Veggie Table

I would like this month to make a plea for the protection of wasps in the garden. They do an immense amount of good work by predating on many insect pests, which they carry back to their nests as food for their broods.

Of course a wasp nest in the wrong place can be a nuisance, but wasps themselves only become mildly troublesome at the end of the season, when summer is giving way to autumn. By then, the female workers have finished raising the season’s brood and are perhaps tired and/or bored, and they tend to get a little intoxicated on fermenting fruit, which can make them a little bad-tempered sometimes.

Please do not destroy the queens or their nests, willy-nillly, because of an occasional sleepy drunk in the autumn. The same applies to hornet, which are apt to be regarded with more alarm. They will not attack you if you leave them alone.

As a jobbing gardener, I am often surprised by the extensive chemical arsenals that can be found in sheds and garages. Studies have long shown the detrimental effects that many, if not all, of these substances have upon the environment – and therefore upon you.

Please try to be organic in your garden. Vegetables grow on what is in the soil. If, as in many parts of the UK agri-industrial complex, the soil is basically a dead substance pumped full of artificial chemicals, then the vegetables that grow on it can have little of real nutritional value for us.

So look after the soil. It is alive and vital – and without it, we won’t be