or lack of. Even though the plums have at long last ripened and some are in
a poor state, no wasps!!

My daughter has a prolific harvest on her plum tree too with fruit dropping
to the ground, again no wasps :-)

Mike

--

....................................

I'm an Angel, honest ! The horns are there just to keep the halo straight.

....................................

On 01/09/2012 12:10, 'Mike' wrote: or lack of. Even though the plums
have at long last ripened and some are
in a poor state, no wasps!!

My daughter has a prolific harvest on her plum tree too with fruit
dropping to the ground, again no wasps :-)

There are at most six plums on our neighbours tree which is usually
prolific enough to keep the entire village in plums at this time of
year. Some wasps, quite a few beehives have gone queenless and at last a
handful of butterflies to take advantage of the buddlea flowers but all
in all it has been a really tough year for insects.

It is so bad here that our Christmas forced hyacinths are back in flower
again thinking that they have already endured a winter!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 01/09/2012 12:10, 'Mike' wrote: or lack of. Even though the plums have
at long last ripened and some are
in a poor state, no wasps!!

My daughter has a prolific harvest on her plum tree too with fruit
dropping to the ground, again no wasps :-)

There are at most six plums on our neighbours tree which is usually
prolific enough to keep the entire village in plums at this time of year.
Some wasps, quite a few beehives have gone queenless and at last a handful
of butterflies to take advantage of the buddlea flowers but all in all it
has been a really tough year for insects.

It is so bad here that our Christmas forced hyacinths are back in flower
again thinking that they have already endured a winter!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown


Where are you Martin? I'm in the Isle of Wight



--

....................................

I'm an Angel, honest ! The horns are there just to keep the halo straight.

....................................

On 01/09/2012 13:39, 'Mike' wrote:




"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 01/09/2012 12:10, 'Mike' wrote: or lack of. Even though the plums
have at long last ripened and some are
in a poor state, no wasps!!

My daughter has a prolific harvest on her plum tree too with fruit
dropping to the ground, again no wasps :-)

There are at most six plums on our neighbours tree which is usually
prolific enough to keep the entire village in plums at this time of
year. Some wasps, quite a few beehives have gone queenless and at last
a handful of butterflies to take advantage of the buddlea flowers but
all in all it has been a really tough year for insects.

It is so bad here that our Christmas forced hyacinths are back in
flower again thinking that they have already endured a winter!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown


Where are you Martin? I'm in the Isle of Wight



Well there are wasps here, feeding on the few apples that I have, some
of which have dropped, are rotting a providing a feast for wasps.

--
Residing on low ground in North Staffordshire

On Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:59:30 +0100, Moonraker
wrote:



Well there are wasps here, feeding on the few apples that I have, some
of which have dropped, are rotting a providing a feast for wasps.

TBH, I have yet to notice a wasp around here. But then I haven't seen
a bee for ages, nor a ladybird. Indeed, insects all seem to have
emigrated apart from hoverflies in abundance and the odd butterfly.
This is despite the fact that I have lots of supposedly nectar-rich
stuff in bloom at last and enough Himalayan balsam flowering on the
other side of fence to feed an army.

I've had no black-, white- or greenfly this year at all. Usually
nasturtiums and cardoons get the black ones, the roses the green ones
and the greenhouse the white ones but nothing. And I've been looking
hard! Surprisingly few flies around too which means all the spiders
now spinning webs all over the garden are going to be hungry.

Only lily beetles bucked the trend!

It's clearly been a bad year for insects. I just hope that things get
back to normal next year. Yes, I'd even welcome some aphids in the
hope of enticing ladybirds again.

At least the birds haven't moved out and are as hungry as ever.

On the plus side, the last Nemaslug treatment seems to have done more
than the previous ones as I haven't found a slug on an evening search
for a week, just lots of snails who co-operate by climbing to the top
of everything where they're easy to find. But then again, the
hedgehogs have stopped visiting as well, presumably due to lack of
slugs.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the East End of Swansea Bay where sometimes
it's raining and sometimes it's not.

In article ,
lid says...




TBH, I have yet to notice a wasp around here. But then I haven't seen
a bee for ages, nor a ladybird. Indeed, insects all seem to have
emigrated apart from hoverflies in abundance and the odd butterfly.
This is despite the fact that I have lots of supposedly nectar-rich
stuff in bloom at last and enough Himalayan balsam flowering on the
other side of fence to feed an army.


Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the East End of Swansea Bay where sometimes
it's raining and sometimes it's not.

Now you mention it, I've not seen any wasps yet this year. They are
usually buzzing around the autumn raspberries, bot pollinating the
flowers and tidying up the rooten fruit I miss!

Plenty of bees doing the polinating job though at the moment.

--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

"Jake" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:59:30 +0100, Moonraker
wrote:



Well there are wasps here, feeding on the few apples that I have, some
of which have dropped, are rotting a providing a feast for wasps.

TBH, I have yet to notice a wasp around here. But then I haven't seen
a bee for ages, nor a ladybird. Indeed, insects all seem to have
emigrated apart from hoverflies in abundance and the odd butterfly.
This is despite the fact that I have lots of supposedly nectar-rich
stuff in bloom at last and enough Himalayan balsam flowering on the
other side of fence to feed an army.

