Wasps and Wine...and garlic plaits

Quite an eventful few days, really – I nipped down to Hill on Thursday in order to dig up the rest of the ONIONS, & whilst I had my head in the toolshed reaching in for the fork, I was mindful of rather a lot of wasps.

The main reason for this I discovered in pretty short order was the presence of a wasps' nest in the shed.

Beating a hasty retreat, I took the ONIONS home and pondered my next move.

So on Saturday morning I went back to deal with the wasps, armed with a puffer pack of proprietary Wasp Nest Killer. I read the instructions – use at dusk. So I put the pack away & got on with building a second compost bin instead.

Reg-next-plot was on hand to advise – he suggested a layer of manure at the bottom of the bin to get it off to a good start. He also kindly let me have one of his cauliflowers, which makes two in my fridge at the mo – I felt that I had to buy something from the veg man at the farmer’s market on Friday, as I’d just asked him for a couple of brown sacks to store the potatoes in when they are dug up in due course.

I went over the whole plot weeding – I feel I’m on top of this at the moment, a feeling which is likely to last about 3 days till the next lot germinate!

I dug up the GARLIC – the bulbs look fabulous but BOY did they niff the car out driving home!

However, before packing up for the day I turned my attention to the wayward raspberry canes which have popped up over the last few months by the compost bins & within the row of rhubarb at the back of the plot. There are so many there now that I could strip out the ones that I didn’t want to leave a row which will be ready to fruit next summer. Brilliant!

Whilst I was on fruit patrol I picked all the blackcurrants (total of about a pound & a half, I weighed later). I noticed that all the blackcurrants are on last years’ growth, so half-remembering Indomitable Fran’s advice from last year, I cut out all of these branches wholesale then stripped the berries off into a bucket & the branches into the new compost bin. Was that the right thing to do? It has left the bushes looking good – ready for a bumper crop next year, I hope!

Interestingly, there were only about three redcurrants – as everyone else has netted their fruit bushes, I wonder if the birds scoffed all the redcurrants? And if so, don't they like blackcurrants? The gooseberries are rubbish this year too – despite my pruning, they are just dense balls of thorns with hardly any fruit & this mostly mildewed. The four bushes live on borrowed time.

Once home, I took the blackcurrants & some raspberries that I had in the fridge & made some jam. I really will have to have further practise making preserves – this setting point business is probably easy peasy when you know what you’re doing, however until that happy day, I would imagine that I will continue to make concrete-grade jam. However, more successful is the current batch of rhubarb wine which I bottled - very tasty indeed.

I went back to the Hill at dusk & dispatched the wasps nest with a few puffs of the wasp nest powder - not something I feel hugely proud of, actually – & this morning I sat out in the sunshine & tidied the garlic into plaits which look & smell utterly fabulous, unlike the maslin pan full of a gallon of murky water & boiled up pea pods which is now cooling ready for the pea pod wine…