By far my most successful academic subject at school was English. It’s hard to associate me with any academic pursuit other than carrot crunching and clod-hopping, especially if you have heard me speak. My brain just can’t keep up some times. However I DO consider language to be important and in a time where vocabulary and meaning are being abused like never before a little adherence to clear meaning and grammatical standard ought to be embraced so….What’s the Same But Different?
Has anyone noticed how often in the media folk being interviewed answer a direct question with the phrase “Yes, No…” or “No, absolutely…“. What the hell is that supposed to mean? We live in a world where meaning is rapidly being lost as words loose their original meanings in favour of, very often, their exact opposite.
Couple that with the intentionally ambiguous, possibly mis-leading claims of commercial interests who just want to sell you at any cost and who know’s what way is up these days? I’m going to be knocking on the door of 60 in a couple of years time. Since I was a toddler it seems to me washing powder has been washing whiter that white (whatever that is). Toothpaste has been turning yellow teeth into diamonds and washing up liquid has been making life so easy your dishes ought to be jumping back into the cupboard all on their f***ing own. Don’t even get me started on household and automotive cleaning products, lawn treatments or paint.
Suffice to say, and I have quoted Mr Poe many times here before …
“Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear.”
Trusted sources of true information are few and far between. When we take into consideration political expediency and the commercial imperative who’s to be trusted?
I’m not here to make that call for you. I have said here many times…
Sadly commercial interest has made it look like most everything we get into is a bit of a hoodwink and it’s tough to believe what we hear or see. Much like Jack Webb’s Joe Friday in the TV show Dragnet from the 1950’s it’d be nice to have “Just the Facts Ma’am“.
So, in the pursuit of brevity let me just say that, as of today……
ALL KAIZEN BONSAI SOIL MIXES NOW CONTAIN BIOCHAR EXCLUSIVELY PRODUCED IN ENGLAND FROM POST CONSUMER WASTE AND THEY ARE BLOODY GOOD!
We have been testing our new formula over the last 2 growing seasons and the results are sufficiently encouraging that we have now chosen to add this unique element into our tried, tested and proven mixes and as a result they are even better than before.
Our bark ingredients are now also 100% UK sourced.
We sell between 200-1000 litres a day and our products have been supremely popular for at least 15 years now across all parts of the UK with customers coming back year after year and in the words of one of my other great inspirations in life, Forrest Gump…
“That’s all I have to say about that”.
G.
Biochar is now included in all our soil mixes
The same but different. Our soil mixes now contain biochar produced in the UK
It’s been a very productive few weeks around here (A NEW VIDEO!). There’s a great deal going on in preparation for the spring. Organising and sorting out the dozens of tons of products we sell through the spring period typically starts in June thanks to manufacturing lead times, slow boats and UK port delays etc’.
At this moment in time there are about 30 tons of goods inbound from Europe, Japan and China. We already received tools, wire and over 15 pallets of soil products in the last few weeks. Thankfully supply chains are recovering from the insane enforced shut down of the world thanks to the tw*ts in charge. However the fuel situation is forcing many manufacturers to review their ranges and some of the staples we are used to seeing will disappear.
Thanks to bulk buying and leveraging the good will built up over many years of trade KB have not had to increase prices as much as we thought we might. For instance most tools have only increased a few pence here and there. Soil prices this year have typically increased less than 5% and wire has remained roughly the same as it has been for 15 years (about £10). We have also NOT increased shipping costs despite our costs rising for the first time in 20 years. Almost ALL the cost increases we have seen are down the the UK governments actions, rules, taxes and legislation, virtually no increases are due to producers. The UK government is the biggest cause of our insane inflation figure, make no mistake we are getting shafted.
Moving swiftly on it’s a great relief when all this is taken care of so I can get back to doing what I love best, tinkering with trees and bikes. These last few weeks I have been able to spend a little time fettling me bits and bobs. So….. here’s another freebie for all our lovely loyal supporters.
A NEW VIDEO!
It’s taken most of the last week to sort out and here it is totally free gratis.
Apologies for the verbose nature of this one but I feel it’s time we looked at the basics seeing as many folk have demonstrably missed these foundational skills (including some self professes bonsai masters who ought to know better).
