Permaculture Magazine and Flowers & Birds, etc.

Thanks Crafty Green Poet for your kind comment on the last post.

Just been reading Rebecca Hosking's blog on the Permaculture magazine site (here). Very interesting article on holly. Lots of holly around where my mum lives in Wales, and we have a big shrub in the front garden, and it's nice to know that there are some brilliant uses for such a common plant that I once thought was only for decoration (and wildbird food - they love the berries, particularly the blackbirds). The Permaculture magazine site (here) is full of inspiring stuff. Check it out!

Also been reading the magazine, and considering whether to buy Sepp Holzer's new book about his permaculture practice. He's a self-taught expert, absolutely inspiring guy. But I have no money, and want to invest in a LegMaster (probably not terribly eco-friendly, but at least it doesn't plug in and waste leccy, like so much gym equipment), so it will have to wait. Holzer's hugul beds - big sloping raised beds full of organic matter - are a really interesting idea, and one that when (in a million years) I have my dream permaculture smallholding I will definitely try. Highly recommend Permaculture mag - always something interesting, and full of really inspiring articles by inspiring people, who are practising permaculture in all different ways and on all scales. Reading the magazine is like connecting with like-minded people and sharing good ideas and exciting news. Every issue brings a smile to my face and renews my optimism for the Big Scary Future.

The garden is looking lovely, I will post pics tomorrow. Birds singing at the tops of their voices - pigeons getting jiggy with it on our roof, and sparrows nesting under the eaves for another year. Things are in flower - forget-me-nots, violets, lilacs, the viburnums have just finished, aubretia, dandelions (NOT a weed, NEVER a weed! Tortoise fodder!), currant bushes, primroses, citrus bushes just forming litte creamy-white buds...and every apple tree we own (around 13, I think) is just popping its magenta buds to reveal beautiful snowy white blossoms. I predict a bumper crop this year.

Pabi Bach and I went for a walk today along a canal, too. Lovely weather. On our way there we saw a whole bank absolutely covered in cowslips, and along the canal the banks were studded with primroses and violets. I absolutely love these spring flowers.

Interestingly the blossom has all been late this year. It means that we've all been having to keep on surviving the winter for a bit longer, but there are up-sides. For example, the bees are well and truly buzzing now, especially with today's warm weather, and the blossom being a bit late has meant that they get all the benefit of it.

Sunny but cold...

...but I have seen bumblebees, and yesterday even honeybees, all over the garden. They like the celandines, wild hellebores and crocuses, which are flowering at the moment. It's so nice to know that they are able to get out and start collecting.
This year we are leaving our spring inspection untl April, at the earliest! Our plan is to leave the bees alone much more this year. Dad has recently read Tim Rowe's 'The Rose Hive Method'. We have already switched over completely to OSB's (aka the Rose hive), but now we are going to adopt a bit more of his method, it seems. I haven't read it yet, but I have read a bit on the internet ages ago, when we first switched, and I know that Rowe's colonies are huge and never have to be fed on sugar. It obviously works for him, and it made sense to my dad, so we're going to try it! Watch this space!

The frogs' mating season seems to have finished. A long line of clumps of frogspawn spans the shallow end of the pond. All the goldfish are now dead too, so hopefully we will have a bumper frog crop this year too!

Yesterday we spent half an hour in the garden training our espalier apple trees. I have a feeling this might be the wrong time of year to do it, but they're such strong little trees, and doing so well - absolutely covered in buds - that I can't imagine it will do them any harm. They are beautiful, even when they aren't in leaf! And some are already meeting each other in the middle. And below them the primroses are in full flower....

Another sure sign of spring...

Pabi Bach took these pictures this evening. The frogs have been singing very loudly tonight...

More Spring Stuff including Bees

The viburnum bush that I photographed for the last post is now well and truly in flower. It's one of my favourite plants because it flowers so early and really heralds the end of winter. Also it has the most beautiful smell in the world, and is very pretty. And I love the fact that the blossom comes out before the leaves do! Here it is as it was when I photographed it earlier today.

Apart from this and the other little spring things I couldn't help but stick in above, the bees are being prepped for another year. I haven't been to see them yet, but Dad has. There have been a couple of warm sunny days recently when other people we know have seen their bees flying, but we haven't been to see ours on a warm sunny day yet. Therefore we haven't opened them up yet - still way too cold - but Dad has checked on all 3 hives. One is looking very fragile, and he says that it probably won't make it as it is so weak. He still fed it though, so they have a chance. The other two however - a nuc and a full OSB - are thriving!! Apparently they have wintered very well and are still very populous colonies! All three hives have had some runny syrup and some commercial pollen patty, and hopefully these will give them a really strong start to the season.

