Nature Blog by Jenny Bourne

So much rain this September after a dry summer – it makes the soil easy to manage when lifting the spent veg plants, especially the rampant trailing squash plants!

I recently rediscovered four volumes of an 18C botanical work by one of my maternal early ancestors, ‘Flora Rustica’ by Thomas Martyn. Published in 1792, it contains exquisite botanical illustrations and a fascinating insight into the understanding and knowledge of plants, trees and their medicinal and other properties at that time.

Rescuing birds around the site usually involves setting free large wood pigeons that have inadvertently waddled under fruit cage netting and can’t find their way out again. But at the weekend a small, light coloured bird had found its way into the Seed Store café

Asian hornets that present a threat to honeybees are more widespread and closer than indicated in my last blog, with four sightings in different parts of Hampshire, as I realise after reading an article in BBKA News

The beekeeper produced a late summer honey extraction a couple of weeks ago, and a really lovely flavour, with the top notes of lime tree blossom. But our allotment beekeepers have had to install Asian hornet traps around their hives, as these predatory and unwelcome hornets have now been identified in the UK.