25 minute read
Home and Garden
Here Comes Spring 2023!
by Amanda Baughen
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A new queen ready to get through the winter
I’m not admitting to being slow on the uptake, but most things in my life tend to be one step ahead of me these days; it must be the recent high temperatures (any excuse…). That fact is definitely true of the bees, but they are several strides in front when it comes to planning. Forget about already having the Christmas shopping done, they are thinking about next spring and how the colony is going to build up. As beekeepers, we can help them with these preparations and autumn is an important time for assessing the health of the queen bee, the size of the colony and the amount of stores they have gathered. Once the summer crop has been harvested (remembering to take only the surplus honey that has been stored in the upper box on the hive, the super), we check that there is sufficient honey stored in the brood box (around 20kg). We check our notes to gauge the age of the queen, as a colony headed by a young queen (one hatched this year) is more likely to lay eggs later in the year, allowing more time for ‘winter’ bees to be produced. One school of thought attributes a percentage of winter colony losses to older queens, and so beekeepers are now beginning to replace queens before they go through a second winter (if the bees haven’t already superseded her). Winter bees are produced towards the end of the season and live much longer than their summer sisters, one reason for the longer lifespan being that they don’t have to work as hard as the number of foraging hours is much lower. They also have welldeveloped fat bodies – cells of fat, not chubby bees! These fat bodies are collections of cells that form thin sheets in the abdomen, and contain higher levels of vitellogenin, which serves as a nutrient storage of protein used to produce brood food and royal jelly*. The bigger the winter colony, the more likely it is to survive until next spring. Too small a colony and the bees will struggle to stay warm, and may not be mobile enough to move to the stores which results in isolation starvation. This seems particularly cruel when there is plenty of food, there just aren’t enough bees to move ‘en masse’ to reach the honey. The other thing that we check for is the level of varroa mite infestation. The varroa population will have been building up during the summer, reaching its peak just as the colony moves towards winter, so the late summer treatment is arguably the most important varroa treatment of the year. Beekeepers in the northern hemisphere have learned to live with and deal with varroa in their bee colonies, using a variety of treatments with relative success, so it’s interesting to note the recent news from Australia. Over 1,000 colonies of honey bees have been euthanised following the discovery of varroa mites in colonies north of Sydney. The Australian Department of Primary Industries has defended its actions in attempting to maintain the varroa-free status of the country, as the implications for the honey bee industry and agriculture are huge. In the shortterm, destruction of colonies may seem overly drastic, but if varroa can be kept from gaining a stronghold then vast numbers of colonies across the country may be saved. All of this splendid preparation work, helping our bees to help themselves, will hopefully result in colonies coming through the winter, strong and ready to start foraging as soon as the spring warmth returns. Then the season will begin all over again, and we have to be ready for swarming, as that’s what a strong colony is thinking about from November onwards!
If you’re thinking about keeping bees in 2023, please visit our website to find out more, or give us a call. Amanda and Kevin Baughen, 13 Bees, www.13bees.co.uk, 05 45 71 22 90
*Coulsting, C., BeeCraft, August 2022
A worker bee with deformed wings - could be a sign of varroa mite infestation
Love youR GARDeN
by Greenfingers
I’m writing this during one of the hardest times of my gardening life here, surrounded by wilting trees and shrubs, flowers that have bloomed briefly and are gone, and arid landscapes that are dusty and furnished with dead and dying grasses. The watering restrictions in place here are monitored quite strictly with helicopters flying over us checking for any lawbreakers. So, the better part of valour is to stick to the restrictions! It’s a heart-breaking time for farmers who haven’t managed the harvest yet and for those of us that would nurture and protect our plants as a matter of everyday life. It is another salutary warning about climate change which is already upon us, and will only get worse if we don’t act in time to stop it, or at least, slow it down. It is a widely publicised subject, in the news on an almost daily basis. What can we do as individuals? We hear a lot about what industry must do from reducing carbon emissions and the use of pesticides, to only producing multiple use plastics, to finding ways of storing and cleaning and re-using water and to produce food in greener ways ... these are just a few on a seemingly endless list - and to us is mind-blowing. We can play our bit, by having more storage water facilities in the garden, using natural fertiliser like manure, trying to reduce the number of pesticides we use ... spend less on ‘ready grown’ plants (difficult for me as I adore buying) by planting seeds and taking cuttings when we can. At the same time, we don’t want the growers, producers and nurserymen to be out of their jobs. This isn’t me on a hobby-horse, but just bringing it into the conversation and thoughts as every time I pick up a gardening publication, there is another ‘headline’! I have three récupérateurs in the garden already, but will obtain another one when they become available during the autumn; although it is another plastic ‘thing’, it is at least long lived and purposeful. I am collecting seeds as much as I can from my own plants and I’m lucky enough to receive quite a few as presents from time to time from other gardeners. The first lot of cuttings I made were ‘brutalised’ by the heat and I will start again when the thermometer records lower temperatures. The hotter weather has had some blessings though: tomatoes plants have made, and are still making, bountiful crops, and melons and cucumbers seem to be coping well. Another bonus for me particularly is that the majority of snails have put their ‘hibernation’ mucous ‘skin’ over their shell openings and they are sleeping through the heat and are so much easier to deal with ... and they are not eating my hostas!! Slugs are a bit different as they just ‘dig’ themselves into the earth around the plants in pots and beds and feed away unseen! So I now ‘slug hunt’ with a torch in the dark ... but it is one pest less for the moment!