We have also splashed out on a new style of feeder that we think might work (we haven't yet found one that suits both bees and humans!) and a queen rearing kit....so it promises to be an exciting year.

But even more exciting is the fact that a while ago we went to a meeting with some other members of our beekeeping assoc to discuss natural beekeeping. It's really interesting to contrast different beekeeping methods, and some members of our association are even using Warre hives now. I'm very interested in all this. I reckon that the bees have been around for 6 million years doing fine, and it's only been the last century or so that they've started having real problems, i.e. with human intervention and our delightful inventions of pesticides, the rise of monocultures, etc. Coincidence? Probably not.

It was a really enjoyable little meeting, although I was quite surprised by the air of rebellion - it felt almost as if we were meeting in an underground bunker discussing a very embarrassing problem or a secret outlawed religion, which would be frowned on by senior beekeepers who practice traditional beekeeping! I learned such a lot though. We were discussing how Warre and OSB hives work, and comparing them to more traditional hives and methods of beekeeping, as well as the importance of temperature and air flow in a hive, and colony balance (worker:drone ratio, e.g). But what most interested me was the fact that different plants give bees different pollens and carbohydrates. This seems like common sense, but I had never thought of it before. So bees need a varied diet, just like us humans. No wonder beekeepers in America who do the almond crop are having so much trouble with supposed-CCD - their colonies are just not getting the right nutrition.

More evidence to support my suspicion of monocultures. Everywhere I look, particularly at this time of year, there is evidence that nature doesn't support monocultures. Everything is mixed up, and as permaculturists would argue, although it looks like a mess to us, it isn't to nature. Time maybe to start planning my horticultural purchases/indulgences for this year. I still haven't got my Nepalese raspberry... ;)

Spring is coming...

Today we have done our second lot of essential garden maintenance this year. Last weekend the bees were checked on - they are all still with us (touch wood) and guzzling their fondant (homemade recipe now perfected and coming soon to this blog!). I have been clearing out the dead stuff to make way for the new stuff, and in the process it was impossible to miss the signs of approaching spring...

^ Chicken sunbathing

^ the ducks going crazy and twittervated. The other day they were even trying (and failing) to fly. Bless them.

^ Some himalayan Viburnum coming into beautiful flower.

^ Catkins on the hazel tree and a blue sky ^^

^ The first crocuses...

^ ...and the first snowdrops.

Cider Time

Apologies for the long, blogless gap!

Today we have finally collected all our apples together (homegrown and scrumped) and have pressed them into juice, which we will then turn into cider!

Here are some pictures of the stages of the process that we have carried out today, and below these are some photos of the beautiful autumnal countryside behind our house, and my latest creation: what will hopefully turn out to be a Victorian-ish-style dress made from an old shirt and an old size 20 tartan dress. What you see there are the minute has been made simply from 2 sleeves. I'm making it up as I go along, pinning the fabric to the dummy and tacking it in place. Fingers crossed it turns out ok! Apologies for the quality of the photos, I took them on my phone.

Bees & Beans

Yesterday we visited the bees.

Our friend Paul is a new beekeeper and now has one excellent hive going strong. When we arrived he had just captured another swarm which will be going in his Top Bar Hive. I've never seen one in the flesh before, and it was really interesting. The hive is certainly beautiful, and it will be interesting to see how it works out.

As far as our own bees are concerned, the swarm we collected that didn't seem to have a queen did have a queen, but there was still no brood (although they were working really hard - might even get some lovely honey of them this year). Judging by the length of her abdomen she wasn't a virgin queen, which means that she must have been the old queen from her original colony and had just grown old and run out of juice. So we squished her, closed up the hive and left them till the evening.

In the evening, we went to visit our other hives, where we had just carried out an artificial swarm. The idea was to donate a couple of queen cells from the artificial swarm to the queenless colony. However when we got there, we found an emerged queen cell, and that the other cells had been torn down! So our artificial swarm has given us a new queen, and as the weather has been good hopefully she will have mated.

