Winter wonderland

We came back to work to find a winter wonderland at Barcham but this didn't stop us potting over 5,000 trees up in the first week back. We have now potted 24,000 trees so far this autumn which will be ready for sale from next September onwards. We aim to pot between 60,000-70,000 by the time we finish potting in March.

Amazingly, we extracted 13,000 cubic metres of water into our reservoirs from the fen drain that borders the nursery while we were away over Christmas. I had thought the water would freeze up and stop this process but I was way off the mark. Our reservoirs are now three quarters full and we have another four full months on our extraction licence to go so filling them to capacity will now be a formality. I was wary in October whether this was going to happen as it was so dry but nature has corrected itself. Our reservoirs hold about 80,000 cubic metres at capacity and this makes us completely self sufficient with our water usage in the summer.

The land has been too frozen to risk lifting our field crop for containerisation as yet this year but we are going to start tomorrow unless the temperature plunges again tonight. This will keep our potting team going. Getting the range right in quantity and variety is a tricky game so if anyone out there wants a clone that is not listed in our book 'It's time for trees' please get in touch and advise!

All the best

Mike