August 2011 Archives

So here we are, sitting in the office at a stupidly early time on a Bank Holiday Sunday. I came in early and set things underway and now I'm having five minutes quality time with you before I get the paperwork ready for the Morrisons lorry which arrives at 7.00.

I was organised enough to pick up some Danish pastries last night and I've brewed some coffee so there is a element of civility to the activities.

Danish pastry crumbs aside, the office looks in a state of chaos.  My desk is the epicentre.  We have some of our annual audits coming up on Wedneday and I desperately need to get to grips with that. It won't be today and it probably won't be tomorrow either.

I haven't really got anything else to say.  I just wanted to boast about how hard I'm working at the moment (a condition known as "Papworthism")

Here's a little story for you. Chatham House rules though, OK? 

Yesterday I visited the HDC funded cut flower trials centre so caught up with lots of other growers, supermarket packers and some of the supermarket buyers. 

Now. In general, over the last year or two, the retailers have been very supportive of the British cut flower industry (or what remains of it).  We have had some great experiences with our customers and our business has developed because of it.  This is not being felt universally, however.

I was told a little story about some recent negotiations which one business had with a supermarket buyer.  When the supplier said

"That price simply isn't sustainable."  The buyer replied

"I don't care. I won't be in this job much longer"

This is not an apocryphal tale, it is directly attributable.  Obviously I'm not going to tell you which supermarket she/he worked for on here (take me out for dinner and buy me a bottle of Chablis, however, and the story will be bursting out of me - especially if it's a Grand Cru).

This makes interesting reading

We now belong to a potato marketing co operative called Nene Potatoes which sells all of our potatoes. The group is very good at pulling together the grower members' experiences to improve the group's overall performance.   I think that we have learnt more about growing potatoes in the last couple of years than we did in the 20 before that.  While I am occasionally cynical about co operatives in general, the structure and effectiveness of Nene are excellent and I feel pleased and proud to be a part of it.

Tomorrow we are all getting together for a "wash up" of samples from this years crops.  There will be over 200 samples on display and we should be able to get a very clear picture of this season's quality and how our individual samples compare to it.  This will allow us to make a realistic assessment about which fields will suit which customer prior to harvest.

I had a trip around all of our potato crops to dig the samples myself.  I'm not sure what the protocol is for other growers; I left the odd small or green tuber out of the sample but otherwise was honest about what I found.  It will be interesting to see how our quality compares with the other members' crops.

My mate Julian was also digging his samples.  We decided that it was pointless for us both to drive our samples in individually (it was about 15 miles away) because we were both very busy yesterday.  Jules called in and we tossed a coin.  He lost.  I was at least gracious enough to help to ship my bags into his truck.  Result.

I have found myself with the first bit of "spare" time in about two months so I've come to have a word with you.  This is going to be a fairly tedious round up of what is going on around our farm.  I'm completely immersed in work and incapable of thinking about anything else.  Normally at this time of year I feel envious of people on their holidays but this year I don't at all.  It is a great feeling to be fully engaged in something that feels necessary and worthwhile.  I haven't been this fulfilled by my work since I was a teenager.

I came into work at 6.00 as usual but the auto-timer of our bulb treatment plant hadn't worked and so I've had it start in manually.  This means I've got a spare hour while the water heats up to the correct temperature to put another batch of daffodils bulbs in.  We plonk six tonnes in each time and give them three hours at a constant 44.4 degrees.

There's a lot going on around the farm and we are all working long hours and having to remain focused to keep on top of things. 

We are well underway with our daffodil planting and are just about to start ploughing the last field.  I spent the weekend driving the bulb planting and enjoyed every minute of it.  This is the first year that we have used Auto-trac to plant bulbs and we are using precision fertiliser placement too.  Although it inolves a fair bit of careful thought, it has been a complete revelation.  Planting bulbs has always been a favourite task of mine but this bit of technology has transformed the job - hopefully it will give us better results too.

I've just unloaded a lorry which was delivering some potato grading equipment which we have boght in preparation for the potato harvest which should start in a fortnight.  All of the Melody and Marfona have now received  their second dessicant and we have started burning down the Maris Piper already.  I can't be sure what sort of season lies ahead but at least we look as though we will make an early start on the harvesting which gives us more time to do the job carefully.

We are busily harvesting cut flowers.  The second crop of delphiniums is the best that we have grown in 15 years.  I wish I knew why so that we could try to do it again next year.  We also have eight acres of other commercial trial crops underway which have been ideas generated from our trial ground.  They are selling with varying degrees of success and we have learnt a lot already.  Like most development work, this project has not been easy and involves a lot of hard work for little reward.  We knew this when we embarked on it and our customer (and their supermarkets customers) have been very supportive.  There are certainly some positive leads for next year.

The builders start work on the next coldstore on Monday.  This will be more a less a copy of the one that we built last year but will be a single 1000 tonne chamber rather than two smaller ones.    

We have also coughed up for photo-voltaic panels on our roofs and the work starts on these as soon as our local council grants planning permission.  It is just a 50Kw project but if we use the power intelligently then it will reduce our bills and give us some energy security for the future.

Right. Temperature is up. I'm off. When things calm down, we can get back to normal and get some wigs on dogs.  

What's all this rioting about, for goodness sake?  It's like the uprising of the Philistines when the ancient civilisations collapsed.  Is it really all over for us?

I heard today that a Marks and Spencer had been looted.  That's a turning point.  

It was hardly suprising to hear that sportswear stores and retailers of electrical goods were being turned over; you might expect that, but M&S?  The pillagers are clearly becoming more aspirational.  Either that or we have reached the tipping point where even the middle classes are joining in with the looting.  Is it every man and woman for themselves now?  Have we reached the stage where the B1 demographic are going out in their lunch hours to ransack a "healthy options" tuna salad and a spakling mineral water?

My other observation from conversations with my friends (well, from their Facebook status updates and Tweets) is how the civil unrest is bringing out their right wing sides. 

"Well.  The army should go in and machine gun them" seems to be the voice of Middle England. 

I can see the guilloine being reintroduced over this.  And when I see the photos of the wanton destruction of historic buildings, I even find myself wishing that these people could be removed from our society.

We had a full on fire here last week.  We are talking not one but two fire engines.

Our electricity meter box at Vickers Farm burst into flames.  Luckily our tenant in the farmhouse saw smoke coming from the box and called me before it caught fire.  I made it up there just as she blew.  The box, I mean, not the tenant.

I decided to do the heroics myself but, because it involved electrics, I called nine, nine, nine to get some back up.  We had a fire audit here a couple of months ago so there were two powder extinguishers in the building.  Being a miser, I grabbed the elder of the two extinguishers (it was a 2006) because I didn't want to spoil the new one.

I have had modest training but had never actually used a fire extinguisher before.  I have to say that wielding that bad boy was probably the highlight of my entire week.  I gave the fire the full cannister and it died right down.  Then it blew right on up again so I legged it out the way.

The fire service arrived at this point and were brilliant.  They even have a coffee machine on board these days so we all had a brew once the fire had been fought.  The electricity board came an hour later and the electricity provider had us up and running again the following morning.

Everyone involved was really decent and good at their job.  I know it was v.fortunate that it didn't set light to the building and I am slightly ashamed to admit that it was exciting and actually really good fun.

I have been enjoying Farming Today this week where the presenters have been "helping" with the harvest on the Ireland family's farm in Lincoln

It is very difficult to capture or explain the excitement that a farmer feels at harvest time.  You could almost hear some of that thrill in Charlotte Green's voice this morning as she was driving the combine.