Firstly please let me apologise for the lack of posts recently. I have been having a bit of a melt down over the summer. There are days when life gets just too much to handle. Having turned my hobby into an all consuming business, these days I have to resort to motorcycling in order to save my sanity. Thank God for a beautiful summer. So, what’s this Put an Old Knob to Good Use all about?
Before you start, NO it’s not me, I know I’m old but i’m not a knob…..most of the time. I have said many times that I have a passion for not wasting stuff. If there’s a way to make something old and useless good again or turn it to a practical use I’m all over it. Around here we even reuse empty cereal packets and junk mail, nothing gets wasted.
Recently I was sorting out my workshop where I have a big plastic tray full of the tools I use in my bonsai work. Everything is just tipped in together along with bits of wire, plastic mesh, old soil and a good collection of dead insects. I was having real problems finding what I needed so decided to have a clear out. Net result was I had a builders bucket full of tools I no longer use. This contained knives worn down to a nub, bent and broken chisels, worn out root hooks and rakes, bent and broken scissors, branch cutters and not a few totally worn out knob cutters.
I reconditioned what I could, put those beyond help in the scrap bin but just could not part with the knob cutters even though they were ostensibly useless. However after a little application and careful thought I came up with this solution.
If you are handy with an angle grinder and a flap wheel there’s a useful tool (or two) in there. Given that hand creation of deadwood is back in fashion at the moment and, assuming you to have a knackered tool laying around here’s a little half hour project for the weekend.
Put an Old Knob to Good Use and have a little fun with it 😉
G.
Put an Old Knob to Good Use. Drill out the pivot.
Put an Old Knob to Good Use. Grind down the sides to create the desired width of cut.
Put an Old Knob to Good Use. Remove any thickness, refine the profile and round off the edges.
Put an Old Knob to Good Use. A good polish and careful sharpening and it’s good to go.
It’s amazing to me these days how everybody knows everything about everyone. Seems anyone with a working mouth is an expert on most everything and the affairs of everyone. However in the case of what I get up to that’s evidently not the case. I get fucked right off by being told, by folk I don’t know, all about what exactly I am doing. So let me put the record straight before some dumb shits get the better of us.
It seems every year or so I have to deal with this bullshit and it’s pissing me off. Just so you heard it from me ……. Kaizen Bonsai is not closing it’s doors and we are definitely NOT retiring, ever. The next generation of the family is already invested in the business and committed to it. We have put an additional near quarter of a million quid into stock recently and our turnover is 10x what it was just 5 years ago. We have fulfilled over 30,000 orders in the last year alone. We are only just getting started!
So, if you hear rumours contrary to the above you know you are dealing with a bullshitter and please feel free to straighten them out on my behalf.
As a young lad I was lucky enough to have some wonderful grandparents that were influential throughout my formative years. Waste not, want not was a phrase I heard regularly. On my fathers side my grandad served in the merchant navy and ended up in the water at least once. On my mothers side my grandad worked in munitions manufacture in the midlands.
I have wonderful memories of summers spent with the latter. Whilst my parents were always busy putting food on the table and paying the bills they did their best for us kids. Grandparents however had a lot more time to give us. Summers spent with my mums parents consisted of gardening, cooking, woodworking projects and household chores along with trips to the nearby beach and ice cream cornets on the seafront over the long summer evenings.
My grandparents had a nice little bungalow with a well tended garden just a short walk from the sea. Nan worked part time at a little new agents that smelled wonderful thanks to shelves creaking under the weight of jars of sweets and the iconic smell of newsprint and tobacco. I never remember grandad working but he always seemed to be involved in some project or another.
They had a little car that only came out for their weekly shop or a Sunday afternoon excursion to the countryside or a visit to a plant nursery, we didn’t have ‘garden centres’ back then. By todays standard their footprint in the world was extremely small and their lives were simple. Every meal was home cooked and most of their produce came from the garden and little glass house. That glass house was a magical place with it’s massive grapevine and huge sweet smelling tomato plants.
Having lived through the war folk were, in general, much more content with the simple things in life. Whilst they were not poor they were very content to have a TV, a little car and a fridge. I don’t recall them going on holiday but would regularly entertain friends with afternoon tea. Sitting in the garden on a fine sunny day with a cuppa and a biscuit was a great delight.