^ Emerged and demolished queen cells

So we had to turn to plan B. This plan will take longer, but if necessary we can donate capped brood to the queenless colony to boost their numbers until the new queen gets going. We took a frame of eggs from our original colony (the Wall colony - now building up beautifully after the artificial swarm) and, trying not to joggle the frame around too much or to get it too cool, raced back to the other apiary and stuck it in the queenless hive. By the time we got there the queenless hive were quite agitated, and had obviously noticed they had no queen. But thankfully the frame of eggs went in smoothly, and so hopefully they will be able to grow one of those into an emergency queen. Of course, emergency queens aren't always as good as planned queens, but she'll be better than nothing and will give us time to make up plan C if we have to! Now we'll just leave them for a fortnight, come back and hopefully there will be an emerged queen cell, followed by eggs...

Today we spent the morning and early afternoon planting out the beans at last! Poppy also planted her brussels sprouts, I planted my squashes, and the greenhouse is full of chillis, salads and cucumbers. So after weeks of the poor plants wasting away in pots, they are at last in some beautiful compost-laden soil and perked up almost immediately after planting! Some of the lingua di fuoco (borlotti) beans already have their pretty purple flowers on them, and most of the beans are already happily spiralling up their supporting canes. So I'm hoping for a beautiful sunny summer and excellent crops of haricots and honey!

^ beans planted a while ago, and planted today :)

Some of our Front Garden Flowers

Bee Garden

After a kind request from Beth, I thought I'd give and overview of how we have (part intentionally, mostly unintentionally) created a bee and wildlife friendly garden, that also produces food and looks pretty.

We have 2 gardens, one large one at the back of the house (north facing, deep shadow cast by the house, south-facing fence, large nutrient-greedy ex-coppice ash trees that we're not allowed to cut down / coppice) and a long, narrow garden at the front (a real sun-trap, poor soil, shady corners, nice warm wall space). We live in a village that spreads over clay, chalk and sandy soils, and we seem to get the worst of all of these - mostly heavy clay, with loads of sandy ants' nests in the summer (it seems our whole estate was built on a giant ants' nest).

Over a number of years, the back garden has transformed. It used to be all lawn, with flower beds and 2 apple trees, and kids' toys. Now it has raised beds for our vegetables, compost heaps in a corner, room for the animals, a green house, and small trees and shrubs around the edges, including cider apples, hazel, crab apples, a hop vine, hawthorn, and ornamental shrubs such as lilac and viburnum. All of these plants produce flowers, and are usually teeming with bird and insect life throughout the summer, as well as providing food for us and our animals, and looking beautiful. But because we are lazy gardeners, there are also plenty of nettles and weeds, and intentional piles of sticks and logs - these too attract wildlife, as do the pond and compost heap. Some of the wildlife we've had over the years has included: hedgehogs, frogs, newts, butterflies, lizards, all kinds of birds, mice, rats (unfortunately!) and even a rare grass-snake.

^ 2007 - homemade polytunnel, raised beds growing squash, sweet corn, salads etc, ornamental and fruiting trees against the back wall

^ May 2010

The front garden however is my real baby. When I was younger, it used to be a strip of neglected lawn with a sparse hedge of rosemary bushes, with my mum's herbs and flowers growing between. There was a patch of wild (Alpine) strawberries, which were treasured treats for my sister and I on summer afternoons once we'd finished school, so sweet and soft, sun-warmed and full of spicy, tangy, sugary deliciousness. The ants tended to be in the front garden, often invading the house, and I remember my parents vainly trying to get rid of the nest right outside our front door by pooring boiling water down between the paving slabs, which formed the bumpy, uneven path I used to play hopscotch on.

However a few years ago, Mum was inspired by Beth Chatto's book 'The Dry Garden' and decided we should revamp the front garden. A couple of corners of it were already beautiful despite being very neglected, and chief among the plants were clematis, ceonothus, a Japanese quince and Phormium tenax. The rest of the garden was dug up and changed however. We had the path rebuilt, tried desperately to get rid of the perpetual weeds and improve the soil, and spent many hours building a wooden trough that ran around the edge of the garden. Although we deviated from the 'Dry Garden' inspired planting scheme eventually, we ended up with an ornamental garden that also gave us so much more - somewhere to sit and enjoy the evening sun, somewhere to grow vegetables, fruit, herbs and even green manure, and somewhere that would provide shelter and food for all sorts of wildlife.

^ June 2008

^ May 2010

2008 was the year that both gardens really came to life. I lived and breathed gardening for a while, learning about the uses of herbs from my mum, growing vegetables and gardening sustainably, eventually leading me to discover Permaculture. I created all sorts of plans for the gardens - useful plants to grow, pretty things picked up from my trips to garden centres, and planting schemes inspired by my new-found love of beekeeping, started by my Dad in 2007 (we got our first bees on May Day of that year). We got a greenhouse for free from some neighbours, allowing me to do some 'proper' gardening.

