sunday which I am looking forward too after a long sales season, turbine excitement and recent troubles. There is nothing like a day trip to the Isle of Wight! It has become an annual pilgrimage to sun worship on the beach with a sandy sandwich and a small beer. OK it did rain most of the day last year and I didn’t get out of my coat but we stuck it out, as long as we are with friends it’s a great day out. A change is as good as a rest and besides, I get a little holiday every day when I get on the web cam over looking Porthmeor beach in St Ives each tea time when everyone has gone home.

Eco News

Virtually all our stock now has MET 52 incorporated in the compost to give 2 season protection against the dreaded vine weevil. It is a bio-insecticide (a fungus) that infects the larvae in the compost as it grows. It has been shown to slow the effect of a few other soil living pests as well such as sciarid fly, onion fly, cabbage root fly and thrips so it could turn out to be a really useful and safe asset to have around. Naturally it doesn’t come cheap but with such beneficial results we should get a higher quality plant overall and less wastage from plant loses which will help cover that extra cost.

I had advanced notification from Floramedia (label printers) that they will be offering a wooden label printing service very soon. They have been doing a few for one big customer but are now able to offer it more widely for anyone interested. You may want to sit down before you read the price list. Still it is great to see more use of natural materials being taken up.

Nature notes

Biological rabbit control in full effect this morning. Spare Cat picked off one off the biggest ones and having dragged it off has now consumed most of it and can’t find a comfortable position in which to sleep it off. I’ve got to move him in a minute and I’m a bit anxious that something is going to give.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Morning all,


Plenty of weather last week. We measured over 50mm of rain here on Thursday, it was wet. The drains just couldn’t cope with the volume of water and there was water everywhere. Luckily as we are on a slope and thin chalky soil so it doesn’t take long to soak away and the next morning the sun was out and you wouldn’t have believed it had happened. Hopefully there was not too much damage down in Dorset where it was even worse. I was at a meeting near Swanage on Thursday and drove through the worst of it which was exciting but a little scary, the power of nature to create chaos so quickly is humbling.

The meeting was our quarterly gathering of our NBIS group (Nursery Business Improvement Scheme) in which we look at our relative performances, analyse a few figures and focus on specialist topics to try and make things better. It’s always an inspiring session starting with a close check-up on the local hostelry for lunch to get us warmed up. The discussion of our mistakes and successes over the past few months is very honest, refreshing, and therapeutic. It is the horticultural equivalent of Alcoholics Anonymous and the key thing to getting it to work for everyone is that key moment when you are able to face the group and admit ‘I am a nurseryman, I make it up as I go along, I don’t make any real money, I work ridiculous hours, I need help but it is what I do.’ Once you get over the embarrassment hurdle and you get to hear of everyone else’s problems it is much easier to make real improvements. Everyone is insecure and a bit frightened of life out there, we all just find different ways to hide it and sometimes finding a sympathetic ear on a similar wavelength is just what we need to push us onwards and upwards. Watch out for those ears.

A very unusual feeling at present. Southampton FC always have rubbish starts to the season but here we are riding high on top of the championship table with four wins out of four. We only got promotion at the end of last season and this was a little unexpected. We always start the season full of hope, which usually lasts about 45 minutes so we are not quite sure what to think at the moment, we are very pleasantly dazed. We got so carried away that we have entered the Lowaters Nursery 5-a-side football in late September, a decision I hope not to regret as I haven’t kicked a ball for many years. Hopefully some of our youngsters will prop me up and it won’t be too embarrassing.

Eco News

Turbines have been running for a few weeks now, but the weather hasn’t been very windy yet. We also had a set up problem with one turbine which needed another visit from the installers to adjust some of the sensors. There are several safety measures in place which involve various sensors and computer controlled cut-out/ braking procedures and we suspect they weren’t quite right on installation. It ran for a couple of days before registering a fault and we then lost several days output from the one turbine until it was reset. It seems to be running fine now so hopefully that will be it. Since August 1st until this morning (21st) we have averaged generation of 145 units a day (would have been 175 if all three going) and we are aiming for 240 units as a daily average through the year. Not too bad considering the fairly still weather. We have had one brisk days wind when we generated just over 400 units and I have seen an individual turbine producing at close to its maximum output of just over 12 kW an hour although only for a very short burst.

