Heaviest haul with the Homcom trailer so far

[guerney]

What happens to them when they get home?

They're living things and are capable of slumbering if kept cool and dark. No refrigeration required - I ate the second to final one a month ago, from last year's crop. Hardly had to buy many vegetables for almost a year. And that's the only upside to growing one's own vegetables, the largely unacceptable downside being the obscene expenditure of time and effort, which is very annoying. This year's weather was far more troublesome for the growing of my produce, than any I can remember, and it's been extremely stressful. I'll juice and drink many pumpkins, because they contain a lot of zeaxanthin which is good for my eyes (Central Serous Retinopathy). Also because Crown Prince pumpkins are utterly yummy.

Central serous chorioretinopathy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[guerney]

What happens to them when they get home?

I've also been juicing and reducing them to freeze and make soups later - tastes very sweet. I may add custard powder to make a sweet pumpkin custard next time.




I've also been fermenting pumpkin juice with kefir - weirdly, it tastes like orange juice. I shouldn't be so surprised, it is after all a fruit botanically speaking.

 

[Nealh]

Keep an eye on those wheelbearings and have spares to replace them with the weights carried.
I got the CF out this morning to load up & feed the bees and generally check up on them, a cursory check of bearings before fitting the wheels and one was shot to bits, once the QR axle was remove it didn't take much for the balls and the inner surrounds to fall out. I had to whip the dremmel out to get the final bit of the outer case out before I tapped in a new bearing with a drift resting on the outer case edge.

Having replaced the four bearings in Noevember, I'm down to two now. I suspect my heavy towing weight isn't helping or the off road route, just ordered a 10 pack of bearings so I have enough spares.

 

[guerney]

That's a very good point @Nealh - a wheel suddenly seizing up while hauling the laden trailer uphill would be . I usually keep it in my veg plot shed for water haulage duties, but because it carried pumpkins home, I've been able to have a good look at it. The Homcom is holding up well - a few scrapes and rusting where the paint has scraped off. It's steel, will be structurally sound despite heavy rusting. It makesmore financial sense to buy a new Homcom trailer for £100, than buy new wheels. I will however, attempt to replace bearings if I can. Weirdly, the bearings are silent when the wheels are spun - when it first arrived new, they emitted faint grainding noises. I do recall an Amazon reviewer reporting he was dissatisfied by this noise enough to open the hubs and grease the bearings as soon as he received his. Maybe rough bearings have been smoothed or something? I don't know. Tyres look more worn than I expected, given that it's about a 9 mile round trip or so between the natural sping water source in the hills and my veg plot, but of course the wheels are bearing a good weight on the return 4.5 mile half of that journey, and they are cheap tyres. I'm rather shocked that I haven't had a puncture.

The thought of having to replace bearings reminds me to buy a good heavy steel bench vice and tenon saw - the first might facilitate easier bearing replacement, than the lighweight aluminium clamping vice from Aldi, which easily rotates uncontrolably no matter how much it's tightened... but the second is to make the accurate cuts in wood I recently remembered being capable of making in woodwork class, a great many moons ago: Mark a cutting guide line all round the wood using a pencil and setsquare, score the line using a Stanley blade, then produce ultra straight clean cuts slowly using a tenon with high tooth count per inch - I may actually make my own truing stand. The best tenons have a high carbon steel blade (which can be sharpened), the cheaper ones are pretty much single use, as they only harden the area for teeth by heating that part with carbon applied - soft steel is of course cheaper.

Tenon with carbon steel blade:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spear-Jackson-9550B-Brass-Tenon/dp/B0043YHJQ2/

Are your bees still active? I saved one about two weeks ago which I saw struggling in the middle of the pavement. Not wanting it crushed underfoot by pedestrians, I gently encourged it onto the blue PVC side of an aluminium sheet I happend to be carrying back from a hardware shop, using a brand new hacksaw I had also purchased to cut that aluminium sheet, and positioned this poor bee very close to a flower which was growing in a roadside hedge.... whereupon it showed sudden enthusiasm, immediately scrambled to the middle of the flower. I eagerly anticipate being welcomed in Bee Heaven, which I fully expect to be awash with bright colours and overflowing with honey.

 

[Nealh]

Honey Bees very active until daytemps get down to 7 or 8 c, big push for them at the mo as the 'Hedera' Ivy is in flower and the last major nectar source before Nov/December arrives. One can smell ivy as it has a very distinct aroma and taste like no other honey, two of my hives on wednesday ponged of it.
The bee you found was likely a humble bee ?
If you offer your finger it will accept the warmth and will willingly climb on and will not sting you as you pose no threat and yes a sip of nectar from a flower and they soon convert the energy source.