All our new ideas about gardening and wildlife, bees and animals, sustainability and Permaculture synthesised, and we have created a garden that is never quite the same from one year to the next, but remains a pleasant place to be and somewhere full of life. But onto how to create bee garden...

CREATING THE BEE GARDEN

When choosing to make a garden that is bee-friendly, it's important to consider the needs of any wildlife:

WATER. Bees, like any other wildlife, need water, and a pond or shallow bird-bath is a great way of helping bees and other creatures. It can be as simple as a shallow dish filled with a thin layer of water, or a huge pond full of plants and pondlife, but a shallow, sheltered area with stones and twigs for the bees to perch on are essential. Remember that some of the pond (usually about a third of it, at least) should always be in the shade.

FOOD. Bees feed on pollen and nectar (which they turn into honey), which both come from flowers. Bees are 'awake' from early spring to late autumn, and will be out collecting food as long as it is not raining, too windy, or too cold. They need lots of food in the spring when they have been cooped up all winter, and lots in the summer too, so they can provide enough stores for the coming winter. In Britain we have something called the 'June gap' where there is about a month when most common feed plants aren't in flower and the bees can starve. In the bee-friendly garden therefore, it's important to have plants that flower all year round.

Early Spring:

tree pollen and nectar - hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, fruit trees

crocuses, other bulbs, dandelions,

viburnum (Himalayan species - flowers very early)

Mahonia, berberis (also edible!)

Mustard

Primrose

Late Spring:

Horse chestnut (v. good source),

Comfrey (excellent green manure too)

Field beans (braod beans)

Oil seed rape (brassica)

Ceonothus (bees love it!)

Holly flowers

Gorse

Brambles

many flowering evergreen shrubs

Lupins, peas, legumes (for bumblebees)

June Gap:

sainfoin (if you manage to make it germinate, please let me know how!)

Summer:

Lavender, Golden Rod, Rosemary, Thyme

Beans (good for bumble bees), courgettes and squashes

Borage

Honeysuckle

Himalayan balsam (an invasive weed, so be careful)

Calendula

Cardoon

Sunflowers

Hibiscus

Sage (if it's warm enough for it to flower, the bees will be all over it)

Clover (and other flowering weeds found in meadows, etc)

Autumn and Late Sources:

Ivy (very important source)

As a rule, bees and other beneficial insects like aromatic plants and herbs, while pests tend to stay away from these.

Double-headed flowers (e.g. French marigolds, most modern hollyhocks, double roses, etc.) tend to be no good to bees - single flowers are more easy for them to access.

SHELTER. Dead wood, log piles and hollow trees can all provide shelter for many different species of bees. Holes in the ground and in brick work can also be bee-friendly places, particularly for solitary bee species. If you have a sunny, sheltered spot, this is the perfect place to plant your bee-friendly plants, as these are the conditions that bees prefer to collect food in. Hedgerows are good, too. If you want to keep your own bees, you need to find a suitable apiary site, and that needs another blog post of its own! If you find you have a colony of bees that are in an inconvenient place, or find a swarm has landed in your garden, call your local beekeepers' association and see if it is possible to move them to a more secluded area. At the moment we have a small bumblebee nest in the eaves of our house. Luckily they don't cause us any problems, and we're happy to have them there!

Other ways you can help the bees include:

• support or join your local or national Beekeeper's Association. All you need is an interest and passion, you don't have to actually keep bees to join! The British Beekeeper's Association now have a "sponsor a hive" scheme that allows you to get involved even if you don't want to keep bees yourself, and can make a great gift idea
• support local beekeepers by buying local honey
• don't leave empty honey jars outside with leftover honey in - always rinse away any scraps of honey. This helps to prevent the spread of disease
• seed-bombing. Mix up some seeds of bee-friendly, non-invasive plants with soil and water, roll into balls, allow to dry and throw them onto any patches of waste ground etc. that you see.
• don't use pesticides, etc. in your garden
• get to know local beekeepers, etc. If you have enough land you could even let a local beekeeper keep a hive or two on your land

This is by no means exhaustive and there is plenty more to be discovered through your own garden experimentation! But by encouraging bees and generally increasing the biodiversity of your garden by growing a variety of plants and welcoming a variety of creatures, you can do your own small bit in preserving species that are not only good for the environment, but good for the human spirit (and stomach) too!

