catching up with myself

 One of the neighbours called round on Monday, when I was at work, and spoke to the Systems Administrator to ask if we'd heard about the lettuce farm's planning application.  The copy of the letter she gave us was rather unnerving, since the application is for permission to erect polytunnels 6.4m high and up to 360m long, covering five fields, and construct two agricultural reservoirs, and the letter talked about how the development would 'dramatically change the present countryside landscape and impact on the local wildlife, volume of highway traffic as well as devaluing local properties'.  I was out on Monday evening, and the SA didn't look up details of the application in my absence.  I told myself that the farmer had been pretty sensible about community relations so far, and with the whole farm to choose from probably wouldn't try and stick the tunnels immediately next to houses, but it niggled at me at odd moments yesterday as a vague, overhanging threat.  This morning the SA looked up the full details on the web, and the proposed site of the tunnels is on the far side of the farm, well away from houses, while the planned reservoirs are due to be on the site of previous worked-out gravel extractions.

The news came as a relief.  Even though my rational mind thought that the developments were unlikely to take in the next door field, anxiety still lurked.  It's tricky living in the countryside.  You know that you don't own the view, and that fields are a working environment in which farmers have to make a living, but you still don't want rows of plastic tunnels over six metres high just over the hedge from your garden, just as you understand that farmers in the eastern counties need to store more winter rain for summer use, but don't want to listen to the noise of diggers and especially those wretched reversing bleepers for the year it takes them to excavate the reservoir.  The planning application has to make the commercial case for the development, and so we discovered that the farm plans to invest £9 million, and that the development will create six full time jobs.  That's £1.5 million capital spend per job created, so I think we can conclude that horticultural food production is not going to lead the UK out of its present unemployment problems.  The tunnels are intended to grow some kind of salad leaf used in supermarket bags of mixed leaves, which is currently imported to the UK, so the project will help the balance of trade, if it goes ahead.  Remember, the next time you buy a bag of mixed leaves or a supermarket lettuce, that the fields of north Essex are disappearing under fleece and polythene tunnels so that you can get one of your five a day.

Meanwhile I made some progress with my (rather long) list of things to do.  A fellow beekeeper is producing a leaflet for our stand at the Tendring Show (it is a lovely show.  Do come) and had circulated draft versions for constructive comment.  I fired off my first set of comments ages ago, and was disconcerted on getting back from work on Sunday to find myself being chased for comments on the next version when I'd only been sitting on it for a week, given the show isn't until the middle of July.  What with work, and Monday night's concert, and the Chelsea Flower Show, I had to confess that there was no way I was going to even look at it until today.  I sat down after breakfast to go through it, and was greatly relieved to send off my latest list of constructive comments and be able to tick Beekeeper's leaflet off my list of things to do.

Then I was able to have a look at the bees, since it has finally warmed up.  They like the warm weather, and all four colonies were in a benign and docile mood, while a problem a couple have been having with a fungal infection of their larvae, called chalk brood, was much reduced.  I was hoping that warmer and drier weather would do the trick, once the bees could fly freely instead of being stuck on top of each other in the hives.  One colony that was so slow to get going earlier in the year that I initially thought they must have gone queenless has increased greatly since the last inspection, and was starting to show signs of swarming.  I added a super (extra box) to give them more space, removed the incipient new queens, and crossed my fingers.  The tiny swarm I collected last year that made it through the winter, in defiance of what the text books say about the minimum colony size for successful overwintering, is building up as well.  I'm not sure what the other two colonies are doing, after my unsuccessful attempts at swarm control, but the bees seemed contented and purposeful, so I shall leave them to get on with it.  They have millions of years of evolution behind them in how to be a bee, whereas I have 13 year's experience in how to manage a bee, so when in doubt I take the view that they know better than I do.