I've had no black-, white- or greenfly this year at all. Usually
nasturtiums and cardoons get the black ones, the roses the green ones
and the greenhouse the white ones but nothing. And I've been looking
hard! Surprisingly few flies around too which means all the spiders
now spinning webs all over the garden are going to be hungry.

Only lily beetles bucked the trend!

It's clearly been a bad year for insects. I just hope that things get
back to normal next year. Yes, I'd even welcome some aphids in the
hope of enticing ladybirds again.

At least the birds haven't moved out and are as hungry as ever.

On the plus side, the last Nemaslug treatment seems to have done more
than the previous ones as I haven't found a slug on an evening search
for a week, just lots of snails who co-operate by climbing to the top
of everything where they're easy to find. But then again, the
hedgehogs have stopped visiting as well, presumably due to lack of
slugs.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling from the East End of Swansea Bay where sometimes
it's raining and sometimes it's not.

Saw my one and only Peacock Butterfly on my Buddlia today !

Bill - half way between the wet and dry bits of Swansea bay

On 01/09/2012 13:39, 'Mike' wrote:

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 01/09/2012 12:10, 'Mike' wrote: or lack of. Even though the plums
have at long last ripened and some are
in a poor state, no wasps!!

My daughter has a prolific harvest on her plum tree too with fruit
dropping to the ground, again no wasps :-)

There are at most six plums on our neighbours tree which is usually
prolific enough to keep the entire village in plums at this time of
year. Some wasps, quite a few beehives have gone queenless and at last
a handful of butterflies to take advantage of the buddlea flowers but
all in all it has been a really tough year for insects.

It is so bad here that our Christmas forced hyacinths are back in
flower again thinking that they have already endured a winter!


Where are you Martin? I'm in the Isle of Wight

North Yorkshire. I harvested my broad beans yesterday there was just
about enough for a *single* generous serving. Hardly any got pollinated.
Same for the runner beans with just two edible sized pods on 8 plants to
date except they are still flowering nicely and now at last being
pollinated. It hasn't been too hot for them!

The ground frost this week looks like it might have done for the broad
bean plants. My courgettes have yet to have one female flower.

Blueberries are OK (but the one that got frosted has no crop at all).

I have seen perhaps a dozen butterflies so far year to date. In a normal
year I would expect to see more than that outside my door every day
since there is pink valerian, honeysuckle and buddleia nearby.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Martin Brown wrote:
The ground frost this week looks like it might have done for the broad
bean plants. My courgettes have yet to have one female flower.

Ground frost already? Blimey. My courgette that made it to flowering has
had loads of female flowers, but they get polinated then they grow a bit
then they go mouldy at the end and fall off. No idea why. :-(

wrote in message
...
Martin Brown wrote:
The ground frost this week looks like it might have done for the
broad bean plants. My courgettes have yet to have one female flower.

Ground frost already? Blimey. My courgette that made it to flowering
has had loads of female flowers, but they get polinated then they grow
a bit then they go mouldy at the end and fall off. No idea why. :-(

Lament of the URGlers: a little ditty wot I wrote

All of that effort
And packets of seed,
With nets and sprays
And feed and weed.
But taters got blight
And the runners won't run,
Too much damn rain
And not enough sun.

Slugs in the lettuce,
Then cabbage root fly,
They got in the broccoli
Which caused it to die.
The carrots are forked
And the broad beans too thin,
The courgettes - don't ask!
They all went in the bin.

And soon now the grass
Will be covered in frost.
No veg to show,
So the harvest is lost.
Cheer up though folks,
The seed catalogue's here;
We can all go and plan
What we WILL grow next year.


--
Sue

Sue wrote:
Slugs in the lettuce,

Very nice, but ... slugs in bloody everything! :'(

I wonder how many new-lotmenters this year will give up compared to
previous years. I suspect it's not a very high %tage that make it to
over a year anyhow. In fact, given just how bad it's been, I wonder
how many old-lotmenters it will finish off!

On Sunday, September 2, 2012 9:25:56 PM UTC+1, Christina Websell wrote:
wrote in message

...

Sue wrote:

Slugs in the lettuce,



Very nice, but ... slugs in bloody everything! :'(



I wonder how many new-lotmenters this year will give up compared to

previous years. I suspect it's not a very high %tage that make it to

over a year anyhow. In fact, given just how bad it's been, I wonder

how many old-lotmenters it will finish off!



I was very discouraged earlier this year (my first year) by so many

failures, spinach & beetroot were sown three times and still failed.

However the beans and courgettes are so good atm that we will do it again

next year and hope for better weather earlier in the growing season.

The sweetcorn is small in height but has some reasonably large corns formed.

All in all, we will do it again.



Strangely enough the wettest summer since records began, is likely to effect far more things than those which are entirely obvious. There isnt likely to be much discussion of this though, as those responsible for the global warming which is the main cause of great changes in our weather patterns, own and control the corporate media, so in effect determine what an awful lot of people think..................