28 Tuesday Aug 2012
Posted in Miscellaneous
≈ Comments Off on And the competition winner is . . .
Yesterday was the closing date for the chance to win a day at Kate Humble’s rural skills centre, Humble By Nature. Wellyman drew a name from a hat this morning and the winner is . . . Vicky Dewar.
Congratulations Vicky. I’ll be in touch via email to let you know what to do next.
Sorry to everyone else who entered but thank you for taking part.
17 Friday Aug 2012
Posted in Countryside, Cut Flowers, Environment, Flowers, In the Garden, On the plot
Tags
beekeeping course, Farrow and Ball, honey bees, Humble by Nature, Sedum 'Purple Emperor', Sedum spectabile, Sussex University
I’ve been feeling a bit glum the last few days with one thing and another and the weather is miserable, AGAIN. It was like November on the plot yesterday, the wind whipping the fleece cover off my brassicas and the sunflowers and dahlias needed some remedial staking to prevent stems from snapping. After a night of torrential rain, in fact, at one point it didn’t sound like rain, more like someone had turned on an enormous tap, I’m now greeted with a sky the colour of battleship grey. I thought Farrow and Ball, the paint company famous for the names it gives to its paints, such as ‘cat’s paw’, ‘smoked trout’ and ‘elephant’s breath’ might have a more romantic and enticing way of describing the colour I can see out of my study window. They can’t come up with anything better than ‘down pipe’. Says it all really.
Sedum ‘Purple Emperor’
So, what could I write about that was bright and cheery to bring me out of this descending gloom. After last week’s beekeeping course at Humble By Nature I’m looking out for bees wherever I go. There was a brief dry spell yesterday afternoon and whilst having a bit of a potter I noticed my Sedum ‘Purple Emperor’ plants were covered in bees. Off I went to get the camera and an absorbing half an hour passed as I snapped away. Sometimes it’s great to look at the bigger picture, to be in a vast open landscape which always makes me feel incredibly free and invigorated but, equally, I love getting down to a really small level, getting up close to insects and plants and seeing the incredible detail there is, even on such a minute scale. There is a whole world going on around us that so often passes us by.
Verbena bonariensis
Initially, it was the honey bees that had caught my attention but once I was kneeling on the path I could see it wasn’t just Apis mellifera that was tucking into the pollen and nectar. There were bumble bees, hoverflies and other little insects I have been unable to identify. My entomological skills are frustratingly lacking. Sedums are great plants not only looking good but being incredible sources of pollen and nectar. Some of the first plants I grew, as a child, were sedums and I could quite happily spend hours watching butterflies feeding on them. I think ‘Purple Emperor’ is particularly attractive with its plum coloured, fleshy foliage appearing in spring and then the pink little star-like flowers opening from August. It is much less bulky than other sedums and I love the contrast of the dark foliage with other late flowering plants such as rudbeckias, heleniums and verbena rigida, all excellent sources of pollen and nectar, too. In fact these later flowering plants are vital for insects and, particularly honey bees.
Sedum ‘Purple Emperor’
At this time of year many of our native wildflowers have gone over and honey bees really struggle on their foraging flights to find food. Studies by Sussex University have shown bees have to travel much greater distances in August and September in search of pollen and nectar. At this time of year, perhaps more than any, honey bees have come to rely on garden flowers to provide them with food. Urban bees in fact, are much better off than their rural counterparts because of the greater concentration of gardens and flowering plants available to them.
Sedums are easy to grow; I also grow Sedum spectabile and both have coped with dry spells and this year’s deluge. They are also so easy to propagate from stem cuttings and even from a leaf. Simply remove a leaf from the stem and push it into a pot filled with some compost mixed with quite a bit of grit, water and put on a window sill. It won’t be long before a little shoot will appear from the base of the leaf. Let this grow until you can see roots appearing from the bottom of the pot and then pot on.
Cornflowers providing a tasty meal
Crocosmia, achillea and verbena bonariensis are all proving popular feeding stations in the garden and on the plot this dahlia is attracting a lot of attention.
Dahlia ‘Tahoma Star’
It’s rubbish as a cut flower, dropping its petals within minutes of picking but it has earned its place by obviously being packed full of bee food. The scabious have been a success for me and the passing bees. They last well in a vase, are very prolific and bees love them.
Our bees are struggling so much but as gardeners we can do something to help by planting as many of these bee-friendly plants as possible. For fascinating and informative posts about bees and other topics, take a look at Bee Strawbridge’s excellent blog.
13 Monday Aug 2012
Posted in Countryside, Out and About
Friday morning was one of those rare days this year, cloudless skies and warm sunshine, the perfect weather to spend the day celebrating the British countryside at Kate Humble’s rural skills centre, Humble By Nature, in Monmouthshire. Several months ago Kate kindly asked me if I would like to come along on one of the courses on offer at their farm. I had always been interested in bees so the opportunity to join the ‘Sustainable Beekeeping’ course was just too good to miss.