Another benefit of the heat has been to enable the cannas to bloom beautifully. The vivid colours are so sizzling and just right for the season too. The lack of water has really affected the hedychiums though; the foliage is fantastic, but no sign of flowers as yet ... but there is still time! The salvias have come into their own as they adore the heat and there are so many new colour ways to choose from. My latest favourites include a deep vivid purple and an almost tangerine orange variety. ‘Hotlips’, a well- known red and white variety, just blossoms its socks off every year and is a cheery plant to have in the border. The top terrace is looking a bit like a pépinière as I keep all my potted plants and those waiting to be planted within easy reach. I can deadhead, inspect and water much more easily. At the same time, if I can keep all these potted specimens alive and all the other plants in the garden die, I have ready made and nurtured replacements ... well, for starters anyway!
My walking buddy and I continue on our weekly country lane ‘discoveries’ and, amazingly, the hedgerows are coping better than our gardens ... well, that’s nature for you!! Already the blackberries are forming well; true they need some rain to swell to their usual juicy sizes, but they are there. The elderberries are looking very good for anyone who likes to make jam or wine and the teasel seed heads are almost ready to make into Harvest or Christmas decorations. The ‘haws’ are forming up nicely on the Hawthorn and there will be an abundance of rose hips. We always called this time of year ‘Hips and Haws Time’ when I was at primary school. That brings back memories of being sent out as a small child with a basket, and strict instructions not to come home until it was full of blackberries! The taste of blackberry and apple pie and blackberry jam or jelly is still with me. We see a large number of different butterfly species on our walks and I must remember to take my ‘Observer Book of Butterflies’ with me next week ... remember those? Just fitted into the pocket so neatly! We observed a couple of Nuthatches on our walk today, creeping up a nearby tree trunk. Their call was quite loud and clear, accompanied by loud ‘tapping’’ noises as they searched the bark for hidden tasty insects to eat. They descend from the trees head first!! What a bonus to have seen them! Walking more locally to us at the Plan d’Eau, it is very concerning to see two of the lagoons completely empty of water. What happens to all the wildlife that lived, fed and bred there?? All gone for now. We can only hope that they will return when the rains arrive. We stop and chat to the horses in various fields and they reward us by nodding sometimes. They look like warrior horses at the moment, wearing their protective head gear against the biting flies; you can just make out their features underneath, but protecting their eyes and faces from damage is more important than their appearance. The lake is still very popular with the fishermen ... it IS mostly men ... and we chat with them about their ‘catches’. The younger children have been at their annual summer camp near the lake too. There is a small area reserved for their use every year. They stay in pitched tents and have a fabulous time doing activities in the park area. The local café has a swimming pool attached to it, just for young children, and it is a perfect cooling off place and one where ice creams are readily available! We have our long walk and then enjoy our coffee and pain au chocolat at a picnic table, and relax and watch the wildlife … and human life from time to time too!