Originally we were hoping to generate the same amount of electricity as we use and this we are close to achieving already as we have managed to reduce a little further our consumption (replacement air source heat pump which is more efficient than the 7 year old unit it replaced). Our daily use since Aug 1st has been 195 units, so at a rate of 175/day generation we aren’t far short.

I have managed to break into my You Tube account and put on a video of one of our turbines being lifted into position if anyone fancies a look. There is one of the turbines running too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ44nQpdVnI.

I had advanced notification from Floramedia (label printers) that they will be offering a wooden label printing service very soon. They have been doing a few for one big customer but are now able to offer it more widely for anyone interested. You may want to sit down before you read the price list. Still it is great to see more use of natural materials being taken up.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Morning all,


I hope the sun shines on you this week, it’s about time we had a little more summer weather especially for all those lucky folk on their holidays.

It’s been a bit of a crappy few weeks hence the lack of news coming from this end. Sadly my dad, who has been poorly for a while, passed away. He was such a gentle quiet man, who so carefully looked after his family. In the end he slipped quietly away surrounded by his family at Katharine Hospice in Stafford on a bright sunny day with the doors open onto a lovely garden. I can see now why anyone who encounters fantastic hospice care as we did wants to give them all their cash. All the staff were so caring and considerate to Dad and the whole family and we are very grateful for that. The family, friends and neighbours were all brilliant too, all coming together to see everything through. We cut bunches of garden flowers with some of Dad's vegetables for the funeral which was a lovely celebration of his life despite the sadness of the day.

My brain has been somewhat mushy since, as we all try to readjust our thoughts, and the turmoil on the streets and in the financial markets haven’t nurtured a very positive vibe. As usual everyone on the nursery has been very supportive during a tricky time which is hugely helpful and we have successfully managed to keep everything bowling along here.

That’s your lot this week. Hope to get the brain working again soon.

Eco News

Turbines running now. I have managed to break into my You Tube account and put on a video of one of our turbines being lifted into position if anyone fancies a look. There is one of the turbines running too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ44nQpdVnI

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Not sure what to say this morning. The events in Norway and the loss of Amy Winehouse cast quite a long shadow and it is easy to appear flippant and uncaring by trying to be positive and groovy. Unfortunately my dad isn’t feeling too bright either so I’m not going to say too much today which is a bit of a shame when this week could have been very jolly with the new turbines complete, commissioned and running as I write this.

I suppose it just goes to show how vulnerable we all are to whatever unknown event is around the corner. We aren’t perhaps as indestructible as we hoped and life is often unfair and too short. We are all basically soft and squishy on physical and psychological levels and we need to be taking more care of everyone and everything around us, don’t waste your opportunities, appreciate how lucky we are to have what we’ve got and don’t undervalue yourself or others.

I was thinking about socks this morning. Aren’t they great. Quite a complicated thing to make to achieve all of a socks goals but they make life that little bit easier, comfy and luxurious. Extrapolate. We are lucky really, make the most of it.

Eco News

Turbines running now. Quite surprised by the amount generated in light summer breezes of the first couple of days and how much extra was produced with the slightly stiffer breeze over the last 24 hours. I will put some figures together soon.

I have managed to break into my You Tube account and put on a video of one of our turbines being lifted into position if anyone fancies a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ44nQpdVnI

Nature Notes

Second brood of swallows from the same nest fledged this morning. There are loads of tiny frogs hopping about in the tunnels closest to the main pond with quite a few toads and newts too. Explosion of hoverflies this last week or two which should help keep the aphid at bay.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

No rest for the wicked. I can’t remember such a long period when one deadline seems to be followed by another. The busy spring period is always bonkers with so many little deadlines to stick to in order to get all the orders out on time but as things start to quieten we expect to be able to relax slightly. Not a hope this year.