The courses are held in a large barn where there’s a space for teaching and a kitchen/dining area. After tea, some delicious honey biscuits and the chance to meet others on the course we moved into the classroom. There were beautiful handmade tables and vases of sweet peas dotted about and the barn doors were open giving us views out across the farm. Kate explained a little about what brought her and her husband, Ludo to the farm. Angry about council-owned farms being sold off and split up to generate revenue they decided to buy just such a farm in Monmouthshire with the idea of creating a rural skills centre.
They both wanted people to have the opportunity to spend some time on a working farm, learn a bit about a rural skill and enjoy some gorgeous food. They really want the centre to be rooted in the area and have pulled together a team of local experts, farmers and producers to host the courses.
Kate then introduced us to Monica and Nicola from Bees for Development who would be our teachers for the day. Bees for Development’s main work is in the developing world promoting beekeeping as a way to reduce poverty. They also provide training, advice and resources to beekeepers in the UK. After an hour or so in the classroom learning a bit about bees and some of the terms we’d be hearing over the course of the day we got to the hands on bit. Donning our bee suits we were given a quick briefing about getting stung, although we were reassured it would be unlikely, and with the smoker at the ready we went off to inspect our first hives brought to the farm by a local beekeeper.
The queen bee (with the pink dot on her back) surrounded by worker bees
By lunchtime any initial wariness around the bees had evaporated and we had learnt how to identify a queen bee, drones, workers, a brood and so much more. It was so fascinating. I had never seen inside a hive before or even got this close to so many bees and they were mesmerising.
Katherine’s delicious food
Lunch was provided by Kather’s Kitchen. Katherine runs cookery days at Humble by Nature and provides sustenance for the other courses. It was all delicious with a ricotta and spinach filo tart, celeriac remoulade and salad followed by panna cotta served with local Wye Valley honey.
Kate and Ludo’s hives
Suitably sated we returned to the bee suits and visited Kate and Ludo’s own hives, set up in an idyllic patch of woodland. With several different types of hives from a plastic Beehaus made by Omlet, the company behind the Eglu, to the more traditional, and I have to say much more attractive traditional ‘national’ and ‘topbar’ hives, Nicola and Monica were able to show us the advantages and disadvantages of the respective constructions.
It was sad to see the hives so lacking in honey, with one of the wettest springs and summers on record, bees have struggled and beekeepers across the country are having to give their colonies supplementary feed to make up for a lack of nectar and pollen.
Bees for Development – Bee Nest Box
Back in the classroom and refuelled with tea and cake we were taken through the various types of hives in a little more detail, shown how bees are so vital to food production and how there is so much we can all do to protect bee populations, even if beekeeping is not an option. It’s possible to buy from Bees for Development a bee nest box that once in position requires no maintenance; this does mean no honey harvesting but for those short on time it is a way of providing a much-needed nest site which are increasing difficult for bees to find.
To end the day we had a honey-tasting quiz, with 6 pots of different honeys we had to decide which matched a series of descriptions we had been given, using sight, smell and taste. The variation in colour and taste between different honeys always surprises me. I particularly like heather honey and as it always reminds me of the moorland of the Pennines. I have to admit I did terribly in the quiz getting only one right but I did get the chance to taste honey from Zambia and Grenada.
Monica and Nicola did a great job in packing in so much information into such a short space of time and I think we all came away feeling a bit more knowledgable about bees.
Worker bees with pollen sacs full – you can see collections of yellow pollen on their hind legs.
This was only my second time on a working farm; the last time was 30 years ago on a school trip. I do think it’s strange that in a country which has always been intrinsically linked with the countryside, where we eat produce from the land and spend our free time walking and cycling in a landscape sculptured by centuries of agriculture that so few of us have spent time on farms. Even when you live in a rural area, as I do, there is a division between farmers and the rest of us, which is a real shame. It goes back to my post last week on flower farming where a disconnection means it is harder to appreciate the time and effort that goes into something as fundamental as producing the food we eat.
The courses aren’t just aimed at those with land and a smallholding. One course member on the beekeeping day lived in London and was planning to put a hive on the roof of her flat. I always think the test of whether something is a great idea is when people want to return and even in the short space of time Humble By nature has been up and running they have already had repeat visits, Wellyman is planning a spot of hedge-laying and I’m eyeing up one of the foraging courses. It’s a big job that Kate and Ludo have taken on but their passion and enthusiasm is contagious. There’s a lovely, warm, relaxed atmosphere at the farm and situated in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (ANOB) the only sounds all day were birds, buzzing bees, baaing sheep, bleating goats and a tractor.
