A gardening job goes off with a bang

One of our customers has a fairly large garden with veg and flower beds, but the majority of it is left to grass. Our job since the beginning of the season has been to cut the grass twice a month and keep things relatively tidy.

Sadly, the rain has kept us away for the last couple of weeks and yesterday was the first time we'd been fortunate enough to get a break in the weather. After I'd tightened up the thumb nuts on the lawn mower, I got down to cutting the grass while Pen began strimming.

About fifteen minutes in, Penny noticed that something had moved in to a hole in the centre of a dead lupin plant which had stood on the corner of one of the veg beds.

The European wasp or
Yellowjacket

Wasps.

Or at least, we were pretty certain they were wasps.

Now I hate wasps with a passion, perhaps not as much as hornets, but then hornets hadn't moved into the neighbourhood, wasps had. 

They appeared to have built their nest in the centre of the now defunct plant and there were a couple of dozen of them buzzing around what we took to be the entrance. Pen warned me to give it a wide berth and I was only too happy to oblige.

A little later, we were surprised to see our client working away on one of the other veg beds and pointed out that he had an infestation of wasps.

"My wife told me they were bees," he said.

"No, they're wasps alright," we told him after some deliberation and peering at them from a safe(ish) distance.

He admitted he'd tried various things to get rid of them before, but had never managed it. He'd not tried again as his wife was sure they weren't wasps, but bees. Since by then we had convinced him that they weren't bees, he told us that he'd do something about it.

We went back to work, presuming that he'd go away, contact an expert and get someone to come round at a later date to get rid of them.

Much to our surprise, moments later, he returned with a two-gallon can and doused the hole with copious quantities of petrol. He then proceeded to light something that looked suspiciously like a lightly toasted marshmallow on the end of a four foot stick.

Pen and I backed away. We knew his interference would agitate the wasps - not a good idea at the best of times - but we continued to watch with more than a little trepidation.

"Can't you ask him to wait until we've gone?" I asked, since Pen's French was much better than mine.

Pen just laughed, but I was serious. I didn't feel comfortable and knew that in truth, neither did Pen. If he was going to do something silly, I would have felt much more comfortable somewhere else ... anywhere else and the further away, the better.

She realised and asked.

"Non," he said simply.

We moved farther back and after several failed attempts, he managed to set fire to whatever was on the end of his stick and cautiously approached the nest.

We took one more pace back. We could see the little blighters buzzing around and getting more active the closer he got, but with a final lunge, he tossed the lit 'thing' complete with stick into the hole.

Nothing happened to begin with ... well, perhaps half a second ... then:

"WHOOOOMPH!" A sound that was reminiscent of half a pound of C4 exploding shook the very ground we stood upon, followed by a small but perfectly formed fireball that leapt from the hole about fifteen feet into the air. Our client was thrown backwards about the same distance, landing on his backside, glasses askew and one slipper missing.

Please don't ask why he was gardening in his carpet slippers. I didn't see fit to ask.

For a short while, we were a little shocked and didn't move, but then he began laughing and Pen chimed in with, "Tres sportif, monsieur!" and we all laughed.

The fire in the hole (literally), burned for about the next twenty minutes or so and curiously didn't seem to adversely affect the wasps, who continued to buzz around, just from a little further back than hitherto. However as soon as the fire went out, the little buggers went back inside again, apparently unperturbed by our client's attempt to barbecue them.

So apart from almost being sent into a low orbit and making us laugh our socks off, our client achieved absolutely nothing. We hope he'll try something a little less life-threatening the next time - God forbid there is a next time - which we hope will be much more deleterious to the wasps.

Who says gardening can't be adventuresome?

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