 

[guerney]

I really should have taken a photo, my phone has a 2X optical zoom with a very short focusing distance and it was a warm day, I could have snapped a good bee portrait. Looked like a bumble bee to me, but I know nowt about bee types. I read somewhere that the oldest bees are mercilessly sent out to collect pollen, to death, by the hive or queen. We'd have scant elderly folk if human society did that.

 

[Nealh]

Don't belive the rubbish you read.
In honey bees there are varying stages of life and a heirachy, a young new emerged bee becomes at first a nurse bee feeding it's siblings and then general house duties for approx. three weeks (cleaning, undertaking, honey production guard duty etc etc) after this it's life changes and it is it's turn to become a forager and communicator until it's life expires. A life from spring to autumn is short approx. 6 weeks, the queen in full swing (April - August) can lay and producing 1000+ plus bees a day.
A hive depending on the queens productuivity can see some 200K odd bees pass through t per annum.

The humbebee is very different and a longer life cycle but a short nest existance as semi social insect with only the new mated virgin queens hibernating for the following year, as an example out of 100 virgin queens produced only 20% may servive to produce a nest the following year.
A typical nest only being of 100 - 250 bees per annum dependant on sub specie.

 

[guerney]

I frequently think that I should carry adround a small dropper bottle of sugar syrup or honey for such emergencies, but it hasn't happened often enough - I already keep a small bag of pumpkins seeds handy (they're too hard to extract kernels from) for birds. At this rate I'd need Batman's utility belt to feed various encountered creature types...

I would have liked to have seen analysis of pollen extracted from around this 100 million year old bee preserved in tree resin:

| EarthSky

One hundred million years ago, a bee got trapped in tree resin. Over time, geological forces converted the resin to amber. Now a scientist arrives on the scene, to tell us this bee’s story.

earthsky.org

 

[guerney]

Honey Bees very active until daytemps get down to 7 or 8 c, big push for them at the mo as the 'Hedera' Ivy is in flower and the last major nectar source before Nov/December arrives. One can smell ivy as it has a very distinct aroma and taste like no other honey, two of my hives on wednesday ponged of it.

Does the honey pong of it too? And is that a problem when selling the honey? Honey seems to keep for ages - herbalists in hot countries use it to preserve herbs for long periods of time, therefore do you mix all of this year's honey in a gigantic vat to even out the flavour?

 

[Nealh]

do you mix all of this year's honey in a gigantic vat to even out the flavour?

Definately not, honey;s have a different taste, aroma and colour. Different natural sugars in it's make up. Each hive is extracted seperatly and stored.
Spring , summer and autumn collected honey will come from varying nectar sources during the year.

 

[GLJoe]

They're living things and are capable of slumbering if kept cool and dark. No refrigeration required

On that note - I see that you snipped the squash off fairly close to the main body.
Was this because the vines were still growing with younger squash still ripening further along the vine? Or is that how you generally do it?

- I ate the second to final one a month ago, from last year's crop. Hardly had to buy many vegetables for almost a year. And that's the only upside to growing one's own vegetables, the largely unacceptable downside being the obscene expenditure of time and effort, which is very annoying.

I used to think like this.

Now, I look upon the financial savings of veg growing as one of the LEAST important aspects. For me, far more important now are (in no particular order of importance):
1. You can get a very positive, natural exercise regimen by doing regular gardening activity. Its kind of like the benefit you get by cycling to work instead of taking the car/bus/train. Its worth it even if it DOESN'T save you any money!

2. There is something very healthy about 'grounding' yourself when working with the soil (and I mean that in both a spiritual and electrical sense!)

3. Its the only way you can 100% guarantee you are eating something that you have control over what's been sprayed on it!! and I think that's a LOT more important that the vast majority of the population are aware of or are willing to admit to.

 

[guerney]

On that note - I see that you snipped the squash off fairly close to the main body.
Was this because the vines were still growing with younger squash still ripening further along the vine? Or is that how you generally do it?

They might keep better with a bit of vine attached? I may experiment with some of the others. I appear to have two waves - the first crop matured early because of the intense heat, like strawberries, hazelnuts (but like our government: ill formed empty nut cases), damsons, blackberries. The second wave will be maturing in a few weeks.

Now, I look upon the financial savings of veg growing as one of the LEAST important aspects. For me, far more important now are (in no particular order of importance):

It makes no financial sense, much easier and cheaper overall to buy from supermarkets. Opportune during the pandemic, reduced the need to go out shopping. Quite honestly it's a pain - this year's weather made it an utter nightmare. I do eventually periodically cease engaging in this madness for a few years, to restart some years later.

2. There is something very healthy about 'grounding' yourself when working with the soil (and I mean that in both a spiritual and electrical sense!)

It is very settling, if it isn't too stressful. And this year has been ver ver stressful. Damn you climate change!

