Wednesday 21 August 2013

the king was in his counting house

I trundled round to the wildlife fair with two cash boxes and a float, and found myself roped into helping to erect our pop-up gazebo.  It is an extraordinarily ingenious contraption which concertinas down into a bag about the size of a golf bag.  There is no disassembly, you don't have to un-velcro the fabric from the frame, or take the frame apart like a tent.  Instead the frame is jointed, and collapses down.  Once we'd unfolded it out of its bag, it wasn't entirely obvious what was to stop it collapsing by itself under the force of gravity.  Even the secretary's husband couldn't see it, and he is a professional engineer, works in the oil industry.  When I'd got the secretary's counter-signature on some cheques, signed in my small offering of jars of honey for sale, and helped pick out some bee-friendly plants to decorate our stall, I scarpered.

As we were choosing plants for the stand, the secretary's husband casually remarked that the bees would probably be moving honey downstairs pretty soon, that is, taking it from the supers, where the beekeeper can harvest it, and stashing it away in the brood box where they will live during the winter.  This rattled me, since I'd been worrying about them swarming and taking the honey with them, but hadn't thought of them simply moving it from my bit of the beehive to their part.  When I got home I put a clearer board under the top two supers of the golden bees' hive.  There is a little bit of honey round the edges of some frames that still isn't capped, but they have been working on it for ages, and it wasn't dripping when I inspected them.

The garden is so, so dry.  One of the late Elmore Leonard's rules for writing was, Don't begin with the weather, but when you are a gardener, the weather matters.  A Euonymus planipes, planted last year, was drooping dangerously in the long bed as I went out.  I ran the hose on things that looked as if they desperately needed it, and on the spots in the gravel where I wanted to plant things out, my beautiful new fig with deeply incised leaves, a tall white lavender a friend gave me, and some seed raised Watsonia I am going to risk outside.  Watsonia is a south African bulb, and not awfully hardy, but I have six plants, raised from seed, in addition to the ones I potted up for display in a large terracotta pot.  They can spend the winter in the greenhouse, but I don't have room for all of them, and short of listing them on e-bay or one of the specialist plant sale and swap sites that are bobbing up, I can't think what to do with them.

The point of watering before planting is to make the ground soft enough to dig.  Otherwise, it is almost like chiselling holes in rotten concrete.  I managed it for the white lavender, but that was only in a one litre pot and was still hard work, while the fig was in a 7.5 litre container.  It is called 'Ice Crystal', and it is terribly beautiful. To see was to desire.  Figs do grow in pots, but they honestly seem so much happier in the ground.  My 'Brown Turkey' is making leaves twice or three times the size, now that it has been liberated from its pot, which was quite large.  It is now planted at the foot of a south-west facing retaining wall, along the edge of what was the vehicular access to the integral garage, when anyone kept a car in it (we never have).  The soil was packed with flints the size of a fist, which I had to lever out individually, but the fig loves it.  It took a year or two to establish, them romped away, throwing up luxurious new growth from ground level.  It even has some figs on it, though unless I put bags round them I'm sure the birds will get them before I do.

I went back to the wildlife fair at four, to collect the takings and any unsold honey.  It had sold, all eight jars.  I asked if the public had been behaving themselves nicely, and whether I could use what was left of the taster jar for cooking, or if they had been undisciplined and inclined to dip their spatulas back in after licking them, and was told it had all been very well controlled.  As one volunteer put it, if I didn't want my taster honey back he'd have it.  Counting and then recounting the cash took drove me mad, as we seemed to have fifty pounds odd more than the theoretical value of members' goods sold, when at last I remembered that we also did candle rolling and wooden bee colouring-in, proceeds of which go directly to the division and not members.  Panic over, though by then I'd given up and emailed the secretary asking whether anyone had brought extra honey for sale.  Hostilities will resume in the morning, as I still haven't counted up the proceeds of the last two raffles, which also need paying in to the bank, along with some tea money.  How the owner at work copes, counting up three tills a night, come rain, shine, and dinner parties, beats me.

No comments:

Post a Comment