The arranged visit by the Friday Ladies to Maulevrier was a success and, although all three of us had been before, it was still as fresh and interesting as the first time. The overwhelming beauty of the trees, many of them acers, is stunning ... the colours, the shapes and the sizes! I’ve always loved acers, and I wasn’t disappointed. The day was very hot, but the trees provided a large amount of shade which everyone appreciated. The lake itself was almost covered in an algal bloom, probably caused by the heat, but the ducks were enjoying it! It’s a place to sit, and contemplate … to take in the peace and the natural sounds. In the autumn, the banks under the trees are covered in thousands of wild cyclamen which give a magical touch. The restaurant is at one end of the lake and better approached from the right as there is a steep slope to the entrance from the left. There is a decent menu for lunch, but snacks and drinks are available all the time. The entrance fee is 8 euros (which is not expensive) and there is ample parking space especially reserved for garden visitors. The parking is on the opposite side of the road to the garden itself, but there is a tunnel under the road to make access safe for everyone. There is a shop where Japanese themed articles are for sale and a small nursery where small plants can be purchased. There is also a Bonsai tree exhibition. If you’d like a day of contemplation, or just peace and quiet, it’s the place for you. Go and enjoy!
Now is the time to :
• Clear away hanging baskets and pots that are beginning to ‘go over’ and finish flowering. Any dead plant material will make a good addition to the compost heap. • Lift and divide large clumps of perennials that have finished flowering to double the number of plants that you have.
Easier to do when the foliage is still on the stems as it helps to identify them ... nothing worse than trying to remember the name of a ‘dead’ looking plant! Replant either into pots or back into a border. Leave some perennials as they are so that winter active insects can make homes in them; Good plants for this purpose include echinacea, solidago and eryngium.
Continued .....
• Examine the roses for signs of blackspot and collect up any leaves that have been affected and burn them or dispose of them … don’t put them on the compost heap as they will infect the compost with the virus. • Rambling roses tend to put on lots of green growth when they have stopped flowering, so control the spread and thin out any unruly stems. Tie the remainder into a support securely. • Continue to pick perennial flowers to encourage more to bloom. Sweet peas can be picked right up until the first frosts. • If, like me, you have many self-seeded foxgloves that have
‘arrived’ into some flower pots, dig them out and replant them where you really want them to flower … preferably somewhere in partial shade. • Leave the old flower heads on mop head hydrangeas as these will protect new tender growth if we have heavy frosts in the winter/spring. • Trim hornbeam or beech hedges lightly now, as new, fresh growth will be produced which will stay looking good throughout the winter months. • If some perennials are still flowering well, encourage them further by deadheading regularly and the displays should then last and give welcome colour into the early autumn/ winter months.
• When all the raspberries have been harvested, cut back the old canes to ground level. New canes that have been produced should be tied into a good strong support frame. • Pumpkins and squashes that are still in the process of ripening should be helped not to rot by placing boards or sacking underneath the fruit. • Green roofs can be prepared and planted now. This gives time for the plants to settle into growth before the autumn arrives.
• Most amphibians will have completed their breeding cycles now, so ponds can be cleaned and maintained without as much impact on any wildlife that may be living in them. • Make simple ‘bug hotels’ around the garden to encourage wild life of all kinds in. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated … a pile of logs, a heap of twiggy sticks, some hollow plant stems, corrugated cardboard, or just some rocks will all provide shelter and breeding spaces for a variety of wildlife. • Leave an area of grass uncut so that wildlife has shelter during the colder months. • Start to feed garden birds again, particularly if you stopped feeding them during the summer months. • Clean out nesting boxes and line with new nesting materials. • Help hedgehogs prepare their bodies for the winter by leaving out small dishes of meaty cat or dog food for them to eat.
• Sow green manure in any empty veg beds. They help to enrich any nutrients in the soil and suppress weeds. • If your jasmine is a summer flowerer, prune it back now by cutting from beneath the fading flower stems. • Take as many cuttings as you can from favourite perennials.
Very simply, cut off a non-flowering side shoot that feels thick and firm. Trim off all the bottom leaves leaving a few leaves at the top of this shoot. Neaten the edge below a node, this is a slightly raised bump on the base of the stem, where a leaf was joined. Dip this prepared side shoot into hormone rooting powder or gel and plant around the edge of a ready compost filled flower pot. When new leaves begin to appear, you know that the cutting is successful and roots will be forming. Rose cuttings can be taken in a similar way.