The nursery is filling with rooted cuttings and young plants for next season’s crop which we are trying to get potted as quickly as we can, looking good so far, a few new varieties but such a lot to get through.

The turbines are still stationary as we approach energisation day on Tuesday (19th) assuming we get a dry enough day for the engineers to connect the new supply without turning off the overhead cable. I hope they remember their rubber wellies. (You do have to keep an eye on the automatic spell check on this programme, I nearly missed one there). Then a separate team is due to install the meters before the turbine installers arrive to finish off their electrics and testing and finally the SSE inspection engineer tests everything for final commissioning on Thursday evening. Slight cock-up this week when the meter installer arrived unannounced to do his bit but couldn’t complete without a live supply. The supply installation manager had booked them to do the work, it must have slipped his mind that they needed it all live, I wonder if any supplies are connected in time? Hopefully he has rebooked them and it all goes smoothly and we will be generating by the end of the week. Cue a month of summer high pressure settled air. We still haven’t had the old poles removed that carried the old overhead cable, I checked and they had the job down as being complete, so hopefully I have resurrected it again, we’ll see.

As well as still sending out lots of orders again, we had the Woking Show to attend this week which added to the deadline list. As usual we were well prepared having planned what we were up to several hours in advance of leaving to set up on Tuesday. We are always full of good intentions to get proper signage done when we dismantle the previous show but before you know it there are only moments to go and it’s all too late. Luckily I had made some notes after the last one and so remembered that the stand space was slightly bigger than it used to be and I needed to take more stuff to fill it up. I’m sure all the info is in the exhibitors info pack but that sort of paperwork falls into the category of ‘please confirm you have read and accepted our terms and conditions before completing your order’. Anyway the weather was perfect and we had a really good day. I suspect that the organisers would have been a bit disappointed with attendance but we met lots of existing and potential customers and had plenty of positive responses. We got some excellent feedback from customers after showing them our trial tray insert that will hold a temporary water reservoir after watering to allow the compost to more efficiently absorb what it needs so reducing watering time. We hope to have these available next year after trials are completed.

Bacon roll for breakfast and a delicious lunch added to the day and on top of all that we were delighted to win the ‘Best Stand’ award. I proudly sported the winners rosette for the next couple of days despite the ‘Best of Breed’ overtones of the resulting appearance. I knew it hit the spot when Jamie on the nursery couldn’t stop laughing every time I stepped in view.

Excitement and tension are building on the farm with the imminent start of this year’s harvest. We have cleared out one barn ready for a crop and I should clear another this afternoon if the rain stops for long enough. Then we stand back and let them get on with it. The scale of kit involved these days is astonishing, it makes me feel quite inadequate on our little nursery, still size isn’t everything.

Eco News

I have managed to break into my You Tube account and put on a video of one of our turbines being lifted into position if anyone fancies a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ44nQpdVnI

Nature Notes

The first of the house martins have fledged and the skies are filling with more and more swooping chirping stars. I think there are 7 nests on the house and now a second late swallows nest has appeared on the nursery so by the end of the summer it will be mayhem. Can’t wait.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

What a week!

They are up. It all happened so quickly I missed most of it. Unfortunately SSE who are trying to connect our new supply are unable to send a team over for a few hours to connect the cable to the overhead wire until July 19th so the turbines will be stationary until another SSE engineer can then arrange to come after that date and witness the commissioning of the turbines. A bit frustrating but such is life when playing with the big boys! The SSE metering team have also still to fit the import export meters too so just a bit of fiddling to do. Oh yes and SSE still have to take the overhead cable poles down which are now spoiling my view of the turbines.

Anyway they look great to us even if they won’t go round. Quite big close up but shrink quite quickly as you move away. They are a definite addition to the landscape as they are sat on top of a windy hill but hopefully not too dominating.  I think that they are attractively majestic in their appearance. I had been a bit worried about the galvanised mast looking a bit clunky but they are quite elegant and do disappear fairly well into the background from most viewing angles.