3. Its the only way you can 100% guarantee you are eating something that you have control over what's been sprayed on it!! and I think that's a LOT more important that the vast majority of the population are aware of or are willing to admit to.

By necessity my crops are high mineral content spring water fed, they do seem to be growing much larger than when using tap water. Organic slug pellets do work (ferric-phosphate, approved by the RSPB), provided they're applied liberally and often.

 

[guerney]

On that note - I see that you snipped the squash off fairly close to the main body.
Was this because the vines were still growing with younger squash still ripening further along the vine? Or is that how you generally do it?

I snipped a few last night - I only ever crop them when the vines have almost completely died off, or when the stem is cracked a bit and when you tap the pumpkins, they sound a little hollow. In warmer climates, they cover Crown Princes with completely dead vine foliage to protect against frosts, and leave them standing to ripen fully - I can't do that in case they get nicked. The vines were too dead looking to bother with keeping attached... probably very little sustenance being delivered from the mothership I expect. They ripen at home, when they haven't ripened already. Seeds are more viable when the pumpkins sound hollow when tapped.

I'm wondering if I've bent the wheel axles by carrying almost twice the Homcom's rated weight limit, will have a look at them later. Sounded a bit choppy, but it could have been the sound of the plastic platform oscillating with the weight.

 

[guerney]

@Nealh - these look like mean hombres

Warning after Asian hornet spotted in UK | ITV News

The invasive species is a predator to the native honey bee, and can devastate entire colonies. | ITV News Anglia

www.itv.com

Asian hornets identified in Essex

Public asked to be vigilant after sightings of Asian hornets, an invasive species, are confirmed in Essex

www.gov.uk

 

[Nealh]

Yep they sure are.
They aggressively protect their nest within 10 - 30m and dessimate all insect life, esp honeybees.

I have heard naby a case where fit people with no past history have reacted badly and die from one sting. Generally away from the nest they pose normally little danger.
So far over the last six years all inccursions have been dealt with, if they do manage to get established they will cause not only big problems for the honeybees and other insects but will likely be an issue for humans over hear due to the housing density.

A nest of these buggers in full swing can be some 1m in diameter and they build the nests near to their main prey so within 0.5 km. Honeybees are their main prey.

They have had a time of it in jersey where they have become established and in france and portugal. The limiting factor over here may be our autumn weather being to cold and wet for them to get going properly.

 

[guerney]

It hasn't been a wet year so far. It may even be a mild winter. With climate change warming at present, I expect we'll have to get used to scorpions, black widows, tarantulas - all manner of creepy crawlies and hostile flying insects... unless the jetstream moves sharpish permanently south, in which case it'll be just be polar bears. You need a beebee gun...

 

[guerney]

The weird noise I mentioned, turned out to have been caused by an unnoticed flat tyre, not bent axles - I had noticed a slow leak when it first arrived, and made a mental note to check and inflate it reguarly... but forgot. This cheapo £90 Homcom bike trailer is doing very well indeed, coping with almost twice it's rated 50kg weight limit.

 

[Nealh]

I got fed up with the puntures on my CF, nearly every run I picked up a thorn.
I ditched the fitted scwalbes and bought some new cheap tyres Tiger brand , some smaller tubes and tanus inserts. Tyres since have hardly moved psi wise.

 

[guerney]

I got fed up with the puntures on my CF, nearly every run I picked up a thorn.
I ditched the fitted scwalbes and bought some new cheap tyres Tiger brand , some smaller tubes and tanus inserts. Tyres since have hardly moved psi wise.

Sounds like nothing short of hostile bladed Ben Hur chariots will puncture your tyres now. Which Schwalbes were you using? My experience of Marathon Plus is they resist punctures - I haven't had any on the bike iself. l'll investigate this slow leak, which may turn out to be a puncture. Just a few hauls left till the end of this pumpkin season - I'll leave a few out till just before the frost, to mature seeds for next year. Once the frost hits, it's game over.

 

[guerney]

I located the puncture point on the inner tube and tried to repair it, but the ultra el cheapo noname inner tube has a seam and that's where the hole is - irrepairable, and I was about to replace it with a new Impac when I noticed that the el cheapo noname tyre supplied with the Homcom was falling apart - can't risk a new inner tube inside this carp!




I was going to try @Andy-Mat 's trick of cutting the tyres to line new tyres with, adding a puncture proofing layer, but I don't think any inner tube will last very long rubbing against those nylon strands, even if I cut and sandpaper them down a bit.

Because there is still hauling to do, for which the Homcom's form factor is more suitable than the Carry Freedom.... I've ordered a couple of Schwalbe Black Jack's, which have a modicum of kevlar puncture proofing. Choices in 16" are rather limited.

BTW Aldi are selling what look like large and quite decent dry bags for about £10, which is a steal if they are any good - I'm thinking of getting one the CF, to keep camping electronics dry.