Underneath the capped cells of comb are baby bees ready to emerge.
Kate and Ludo have generously offered a free day at Humble by Nature for a course of the winners choice. If you would like to enter the draw just subscribe and leave a comment here and say you would like to be included. The closing date will be two weeks from today on Monday 27th August at 12 noon. I’ll then put everyone’s names in a hat and choose a lucky winner. Accommodation and travelling expenses are not included but Monmouthshire is easily accessible and is a stunning part of the country, so well worth a visit.
For more information about Humble By Nature take a look at the website where you can see what other courses are on offer.
For more information on Bees for Development.
You can also follow Kather’s Kitchen by signing up to her blog to receive news and recipes.
‘Good Luck’ to everyone who enters the draw.
02 Wednesday May 2012
Posted in Countryside, Environment, Interview, Out and About
Tags
dry-stone waling, hedge-laying, Humble by Nature, Kate Humble, Monmouthshire, planting an orchard, rural skills centre, Wye Valley
Kate Humble with Myfanwy the Berkshire sow
Kate Humble, TV presenter and wildlife champion, the face of Springwatch and Lambing Live is known for her enthusiasm and passion for the natural world and it is this love for the countryside that has made her and her husband, Ludo embark on a big project. They have bought a farm in Monmouthshire, a beautiful, unspoilt county of rolling hills and river valleys where they plan to run a rural skills centre. I’ve lived here in Monmouthshire for 6 years now and know how difficult it is for rural economies to adapt, create jobs and thrive whilst preserving the ways of life that make them such great places to live and visit. Kate kindly agreed to tell me a little bit about her new venture, Humble by Nature.
What made you embark on this project? We heard that a council farm near our home in the Wye Valley was about to be broken up and sold off, probably never to be an intact farm again and we decided that was wrong. So we talked to the council and took it on in partnership with them, to try to keep it as a working farm whilst diversifying enough to make it pay its way. That’s why we’ve started a small business to run courses in rural skills and animal husbandry, all set in the middle of a beautiful working farm.
Will the farm be run organically? Whilst we are broadly in favour of organic farming practices we have chosen not to farm organically but are aiming to do conservation farming, which means farming to encourage wildlife as much as possible.
Who are the courses aimed at? The courses are aimed at anyone who has ever thought about where their food comes from or who want to reconnect with the countryside in some way. So we welcome people who are moving out of the city in order to have a bit more space, perhaps with a bit of land to keep chickens, sheep or even a pig or maybe they fancy trying their hands at bee-keeping. Also people who want to learn a new skill such as dry-stone walling or hedge-laying. Hopefully, we’ll also appeal to those already living in the countryside who have a bit of land that they would like to use more productively, or those that just fancy trying something new, just for fun or as a new hobby.
You’ve already run a hedge-laying course and a ‘how to plant an orchard’ day, what other courses do you plan to offer? We will soon be offering courses in how to keep poultry, pigs, sheep and bees, as well as some specialist food preparation courses like how to cure and salt your own meat and making sausages. There’ll be food foraging and …. well the list is almost endless!
Who will be teaching the courses? All our courses are run by local experts in their field. Our pig course, for example, is run by a very experienced local vet with many years of hands-on knowledge of looking after pigs. Our small holding teacher has just written one of the definitive guides to starting a smallholding and our bee-keepers have worked with people keeping bees across the world. So all our teachers are truly local and proper experts.
Will all the courses be practical and hands-on? Yes. The huge majority of the courses will be outside on the land as much as in the classroom and there are amazing (indoor) lunches to go with them!
How important will it be to encourage wildlife onto the farm? We are working very closely with local wildlife organisations such as Gwent Wildlife Trust and the Woodland Trust to make sure we encourage as much wildlife as we can.
With the massive decline in farmland bird populations over the last 40 years do you think it’s possible to farm profitably and also manage the countryside for the benefit of wildlife? Absolutely. We can all do something for wildlife, whether it’s just planting the right sort of plants for bees, leaving borders uncut or not removing that old bit of rotting tree trunk to encourage insects or if you have the space, planting trees and hedges and putting up nest boxes for birds. We’ll be doing all of these and more on the farm.
With this project, your TV work and your own smallholding do you find any time for a spot of gardening? I’m a very keen gardener and we have a small but productive vegetable and fruit patch at home. A lot of my filming commitments are in the summer when the very best of the fruit and vegetables are ready but I never miss an opportunity to enjoy the fruit (and veg) of my own hands!
And finally, wellies or boots? Wellies for the farm (always) but definitely boots for walking with the dogs in the Welsh hills.
To find out more about Kate’s farm you can follow her on facebook and find out more details at Humble by Nature.