Bank manager visited on the day of the turbine erections so that was nice to show him what they had missed out on supporting. He was very complementary and glad to hear the positive comments from the erection team on what a great site it was and we all lived happily ever after.

The turbines arrived on Monday on a couple of arcti-lorries, were assembled on the floor on over two days and hoisted up by crane on Wednesday. The hoisting and bolting down was done in 3 hours, all very dramatic. They looked a bit big when they first went up but shrunk quite quickly as we got used to them. I hope by next week to have a video on ‘You Tube’ as soon as I can work out how to get into my new account.

I had an interesting letter this week from SSE containing a copy of one of our many new contracts, it was addressed to a Mr D. Pot Plant. ! Not quite sure where that name came from as the contract details inside were all correct.

Woking Show this week so it will be the usual last minute panic to get things together and set up for that and then a whole day of being nice to everyone, can I hold it together? I must say that the lunch usually makes it worth going, as well of course the opportunity to meet lots of lovely customers. I wonder how well attended it will be after the recent National Plant Show at Stoneleigh? Last year was quieter but still well worth attending and still a fun thing to do. It does get me off site for a few hours, it’s almost like a mini holiday, a change is as good as a rest.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

PTT (Pre Turbine Tension) has set in big time over the last couple of weeks. It has taken nearly two years to get to this point where our little turbines are due to go up so you would think that was plenty of time to get everything sorted to avoid any last minute rush. Not a hope. This last week has been an endless run of phone calls and emails trying to tie things up so something actually happens next week. We had success early in the week when one of the Local Area Network (LAN) teams arrived to take down the overhead cable which would otherwise have interfered with the turbines and their erection. The poles are still there but we can work round those for the moment. We have already replaced the overhead cable with our own underground one. A long wait for MPAN numbers (identification numbers given to individual meters) meant that we couldn’t apply for the energy supply contracts, one for importing energy, one for exporting and one for meter rental (a surprise one that we only found out about this week) until the last minute and they won’t energise the new supply until all contracts are in place. Then there is the slight hiccup that the new incoming supply is not quite finished yet. There are just a couple of cable joints and a couple of bits of kit to fix in the meter shed and we are then ready to energise. On Thursday we were given an energisation date of 27th July which would mean that the turbines would sit stationary for 3 or 4 weeks until commissioning of the turbines could be rearranged for sometime after that date. However with a bit of re-jiggling the LAN chaps are hoping to get something sorted sooner, possibly next week which would be brilliant. We’ll see. Turbine erection starts on Monday and if all goes well could be complete and generating by the end of Thursday. Can’t really believe it might actually happen.

The rather precarious nature of nursery life has been brought into focus (no pun intended) recently with the demise of the Focus DIY chain and the appearance of the list of horticultural creditors in Hort Week on Friday. I hope those companies listed are making bigger margins than most of the nurseries I know because losses of that size would be devastating. We are feeling quite relieved that we decided a while ago to move away from that market area where volumes may be high but stresses are huge, margins low and eroding, contract security levels are thin and worst of all you feel unappreciated, abused and out of control of your own business. I know as a businessman I am supposed to hardened to that type of pressure but being at work isn’t somewhere I want to abandon my heart and conscience it is where I spend a lot of my life, I want it to be fulfilling and rewarding. OK, I know the money is in short supply and it can be really hard work but given a chance this is still a potentially great industry to be involved in at any level and well worth getting out of bed for.

Eco News

Good weather at the moment for putting up a turbine or three.

Electric consumption up to the end of June 3.5% down on 2010 and 23.07% on 2009. Not such big savings now as we have made the easy savings already. Now it will take investment in new kit to make more savings and first we have to wait until we get through a year or so paying off some of the turbine costs.

