If you have been thinking that the wind has been very strong in August then you are right August can be one of the windiest months.

One of the most famous stories associated with the wind was today in 1967 when a goal in football was scored at an FA Charity Shield Match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United. After 8 minutes, Tottenham goalie Pat ‘Guardian of the Gates’ Jennings, kicked the ball into orbit from his own penalty area. Carried on a favouring gust, the ball carried far over the halfway line. The crowd waited for Alex Stepney, the opposition goalkeeper, to complete the formality of collecting it. Confounded by the way the wind carried the ball and the arc of descent, Stepney was caught far from his goal line. The ball bounced once, high on the very hard turf over his head and straight into the back of the net.

Simon Mahoney, who joined Phlorum in May this year has successfully taken the course and passed the PA1 and PA6AW in herbicide spraying so is now fully qualified.

Jane completed the Race for Life in Worthing this year, the second year for her (last year she took part in Brighton) and two minutes quicker than last year! She raised approximately £300 for this very worthwhile cause. Thousands of women ran, jogged and walked the 5km course in Worthing’s second Race for Life. The event, which took place on Sunday 20th July, was one of many organised all across the country. This one in partiuclar raised more than £200,000 in sponsorship for the charity Cancer Research UK.

This is the time of year when the dreaded horsefly is hungry. Their bite is vicious and can often bring on a nasty reaction. The one consolation is that they tend to take a little while on the skin to actually suck your blood so you have time to kill them! Can anyone explain what use they are?

Phlorum have created a survey in order to collect customer feedback so that we can improve our service to make it even better!

Click on the link below; it takes only a few minutes to fill out and at the end of the survey period we will be holding a prize draw for those who completed the survey.

The winner will receive a bottle of champagne!

All responses will be completely anonymous and confidential.

Phlorum survey

At the entrance to the Innovation Centre car park at The University of Sussex is a large shed. The UK’s only Professor of Apiculture, Professor Francis Ratnieks will head the newly-created Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects at the University. Professor Ratnieks is a leading authority on honeybee biology, beekeeping and other social insects - the bees, wasps and ants that live in colonies with a queen and workers. Honeybees are the major pollinators of agricultural and wild plants, pollinating around £165m worth of crops in the UK annually. They also produce honey and wax, but their importance to scientists doesn’t end there. Professor Ratnieks says: “The honeybee is the gateway to biology - a huge range of important questions in biology, from agriculture to genetics, can be studied in this one species.”

A new Shell Step student, Abbie Moran, has started today for two months. She is at University of Sussex studying a BSc in Human Sciences, so she already knows her way around quite well.

Aidan has successfully passed his PA1 and PA6AW tests so is now fully qualified for all spraying and in particular for Japanese knotweed.

The average rainfall for May this year has exceeded all records.  In the last few days of May there was an excessive downpour, topping 50mm (2in) in some areas overnight.  Consequently there was a considerable amount of flooding in the Midlands and the South causing disruption and inconvenience, and spoiling the Bank Holiday for many people!

Japanese knotweed, although often seen as the enemy, can be a very tasty alternative to asparagus and rhubarb. It can also be made into a good flavoured wine or yummy jam. The young shoots are the best to use and now is the right time of year. Put into a crumble, it is difficult to distinguish from rhubarb. The seed can be eaten as well, or ground into flour for use in bread and biscuits. But remember, when disposing of the off-cuts they must be burnt, boiled or allowed to rot. Do not throw in the bin!