Cut some strong healthy stems that are about a pencil in thickness, from low down on the rose bush. Remove the leaves and dip the cut end into hormone rooting powder or gel. Make a shallow trench and place the cuttings into it and bury them in the soil. Cover the area with mulch or some plastic sheeting, making slits in it to allow the cuttings to poke through. Bury the edges of the sheeting in the soil to anchor it and forget about the cuttings for about a year. When you remember them, you will find that they have developed roots and new foliage and will be ready to plant out into pots or prepared beds.
• Keep snipping off dead flower heads and new flowers will appear to continue their colour late into the autumn. • If you grow herbs, cut some now, leaving the stems a little longer than for cooking, tie them into neat bunches and hang them up somewhere warm to dry, ready to use for cooking when they have dried thoroughly. • Onions are ready for lifting when the tips of the top foliage begin to turn yellow. Prepare them for lifting by loosening the earth around the bulb with a small hand fork and by tying up the foliage so that it dies back quickly. When the foliage is completely dead, gently remove the earth from around the bulb and pull the onion out. Store in a dry cool place to allow the outer skins to dry completely. Prepare a new bed and plant some more onion sets.
• Tidy up old strawberry runners by removing any dead, dying or diseased foliage and surrounding the remaining plants with straw. It is the time to plant new strawberry plants now too. • Sow some hardy annual seeds so that the resulting young plants can become established before winter. • Make sure that tall plants are supported by stakes or poles; inserting some short canes into the earth near the base of the plant will add extra support particularly during windy weather. • Prepare some pots and beds for planting winter and spring bulbs. Lots of varieties will be available on-line and locally in our garden centres during the next couple of months. It is a short buying period, so buy as soon as they are available and plant them up straight away. There are many new bulb varieties in fantastic colours that will enrich our garden views after the winter. I prefer to, plant in ‘clumps’ and close together so that ‘more’ is really ‘more’ The effect is much better I think, so I invest in as many different colours and types as I can. Pot up some hyacinth bulbs now and they will flower in time for Christmas. If you are going to plant bulbs into a lawn or grassy area, the best thing to do is to take a handful of bulbs and throw them over your shoulder, sight unseen. Turn and see where they landed and plant them there. In this way you will get a random, more natural display of flowering bulbs and you can leave them in situ when all flowering is done at the end of spring and add to the randomness in autumn next year! • Take some time to clean and tidy up the greenhouse after
‘its’ busy season. Much easier to do it on a warm dry summer
day when you can leave all the tools and paraphernalia out on the grass in the dry whilst you sweep or swab down the inside. Wear a mask when you do this so you don’t inhale any noxious dust! • If you have grown some sempervivums, they will have produced some offsets which are baby plants. These can be pulled off gently and planted into the same gritty compost as the ‘parent’ plant. More plants for free! • Lavender can be cut back when flowering is finishing. Cut back just the flower stems to the level of the leaf growth and not below this. Lavender does not re-sprout well from old hard wood. The cut off flower stems can be dried and the resulting seeds can be used to make lavender bags for the wardrobe.
• Fill any hollow spaces in the lawn with compost and sprinkle grass seed on top to rejuvenate the area.
Keep safe whilst you are gardening, always wear a hat and plenty of sun cream and drink lots of water whilst you are gardening. Don’t stay in the sun and heat for too long and if it’s extremely hot, wait for a cooler day. The garden will still be there to do and you will stay fit and well.
Greenfingers
September
by Helen Hunt Jackson Born 15/10/1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts and died on 12/08/1885 in San Franscisco, California. Most renowned work ‘Ramona’ was written in 1884.
The golden rod is yellow, the corn is turning brown. The trees in apple orchards with fruit are hanging down. The gentians’ bluest fringes are curling in the sun; In dusty pods the milkweed its’ hidden silk has spun. The sedges flaunt their harvest in every meadow nook, And asters by the brookside, mean asters in the brook. From dewy lanes at morning, the grapes sweet odours rise; At noon the roads all flutter with yellow butterflies. By all these lovely tokens, September days are here, With Summers’ best of weather and Autumns best of cheer. But none of all this beauty, which floods the earth and air Is unto me the secret, which makes September fair. T’is a thing which I remember, to name it thrills me yet! One day of one September, I never can forget!
