Eating Strawberries

Sunday dawned clear and early, too early for me. I made a cooked breakfast to help get me going. It was a lottery as to whether it rain on not. I went to the lottie first determined to do some weeding. I got a few bags out my store at the lottie and took my spade along to Bed2. This bed had the onions and leeks last year. There were a few Leeks left in. Unfortunately there a several Docks too and they are big. Just for a change they are being out completed so are not too strong. I got stuck in a dug out all the docks and bagged them to be taken off site for disposal. It is quicker said than done. With the Docks out I went round and pulled up the Thistles and the Sow Thistles. They came away easily from the wet soil but as you can imagine a was getting covered in wet soil. The job needed doing though. I stopped after and hour. I was soaked but I had three big bags of weeds to show for my trouble. The plot does not look any better but the weed cover is much thinner and since the Dock were bagged before they seeded I have saved seven years weed. If only that were true. I had a chat with a lottie neighbour and cut some Asparagus before packing up to go to the Bees.

The drive across the farm to the bees was very muddy. Degsy managed the mud without an issue. The chunky cut tyres are coming into their own in the mud. I put on  my bee suit on and wondered what I would find when I went through the gate. I had already seen the River Mease and could see that it had dropped since last week. It was relatively dry underfoot but the grass was wet. There is lot of tall grass in the apiary so I got a second soaking. The hives had weathered the weather and the bees were flying freely. One the Queens has emerged in one of the hives but is not yet laying. I will leave that one until next week. If there are no eggs I shall unite the Nuc with this hive. One other Hive has a plump sealed Queen cells. I hope to find that Queen has emerged by next weekend and with luck may have started laying. The other hives are in good order and are lying in honey. I have just got to be patient. I think the hives are in good shape to bring in a honey crop in the next eight to ten weeks.

Back at home I tidied up my workroom. H and I marshalled our camping gear. We have a wedding next Saturday evening which requires camping at the venue. I hope the promised hot weather turns up this week even if it just dries out the ground. Depending how it goes I might even use my Christmas present which was a non-stick frying pan for my Trangia! We even tried to sit out side to read our books and eat the Strawberries H collected from the garden. It too blustery and cold so retired to the comfort of the living room. H was not far behind. Blooming British summertime.......

A very long day

H and I were in the car early Saturday morning and off to Manchester. My cousin and niece were in town so we arranged to meet. My brother, his missus and a couple of his fiends were also in Manchester that day. They had been to the Bruce Springstein concert the previous evening. It was nice being although together. The party folk had to get on the road back to Devon. The weather was promise foul in their neck to the woods so an early start back was a good idea.

H, coz and Mum and me went into town and sampled the delights of El Rincons for a lazy lunch. Tapas and Spanish wine, all very nice.  Click HERE for the website. Having had our fill we went for a tour of the Castlefield area of town since El Rincons is that end of town. We noticed that there traffic cones being places along the centre line of Deansgate. Deansgate is a major thoroughfare. We ask a chap what was going on...The Olympic torch was coming along in a few hours. We took our tour and tried another Spanish bar right on Deansgate. A bottle of bubbly later and the ladies were getting excited about the torch. We decided to go out ontot he street and join the gathering crowds. H got a flag to wave from street seller and was happy to run back and across Deansgate because:

A. It is very busy road and was closed to cars which was unusual
B. she could.  

The police outriders could be seen at the far end of Deansgate and coming our way. They were high fiving members of the crowd. H was in front of course. The procession slowly made it was to us. It was very exciting. As expected we had no idea who the chap carrying the torch was but it was defineitley the torch. After that excitement we took a circuitous route via the canals back to the car park and the onto my other brother. We spent a couple of hours with them which was nice then it was really time to go home. Coz was on a plane at 5.30 and we still had more than two hours drive to get home. It was a long but very enjoyable day.

Last week....wet, wet, wet

It had been raining most of the week. Somewhere between drizzle and downpours but all of the time some kind of rain was falling out of the sky. It was trailer weekend so I went off to do that job. That took me to the lottie. I tried some weeding but  I got covered in sticky soil as soon as I went near the plot. Nevertheless I yanked out some of the bigger weeds that where about to flower.With the trailer emptied in double quick time and a bit of weed pulling I was done and not too wet.

After dropping the trailer back to the stables I went on to the bees. The bees were flying despite the rail. I don't suppose you get to have evolved for 27 million year if a bit a rain stops you. I gave the hive a tap. The bees gave a buzz back. Some of the foragers were carrying pollen so those hives have Queens. One of the hive as a sealed Queens cell last week. The bees from that hive were not gathering pollen so I guess she has not yet emerged. Next weeks visit will tell.

