Stocktake results are in!

Well, after the 2 x 13 hour+ days I worked this week to sort out the mess that our computers made of my final stocktake (in my current branch, only 3 weeks till I start at my newer branch), I was a little trepidacious of seeing the results, which are posted on our internal internet on a Friday after the stocktake! The figures include the original loss on the day, the ammendments made in the 2 following days and the combined total stock loss, plus the % of turnover that the loss for the year represents!

One the day the cost loss was 20K, caused in the main by the computers loosing 10% of my count, but we made ammendments worth £17500 (entering the missed departments back in and some bits we found that hadnt been counted), so the real loss on the day was £2500! That means with the cumulative loss from theft and breakages brought into account, we lost a total of £7200 for the year, or 0.57% of our total, a great result (in comparison with the norm, though £7200 of theft and breakages isnt something I'm happy about, I'd much prefer it to be nothing! But in the environment we work and with current staff levels, anything less than 1.2% is considered acceptable)

It's an improvement over last years good result of 0.89%, so I'm relatively happy with it, and am also glad that I will be handing over my current branch to its new manager with a nice accurate stockfile!

One good thing about having to work the 2 x 13 hour days is that I as I have a full team in tomorrow, I can take the time back, so as we do a 7 hour day on a Sunday, I'm having the day off! A chance to catch up on some housework and get to the plot to do some harvesting and (hopefully if the rain holds off) some hoeing / weeding, plus plant out the next batch of leeks in the bed the first early spuds came from!

I also managed to get some piccies of all the plots on our site and some general piccies of the allotment site that I've put onto a new page of the blog, the link should be at the top of the right hand tool bar, there's the main blog posts page, an About Us basic page (I'll get some more on there soon) and a page for Moss View Allotments, take a look if you like and see how some of the folks on our site are doing!

I popped to the plot tonight to water and feed the greenhouses / hothouse / polytunnel, and have to say that everything has come on loads, so I should be able to get some piccies to share with you tomorrow!

Until then, hope your crops are growing well and the rain isnt germinating too many weeds, thanks for reading!

Hot, humid, working long hours and a hosepipe ban!

Well, after one of the driest springs on record, we here in the North West now have a hosepipe ban in place. Normally this wouldnt be too much of a problem, as allotments and food crops are usually exempt, but this time allotments are included, so we arent allowed to connect the hose to the taps to water the crops! We can however water as much as we like using watering cans, so today on his way home Lee called into B&Q and bought 2 of their last ones to join the 2 we already have on the plot, so 2 of us can water with 2 cans each at a time! We are going to leave them on display so that folks know that we are watering by hand and not using the hosepipe, I definitely dont want anyone trying to claim that the reason our crops are looking good is because we are watering with a hosepipe!

With the 2 full sized allotments next to each other, and only across the road from a tap, we are better placed than some of the plotholders, but even so, with all our fruit n veg and a serious lack of rainfall, we have a mammoth task on our hands to water it all!

Fortunately with being off work last week we did water well every day, so there should be a decent level of water in the subsoil, which should help, but now we have to water everything by hand!

For a bed like the sweetcorn and squashes, this means each square metre of bed needs a full watering can every week, and with this expanse of bed, thats a lot of watering cans and trips back and forth to the tap!

Watering the plot with a hosepipe takes about 1 hr 20 mins for 1 person, watering the plot by hand with watering cans will take approximately 8 hours, so we've devised a plan!

Every day we will spend some time on the plot watering, the greenhouses, polytunnel, hothouse, seedlings and strawbs will all be watered every day, along with anything that looks like its in desperate need of a drink, but other than that we are going to concentrate out efforts on 1 run of beds a day, so each run of beds will be watered every 5 days on average, with a good soaking from the 2 of us!

We tried it out tonight, and with 2 of us working with 2 watering cans each, it took us 1hr 30 mins to do the greenhouses, polytunnel, hothouse, seedlings, strawbs and the brassica run at the right hand side of plot 1!

Tomorrow all the sweetcorn and squashes will get a good drink, and as we finish work a bit earlier on a Sunday, we should be able to get an hour or two's hoeing and weeding in too!

Hope the hosepipe ban isnt affecting you, that your crops arent too thirsty and that everything (except the weeds) is growing well!