2023 - Good Morning,. Afternoon, Night

I imagine your underpants wouldn't be clean for long if you were run over.

Good evening. Just going through books I've not looked at for a while to see if they should go to Oxfam. I fished out a book on gardening techniques, RHS 1981 opening it at random and read about renovating borders: "Late Spring, when weeds are growing strongly, apply glyphosate with a dribble bar or sprayer." I didn't realise how long that has been manufactured for. It must at last be getting a bad press as, while noseying round a garden centre after dropping Chris off at the hospital, I noticed lots of weed killers now claiming not to contain glyphosate prominently on their label, including some formulations or roundup, the original glyphosate.

On another note, you will never convince me that these are beneficial insects. There are hundreds foraging for fruit now. I thought they should be still working till the autumn. They are moving on to our plum trees even though the plums are still very tart and nowhere near ripe.

   

I have a few old gardening books and, while they may pre-date Glyphosate, they use other, very dubious chemicals. Can't remember which but they were certainly something you wouldn't want on your food.
As for the wasps, I don't think anything can be termed "beneficial" if it destroys the fruit/veg/flower that is the reason for growing it. Wasps in plums are bad but wasps in Japanese knotweed might be good. Someone needs to train wasps to eat elsewhere.

I agree. It must be a bumper year for wasps. I've never had them affect the raspberries before and this year they're decimating them and they ruined the goosegogs. I've a jamjar or two with sweet liquid ready to go in the fruit cage. Nothing else is recommended.

I once tried using a car vacuum cleaner on them but one gave me a friendly sting on the wrist so I didn't try that again. Just plastic squash bottles with the tops cut off and inverted with a bit of fruit juice in it but they don't catch too many.

Somewhere in Greece we met the giant meat-eating wasps that lurked around the beach, stinging anyone who looked like raw meat. The remedy was a piece of salami in a jam jar that you kept beside your partly clothed body. By the end of the day, there'd be several wasps in the jar which was then lidded and disposed of. Never met them anywhere else,

They sound like fun!

Got friends visiting tomorrow. Not seen them for 8 years. Only found out they were coming this afternoon. I’m really looking forward to seeing them.

Will they be able to help with the house/garden? Visitors need to earn their keep.

Will they be able to help with the house/garden? Visitors need to earn their keep.

She kinda already has. She’s the upholsterer that sent me all the bits and told me how to fix the old chair   .
He might want to give Bob a hand with the cladding. Very much doubt I’ll be getting any gardening help out of either of them.  .