Lloyds TSB sent us their glossy farming magazine this week, there is a whole page on renewable energy project funding. There is a handy checklist which I have read through and I can tick all the boxes so you would think funding would be a doddle. The one item they forgot to list was, only apply for financial help if you don’t actually need it. Their support was nonexistent in fact it cost us delay and extra cost when our local manager tried twice to get us help. He is coming on a visit this week so it will be interesting to see what he has to say and how supportive the bank will be over the coming couple of winters when cash-flow will be under huge pressure due to the extra commitment we have had to make ourselves. We have to thank our families for their belief and support in getting the turbine project of the ground rather than the extraordinarily conservative bank approach.

Nature notes

The removal of the overhead cable has meant no perches for the pigeons above the pea field. It makes a surprising difference to our outlook as we are used to seeing loads there when there is a tasty crop below. They are now fighting over the three remaining pole tops which will soon be replaced by three more hazardous perches!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Phew it’s gone all steamy here with the promise of a couple of days of hot summer in the offing. Luckily for us old folks who have hot flushes at any opportunity it should cool off again pretty quickly but BBQ sales should pick up again.

Potting here for next season is well under way with some of the slower growing lines settling in for a good summers growing. Without the distraction of production for the multiples this year it is great to feel that we are getting things done at the right time and we can concentrate on further improving everything we do. Unfortunately there still don’t seem to be enough hours in the day or days in the week to fit it all in but it’s definitely improving.

Among this week’s distractions was a tour of the nursery and farm organised on Saturday for the local village as their summer ‘do’. It was a great idea to show the villagers, who no longer have very much to do with their immediate local environment, what goes on locally. Several people said how they always wondered what went on under all our tunnels which they drove past every day. It ended up being over-subscribed with over 60 attendees and they all seemed to enjoy it although the kids were well ready for tea by the end. Sometimes it is easy to take what you do for granted forgetting how fascinating it can be for an outsider looking in. Must make more effort to do more.

We are enjoying our usual Glastonbury experience this weekend, a great way to see bands an old fart like me would otherwise miss. The BBC coverage is excellent although seeing more of the smaller stages would be good. Everyone looks to be having a great time which is quite contagious despite the wet and cold on Thursday and Friday. But for me a beer at home, some good ‘live’ music even on tv, home cooking, my own loo, a shower and a comfy bed with clean sheets is just fantastic. I’ve spent the last three weeks caked in mud from all the turbine earth works and trenches and I spend most of the year in the open, so the attraction of paying a fortune to do worse all weekend is lost on me. Long may it continue, there is definitely something very attractive about watching the antics of others having a good time, it’s a bit like the fascination of watching others work.

Eco News

PTT (Pre Turbine Tension) is building here as things sort of come together for the imminent erection of the turbines. Cables are now all in position if not quite all joined together, most trenches are filled in, the grid connection terminal is in and the erection team are primed and ready to go starting on the 4th. The inspection man from Scottish Southern Electric is booked in for the 7th to check all is ok to switch it all on and generate. However with only 5 working days to go we have no date yet for the removal of the overhead supply which has to go before the turbines go up and there is no word yet on the installation arrangements of the special import/export meter needed to measure energy going in and out of the system. We haven’t even been able to tie down contracts for supply and export as they need meter numbers allocating before paperwork can be done and we only have one at the moment, and the supply can’t be connected until contracts of supply are in place. It seems to be really hard to find a way through the maze of departments and teams involved in the energy system and the lack of communication is scary. With each passing day we make a little progress but I have no idea whether it will all come together on time as we get so little feedback from the teams involved despite numerous one way phone calls and messages.

At least we now have the outline contract quotes here even if I can’t understand them. There are lots of new sections in them on which I will have to get clarification but the importing rate looks frightening at the moment. Let’s hope the wind blows a lot!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Our friend at Mabley Green Community Meadow get busy planting in their Hairy Pots, find out more at
http://mableymeadow.blogspot.com/2011/06/leabank-square-gets-growing.html

I can’t believe it’s been only a week since the party and awards do. Still keep having flash backs but luckily all of them are good ones so far. There is nothing quite like an excuse to get a load of friends together and letting your hair down. In our youth it happened all the time and it only took a few hours to recover, sadly now the opportunities seem far apart and the recovery time runs into days if not weeks. Now it’s nose to the grindstone again to accumulate the necessaries to do it again.

