The Waspinator!

Photo above is of a “waspinator” bought for us by my sister when they came to stay.  She’d heard about our wasp problems and had very kindly sent the very tasteful wasp traps over with mum.  The wasp traps have been very active since they’ve been installed but there’s a part of me that does wonder if they actually attract the wasps and hornets to the area given the traps are full of sugar syrup.....

So, Oona very kindly did a little research and came across the waspinators - when we first took it out of the package (literally a piece of wasp nest shaped material that you fill with plastic bags to puff it out and hang somewhere....), we both had our reservations as to the effectiveness of this piece of “equipment”.

So, it is with great joy and humility that I can report that in the week since we installed it outside our front door, next to one of the wasp traps, not only have we not spotted a wasp indoors but the trap has also been spectacularly unsuccessful of late.  The theory is that the waspinator looks like a nest and other wasps will stay away because they’ll think it’s someone else’s nest!  You can see why we might have harboured some skepticism but it does in fact turn out that it’s a genuis idea and, as I type, working well for us.

Having gotten to about 30 degrees yesterday and been very hot and dry all week, it's nice to be able to report we had some early morning rain and it's now a little overcast which of course means weeding weather - although it's a task that desperately needs doing it's not one I relish doing however the satisfaction of having it done is the driving force and especially now we have our first aubergine (photo above), 2 melons (photo below) about a week away from eating and enormous amounts of cucumbers, courgettes (both yellow and green) and tomatoes.

So today Tony will spend the day sanding the plastering he did yesterday (his least favourite job) and I shall spend it in the garden avoiding the creepy crawlies that I am still a little wary of having watched a spider give birth in the veggie patch yesterday and was promptly informed that spiders are in fact friends of the garden so I wasn't allowed to kill it! :(