Then I made it through my monthly Pilates lesson without disgracing myself.  By next month things should be less frantic, and we might progress to some new exercises and challenges, which would make it more interesting for both of us.  My life recently has felt like the proverbial paddling swan, legs going frantically even if the surface seems serene, though in truth it is probably more like a small dog doing the doggy paddle, little legs churning while the whole dog looks pretty worried.

Addendum  The Telegraph reports that the Shard doesn't make it into the world's top ten tall buildings, even at full height.  It would need to be another 460 feet tall.  Oh well.

another job ticked off the list

I finally finished sorting out the greenhouse.  The geraniums and other tender perennials are tucked away, ready for me to shut the doors when frost is predicted, as it will be any night soon.  Things propagated in greater quantities than I've managed to use so far in the garden have been weeded and kept for next year, potting them on if needs be, and the contents of pots that had died or gone horribly manky have been chucked out.  The lilies are stacked under the bench, together with four Whichford planters containing next year's hyacinth bulbs.  Last winter I left the hyacinths out, as I've always done, and the bulb plates rotted away in the extreme weather.  Odd pots containing small bulbs that I never got round to planting in the spring have been investigated, and those with live, sprouting bulbs weeded and kept, and the remainder thrown away.  There are a couple of nice things from the Avon Bulbs catalogue growing on, ready to be planted out in the spring when I've finished (ha!) the great tidy-up outside.  So I struck 'greenhouse' off the list, which left only fifty items to go.

I set out to flame some odd bits of beekeeping kit that were sitting outside the garage.  For the non-beekeepers, this doesn't mean burning them on a ceremonial pyre (though that is what will happen to your hive if it should have one of the nastier brood diseases).  Flaming to a beekeeper means running a blowtorch over the surface of wooden beehive parts until they are lightly charred, which is a method of sterilising them.  As wood is porous and you don't want chemicals soaking into the hive and contaminating the honey, heat sterilisation is a good method, and I'd been cleaning my kit as I stacked it away.  What I didn't know this morning, but do now, is that the System's Administrator's blowtorch uses a butane canister, which won't work below 15 degrees C.  I found the torch on the veranda, where we'd had it to light the barbecue, twizzled it to on, flicked the ignition button and - nothing.  Repeatedly nothing, except for a faint hissing sound and slight smell of gas.  I found the S.A. and grumbled that the canister must be running out (though it felt pretty heavy) and so learnt about the thermal requirements of butane.  Leaving the torch in the kitchen brought it to a temperature where it would work, but it kept running out of oomph outside, and as the wind got up I decided that today was really not the day to choose.  Pity.  You know how it is, when you galvanise yourself to get on with a tedious job, and circumstances get in the way.

I scraped aside the gravel where the poor Teucrium fruticans 'Azureum' used to be, and couldn't see the rootball at all.  I ended up probing cautiously with a garden fork, lifting sections of soil on the basis that the ground would crumble whereas the Teucrium would come up in a circular lump.  It did.  There is no top growth left whatsoever, and I'm not terribly optimistic about its chances of revival, but some shrubs have surprised me pleasantly by regenerating from below ground level after being hit by cold above, so I might as well find out if Teucrium fruticans is capable of that trick.  Watering it correctly in the greenhouse will be key, as it needs to be on the dry side, and is currently fairly wet.  The ginger scented rosemary went into the gap.  If you come across one of these then grab it, if you like rosemary.  It really does smell spicy and different to the usual sort.

The gardening afternoon was cut short by my monthly visit to the Pilates teacher.  She was recovering from a vicious cold, and looked rather exhausted, but that's part of the deal being self employed.  No lesson, no fee.  I seemed to be particularly dense this afternoon about co-ordinating my breathing with the movements of my legs.  I find formal exercise one of the dullest things ever, but that's part of the deal having a dodgy back and a hardcore gardening habit.  If I do some moderately boring exercises reasonably regularly and take notice of my posture I can function normally.  If I don't, I can't.  The teacher is a nice and cultured woman, and congenial company, which makes the lessons nicer than they would be otherwise.