So, lots more done this week with the potting for next year already underway and some more of the debris left from this year’s crops cleared away. We seemed reasonably under control at the start of the week although that can so quickly alter when the unexpected happens. Yes another puncture!
The microprop lab also had a surprise last week with the sudden change in supply plans of a major multiple outlet. Although we don’t supply them directly anymore we do supply young plants to those that do and a change in policy has resulted in a sudden loss of market for tens of thousands of plants. After the initial panic and a little more thought this looks like being in our long term interest after all. The usual scenario has set in of large volume but very low and decreasing margins and with demand for stock from the lab very strong for other stock, we will actually be left with capacity to take advantage of that. There may well be a short term penalty of a dent in the cash flow but it looks ok in the longer term. It is our customer I feel for, as the complete lack of understanding of the big buyers in how the horticultural supply chain works has completely messed up their plans, investments and cash-flow. Hopefully they will pull a new opportunity from the debris but it won’t be easy.

It is nice to see the ground damp again after all that dry weather although for us the timing could have been better. The massive trenching job for the turbines and mains cables has created a bit of a mess in all the wet. We had been hoping to get everything dug in and buried by the end of the week but a combination of weather and more archaeological hold ups has slowed it up a bit. The mains cable and biggest part of the turbine cable are in and mostly buried with just the cable jointing team to come in and do their bit connecting all the various ends together. We have two weeks now to get all the wiring and kit sorted out, foundations backfilled and track repaired to allow the turbine erectors access with a lorry and crane. In theory they could erect each one and commission it in a day to generate electricity although the way the admin is progressing I am struggling to see us having all the contracts and connections complete in time. This may delay commission and the commencement of generation by a few days which would be disappointing but it is just a few days and after waiting two years to get it all together that will be just a minor irritation. You never know it might all fall into place in the next few days, we live in hope.

The archaeologist was back on Monday and Tuesday to see the turbine cable trenches cut into the chalk. We had hoped for a quick run down the hill but complications appeared pretty quickly with the finding of a field boundary ditch followed by more possible ditches. The first one was fairly obviously man-made and he found a burnt flint and a small animal jaw bone in the bottom to prove it but the next four or five dips in the chalk profile on the top of the hill turned out to be natural but had to be checked out. Then there was another man-made ditch and a pit, both with very small shards of pottery (yet to be dated). It was all a bit time consuming but at least he now has some dating evidence of sorts and we were able to get on with putting the cables in eventually. The mains cable trench also showed up three ancient ditch profiles, one of which we already knew about and when we turned to look up the hill we could see the ditches sweep up the hill highlighted in crop markings. We hadn’t noticed them before although Caroline's Dad said that in dry years they had seen the crop marks from the adjacent hill. Hopefully we will be able to get a better idea of who was working and possibly living on our hill when the report comes in, but it does give a real feeling of continuity, history and commitment to working on the nursery. We and the turbines are just another step in the long story of people living their lives on this hill. Sitting on my desk in front of me now is a heat shattered flint I found near the bottom of the furthest trench, possibly used for cooking someone’s dinner on our field over 2,000 years ago.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

A tasty lunch and a flat tummy too - Who could ask for more?
Find out why herbs are some of our best flat tummy friends at http://flattummyclub.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-favourite-flat-tummy-things-2-herbs.html

You can even win some of our lovely plants in their super competition, check it out at http://www.flattummyclub.co.uk/win.php

Trenching for the cable to carry the green electricity to the grid.

Check us out in our posh togs at The Business Excellence Awards Ceremony....

And the award for Green Innovation goes to......

Very short one this week as it has been a very busy few days and I’m feeling a bit fragile.