DONNA IN HER POTAGER
September 2022
Just when it was all coming together in the potager, the first major canicule hit with a vengeance resulting in the inevitable water shortages and watering restrictions. Temperatures hit 46°c in my part of Normandy… and people still think climate change is a myth? When I first started coming here regularly, twenty years ago and before I moved, our friends in the bar used to joke that it was raining because I’d arrived – the rain was that regular, even in Summer. But now … we have had one rainy day in the last six weeks, the last bout of ‘bad’ weather was around 6th June and that wasn’t as wet as it used to be. Our large spring fed pond is just about dried up which will badly affect the ecosystem it houses, as well as that of the surrounding area which we have worked so hard at sustaining. We are an oasis of natural gardening surrounded by fields of monoculture, herbicide use and unnecessary cutting of valuable verges and bocage which one day are covered in butterflies and insects feeding on the nectar and the next… a bald, dusty, scrubby area devoid of any activity. Think of this if you feel the need to have a well tonsured garden. Leave an area of stinging nettles, wild flowers, ivy and brambles and help nature survive this calamitous time. Put out bowls of water for the hedgehogs and other wildlife as they will surely die without our support. Back to the potager, which does have areas of brambles and nettles! The triffid has identified itself! There are four rather lovely potimarrons (or potirons ... I’m still not sure which) growing surprisingly well, considering during the day the leaves are very wilted. The smaller ones on the hugul bed are coming along quite well too. Sadly, it is a battle at the moment to be able to provide enough water for everything to really thrive so I’m just keeping it ticking along until the rain comes, which is threatened, or is it promised, for next week. Due to the watering restrictions, I have quickly installed an automatic irrigation system linked to a digital timer so all the watering is done in the middle of the night, which is by far the best time at the moment and nothing is suffering too much, although my first timer has broken and is being replaced so I’ve had to double up for a while. I haven’t sown any new seeds at the moment as I just can’t give them the water I feel they need. The Brussels sprouts are very happy though and they do seem to be thriving in this new regime. I’ve been harvesting courgettes very regularly which makes me very happy as I have a great recipe for courgette kofta that I adore!
All the broad beans are in the freezer ready to make falafel, which are much better than chickpea falafel so I’m going to have to grow more next year. Following on from finding the broad bean falafel recipe, I discovered that there is such a thing as a falafel press. A very simple utensil but I had to have one! How, I wondered, did I manage to cook for so long without having a falafel press? Quick, simple and identical falafel produced in a fraction of the time it took to shape them by hand. If you make falafel, buy one if you haven’t already got one!
by Donna Palframan
Chillies in Pots
I’ve moved the chillies out of the polytunnel as they don’t really need the protection; the ones that needed potting on have been and they are all growing and are happy. I did buy some more seeds for next year – jalapeño, Espelette, Tabasco and a few other more unusual varieties so I’ll start those off in January. The tomatoes are, touch wood, doing well too and starting to ripen so I’m looking forward to the tomato glut happening very soon! I have had to prune them quite brutally as they became overwhelming but they didn’t seem to mind. As the San Marzanos ripen, I will just wipe them and put them straight in the freezer. They freeze so well and you can just take out what you need. As I use tomatoes in so many different types of recipe, I’ve found this works better for me than bulk cooking tomato sauce, try it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Moving to the no dig bed has made me organise compost making as I’m going to need a lot of compost and being vegetarian, I produce a lot of peelings, trimmings etc anyway. All our Gîtes have lidded buckets for their Cherry Tree Forest vegetable matter too, so we should get a lot of green waste! After umming and ahing about building compost bins and the best way to do it, Mr found a bank of four compost bins on that famous selling site and we decided that was the way forward. We spent an hour or two clearing the allotted area of a small forest of little cherry trees kindly planted by the birds and mowed the area of grass and nettles (which have finished flowering!), Cherry Tree Forest put the bins together and started using them by moving some of the compost pile into the first one. The bottom of the pile is good and composted and some has been used to mulch Ready for the new binsa few of the plants I’ve been worrying about to give them extra protection from the heat and lack of water. We are also going to make a tumbling composter from an old horse feed heater thing that someone found on Leboncoin. At the moment, it has a load of electrical gubbins for heating, which will be removed, and then he will modify it to allow good air entry etc. It will rotate and is actually quite a splendid thing, if you like that sort of thing! It should cut down composting time quite dramatically and be a good workout for me turning it every couple of days! Now, if you would all do the rain dance please…
