Tuesday 19 August 2008

The potatoes and tomatoes are pretty well wiped out with blight, not surprisingly given the miserable weather. I need to cut them all down; I'll still get a potato crop (Vanessa is good despite some having rotted due to the effects of flooding) but there aren't too many tomatoes, and they're all green. I might make a bit of chutney.

I got a third for my garlic in the site show. I'm not too pleased with myself, but never mind, it brings people together. I only had four entries, and nothng else got anything. The peas are cropping magnificently, and I've started on the sweet corn, so it's not all bad.

The smaller of those two swarms is besieged by wasps, which have been finding their way into the roof in hundreds. They don't seem to be getting any further; they're after sugar syrup. Apart from that, the hives are looking good, and hopefully I'll soon have a mated queen in the 'foreign' hive. The big hive is cutting down the size of the broodnest, but I'm encouraged by the way it almost filled a 14x12 box at the height of summer. That's the sort of colony that will really bring in a crop in a decent year. I need to get the honey off now, before they take it all down into the broodbox. There's not a lot there, but a little is a lot better than nothing.

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