Lots of trench digging for power cables this week so plenty of cut pipes and cables short outs to deal with. More to do next week and hopefully cables in and buried by the end of the week. With the current fashion for night-time cable collecting the cables only come on the day they get buried to reduce losses!

On Friday night a gang from the nursery got all dolled up to attend the gala awards dinner at the Winchester Guildhall, everyone turned up looking fantastic, virtually unrecognisable from the usual nursery attire. It was a long and very enjoyable evening and well worth it in the end as we scooped the Green Innovation award for 2011. We made the final of the Business of the Year but missed out on that one. Highlight of the evening happened when we were all gathered together for a group shot for the local paper. All the excited winners huddled together and I felt a reassuring stroking and cupping of my right buttock, I turned expecting to see Caroline but it was the hairdresser who had won the main award. He was a lovely chap but a little forward for my taste. Still nice to know you’ve still got it at my age! Maybe?

Last night was Caroline’s big party night which is the main reason my eyes keep closing and my legs don’t work anymore. We had a great time drinking lots of shandy and dancing the night away to the Ben Waters band. Anyone still not heard Ben play
should checkout his latest CD ‘Boogie for Stu’ which is a tribute album for Ian Stewart who was one of the original Rolling Stones. All the Stones are on the album and proceeds go to the British Heart Foundation, but best of all it is a great recording!

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

Yet another eventful week, not sure how we fitted it all in with only 4 days.

We managed to get one of the vans back into the garage again this week. This time it wasn’t for tyres but a suspension issue from a couple of weeks ago when they replaced some parts. We were stopped by a very helpful off duty policeman who pointed out that the van was travelling in a slightly crab-like fashion and perhaps we ought to get it checked out. He was quite right and the garage repositioned the suspension in the right mounting hole and we were cured. So a big thank you to the policeman for helping out and the embarrassed garage for getting us back on the road very quickly, although I’m sure it would have been spotted at the next regular check-up.

I need to press on as I’m due in Stafford for lunch and time is slipping by. So another quick summary of another hectic week. We got our three electric buggies serviced by a pro as they were all in need of a refreshing overhaul of the electric leads and a couple were due a new set of batteries, ouch. They are whizzing about so no excuses for lack of mobility now. We had our ace box making experts in to take a look at making a shallow tray/insert to create a bit of a reservoir in the bottom of the wooden trays as a further watering aid. We are hoping it will hold on to enough water to absorb more thoroughly into the free draining pots on watering rather than running straight away. They are coming up with several options and we are hoping to trial some very shortly.

On Friday we are attending the local business awards dinner to see if we have pushed any of the right buttons with the judges. We are finalists in the green innovation category for our product, overall business sustainability and the turbine project which will be the biggest of its kind in the area (although it is weeny really). We have also been selected as a finalist in the overall business of the year which was great, although we are up against some very stiff competition. We will enjoy the evening as an excuse to dress up with a few of the staff who we rarely see all poshed up. Luckily we are not particularly competitive so it will be nice to just to have some little bit of recognition for what we are trying to do.

The wind turbine foundations got finished over the week which was great, lots of digging, steel weaving and concreting. I got the irrigation system programming sorted so it is almost back in automatic mode which is a relief as it means we can get off the nursery again for a several hours at a time, even if the sun's out and we can water out of hours which means fewer of us getting wet!

Eco news
Foundations in and looking good and I'm sure that you have already spotted the pics! Trenching for cable should start next week for a couple of weeks, then we hang on for the grid folk to fit the new transformer/substation thing and the turbines to arrive in early July. It’s all go at last.

Nature notes

The nursery and garden are all full of newly fledged youngsters, swallows, greenfinches, goldfinches, starlings, great tits, jackdaws. It all seems to have happened this week.

Have a good week, from all at Kirton Farm Nurseries

1st foundation kit

 1st foundation kit install

Concrete done 1st site

 

Concrete in 1st site 2

 

Digging in lightning wire