Nan spent most mornings cleaning before heading to the kitchen to prepare lunch. I never knew anyone that could whip up a two course cooked meal in such a short period of time. They always did the washing up together before a leisurely afternoon was enjoyed. Grandad was a great fan of snooker and spent many happy afternoons watching Pot Black and enjoying a smoke with his afternoon tea. Nan’s greatest joy was always time in the garden pulling weeds and the like.
That all had a profound effect upon young Potter. I loved this benign quiet life of simple pleasures. They wanted for nothing except grandad who always hankered after a snooker table which he never got but then there was not a room in the house sufficient to contain one.
As I approach the age I remember my grandparents being, and as a grandad myself I am minded of those days and look back fondly at such a simple life. Today the world has become a boiling cacophony of noise and fury within which peace and contentment are hard to find. Technology has helped ruin society which moves too fast for most of us to keep up.
Speaking personally everything I do is aimed at restoring those simple pleasures and garnering appreciation of the privileged and prosperous position that I enjoy. That did however came at a cost. I never had a family holiday and in over twenty five years of marriage Catherine and I have not had a night away from home unless it was for business. We work twelve hours a day often six or seven days a week. Whilst that means we are significantly more prosperous than my grandparents or indeed my parents ever were, as the years pass I have to question the cost.
In the words of Chuck Palahniuck (Fight Club) “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”
“The things you own end up owning you.It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.”
I can’t say that Tyler Durden was a significant role model for me, though I loved the book and the movie, I have to concede that he had a point. I may have fallen for the societal dictate that to have and achieve more is good and to go without is bad. As the years have passed I begin to realise that having a bit less is a bit better. Like all of us I have too much stuff, most of which I do not need. I am entirely at a loss to understand why I need more than three hundred bonsai or thirty motorbikes. I love everything I own and and bust my hump taking care of it all but why?
My grandparents were pass masters at living frugally, no doubt a result of living through the post depression years and the war. My grandad was a great woodworked and I remember we spent many hours dismantling old furniture and packing crates to supply the wood he used. We even saved all the old nails and screws for re-use. We spent a lot of time in the workshop with a little hammer straightening out bent nails. Today that sounds totally bonkers but it had a profound effect on me. I still save nails and screws and nothing is thrown away before I pull out anything of use. I recently had a knackered printer/scanner to dispose of. Having pulled it apart I had a box of useful bits and bobs including a piece of glass. That came in useful recently as I was fixing up window frames and used it to replace a broken pane.
I have tried to extend my hatred of waste to our business over the years. I consider creating bonsai a form of re-use and have always loved garden rejects above all else. Whilst current vogue is for recycling I consider that to be a last resort. We pretty much use everything we have. Why recycle something that still has a use? Recycling uses a vast amount of resource. Reusing it costs nothing, in fact it saves a great deal both money and resource.
Since the day we started our business nearly twenty years ago I have endeavoured to eliminate any waste. The primary resource we need, as a mail order business, to function is boxes. We can easily blow through up to a hundred every day. In all of those twenty years we have never, once, used new boxes. Every parcel we have ever sent has gone out in a reused box. Because that has that saved a fortune (a large box could easily cost £5) it’s enabled us to keep shipping costs to a minimum.
Thanks to my grandparents influence I am happy to say that Kaizen Bonsai produces less waste than our household does. We don’t have any waste disposal facility, no wheelie bins or waste collections. On top of that we use all the cardboard and packaging waste from three local small businesses and a lot of local families. We use everything from old newspapers and magazines, paddy bags and junk mail. All of our pallets are re-used or returned to a local company dealing in such.
We shred old cardboard and paperwork for loose fill packaging. Literally the only packaging material we have to buy are bubble wrap for pots, sticky tape and bags for soil products. I actually produce more waste in the form of empty beer bottles than all of Kaizen Bonsai’s activities combined. Waste not want not!
When someone turns up here with a load of old packaging it takes some sorting out and it’s always of interest to me to see what comes in. It’s heartening to know some folk think as I do and see value in these things.
Recently a good friend and supporter of ours arrived with a van full of boxes having been clearing out his fathers loft. Obviously another old gentleman that lived through the war. It looked to me like he had saved every box that ever came into the house. There were boxes for huge old cathode-ray tube televisions, betamax video players, cassette players and power tools from the 1970s. Some of the boxes featured address labels and had blocks of postage stamps on. How things have changed.
However within the generous donation of boxes was this one from the first part of the 1970s that I will let speak for itself.
Biochar is now included in all our soil mixes