I did not expect to be able to inspect the bees. The reason went she to see where the river was. Would it be within its banks or not. There had been flooding in other parts of the country. It was very wet under foot. To water was about an inch deep but the river had not over topped its banks but it was very full. The water under foot was just the elevated water table. The main hives are about 18inches off the ground so they would be fine. The Nuc was a different story. The Nuc is just sitting on an upturned plastic produce tray. I move the Nuc to one side and place the hive barrow in its place. I then put the tray and Nuc on the barrow, That lift the Nuc about 18 inches off the ground. Should the river flood and so long as there is little current The Nuc should remain dry. Bees are still coming and going from the Nuc which looks promising.

When I was at the lottie I lifted the roof on the hive and a look in I could see the bees were active and seemed to more of them. That is how it should bee. The bees had found the feeder and had gobbled up have the syrup. That will help build them up. I should say that this hive has a glass crown board so even when the roof is off the bees are contained in the hive. Removing the roof floods the inside of the hive with light which as you can imagine stirs the bees a little. However they are quite gentle and do not pile out of the hive to see who is disturbing them.

Last job was to drop in on my buddy who has found a projector screen for me. He is an avid user of Freecycle. Click HERE for the website. Freecycle is about reusing unwanted items and it is free.

Motoring through the Weeding

Well it has been a couple of tough weeks. The weather has been very wet but there has been plenty of wind, oh yes very windy. I pitched up at the lottie this morning. The clouds were high in the sky but grey. Not hint of rain but plenty of wind. I got myself ready and and got my gear to hand. I got a wheelbarrow full of manure and spread it out along the the trench left form the last efforts on clearing the potato bed, Bed1. I thought the soil would be wet and sticky but it was just the right amount of wet. The rain had penetrated right through the soil. That made the soil very easy to dig and break the weeds out. I set myself the task of weeding and preparing Bed1 for the main crop spuds. The seed potatoes are was past due in chitting. I was able to push the fork more than a spit into the soil. I ended up shifting a lot of soil but the bed did get turned over more than a foot deep. At each pass I generated a barrow load of weeds. Last weekend I had run over the plot with the scythe just the knock back the weeds from flowering or seeding. Scything is very therapeutic and sharpening it even more so but it is no surprise folks figured other ways the cut tall plants. It is back braking work. The point is that the barrow did not fill up so quickly. Each barrow load of weeds went in the big compo bin then I went to the poo bin, which is just next door and filled the barrow with well rotted manure which then went onto the face of the trench. All very efficient.

It was quite soothing with my music playing through my headphones and motoring through the digging. A couple hours saw me finish another third of the bed. I intend to plant five rows of spuds tomorrow. It should not take long to dig the remain part of the bed as a cleared then a little while ago.

I had a chat with Jonny in between his strimming. He did me a good turn by strimming round the front of the plot. That looks a bit tidier too. I had a brew. whilst idling I went and had a look at the bees. They are doing very nicely. They are coming and going but most importantly they a building up slowly. The top end of the plot looks quite nice because the hedge is in full leaf . The hive is just there and surrounded by bright orange Californian Poppies. I don't think it will be long before the self seeded Michaelmas Daisies will be out. I got on my hands and knees a weeded the middle path and the path between beds 1 and 2. It has made a big difference and another barrow load of weeds.


I had a little time on my hands so decided to prepare Bed4 for planting. That required me to dig out the volunteer potatoes that had started growing from the spuds missed in last years harvest. Bed4 is for Brassicas so needs firming up. That is done by treading the soil down. Al ones does is to stand we your heels together and shuffle forward pressing down on your heels. It really compacts the soil. I following a circular path until the all bed had been tread done. I got the rake out and levelled the soil then in tread the soil again but this time starting at one end treading across the bed, back and forth. It tread the soil in a different direction. Then I raked it again. The bed is now nice and flat and firm. The weed seedlings are also stomped and disrupted. Just before packing up I levelled off the compo bin a threw in a half barrow load of manure. Hopefully also the worms in the manure will start to get busy on the weeds. The bin is pretty full.

I am used to the Robins hanging around to grab the worms and pupae I have dug up but today I had a new set of mouths or should that be beaks waiting their turn on the fence.  Bullfinches. Their feathers are highly coloured and they are quite a big finch so made quite a sight. The Robins are looking scruffy but they must have almost finished rearing their brood.