Bees & Garden

We've had a while of miserable weather but the last few days have been very hot indeed, and this has definitely shown in terms of the number of calls we've had about swarms! We've had 3 in the past week (not all of them turned out to be honey bees however), and have carried out an artificial swarm on our existing hive, and so at present we have 3 colonies and possibly another 1 on the way...

^ Queen with long abdomen (sorry for blurry pic)

^ Artificial Swarm taking place

The first call we got was to a beautiful old house in the countryside which is being converted into flats. The foreman had spotted the bees clustered on a tree trunk in the sunshine. When we arrived the "swarm" had gone and what we were left with was a wild colony living in the dead tree trunk, with only an inch square hole for access. Unfortunately the tree is being cut down and so they will have to move, but fortunately the foreman seemed very reluctant to kill them. We pondered and pondered how we could possibly rescue the bees, as the queen will never leave her home and brood. In the end Dad constructed a cardboard box with a one-way bee escape in, so that any bees flying out would be redirected to a hive on a raised platform. That way we'll the get the flyers at least, and although they'll be queenless, they may be able to start afresh with a few nurse bees and a frame of eggs. The queen and her brood will have to be left there (and destroyed) but that's life, bees and humans don't always get along.

The second call I didn't go to, but I gather it was a straightforward swarm collection and the bees are now installed in the apiary! The third call turned out to be bumble bees, but if the weather continues to be as good as it is there should be plenty more opportunities for us to stock up on new colonies.

I'm a great believer in collecting swarms and the merits of wild colonies; not only do you get a new colony for free, but you can be assured that you're getting bees whose natural instincts are sound. Of course there is always the slight risk that they'll be hideously grumpy or carrying diseases, although swarming is often a good way to minimise disease, and swarming bees tend to be at their most docile. The only hive of ours who survived the winter and have made a good start this year are the wild colony we collected from the wall (see the video blog). And despite being moved fairly late in the year last year, they still made loads of lovely honey and laid down good stores for them and for us. This made me realise that bees that can survive without human meddling are the most likely to survive overall - if they can take care of themselves, they're less likely to produce dud queens, starve to death, be lazy or too grumpy, or freeze to death. They've done it all before in the wild, so of course they'll survive in a nice new hive where the wax is already started for them. Last year we bought a bunch of new mated queens from a local bee breeder. Every single colony failed, and in every case it was because the queen hadn't taken or had stopped laying, and I recently heard that another keeper in our association had the same problem with queens from the same breeder. And while this might just be that one individual breeder, it can't be denied that we humans breed bees that have the characteristics that are convenient for us (docility, good honey production, lack of swarming instinct). But the more I learn about bees, the more I begin to realise that these characteristics aren't good for them - is it any wonder that they're dying out if their natural instincts are being suppressed? With wild or swarming bees, you know that they're following their instincts and are doing what comes naturally to them, and this can only be a good thing. "Natural" bees should be resilient, self-regulating and completely uninterested by human activity. Perhaps by breeding bees to illiminate problems, we are creating more problems? Let me know what you think!

And onto the garden. The first beans have been planted out in a heavy mulch of homemade compost (mulching helps retain moisture, good plant food, no digging required, and also I was too lazy to prepare the ground earlier this year, woops!), but I've run out of canes so the others will have to wait; however, I am now watering them religiously and despite a tussle with the rabbits (evidence: white fur all over munched lower leaves and stems) they're making a good go of it. We've got a few lettuces and peas on the go too, as well as our tomatoes, chillis and peppers, but we need more! So now that I am on study leave, I'm hoping to be able to get out in the garden a bit more (when I'm not studying lol) and sort things out a bit.

As for compost, last year we tried an enclosed compost heap called the "Green Johanna" which allows you to compost cooked food and even meat, dairy and fish. As a result of this we had a rat infestation for a while, although this could also possibly have been because of the building works next door, as the rats disappeared after the building stopped...anyway, we stopped using the Green Jo' and have left it for almost a year...and now it is full of the most wonderful loamy, soft, fine, moist, rich, dark lovely compost! I can't wait to get using it. It doesn't smell at all and has the most wonderful texture, part of me wishes I could roll around in it!

Anyway, I shall leave you with a delicious recipe that Dad made up this evening - wonderful with a slice of toast or good nutty brown rice ^^

Dad's Leek & Bean Summer Stew

Ingredients:

5 dry red chillis, crushed (or your preference, we like things hot ^^)

3 leeks, chopped

2 courgettes, sliced

1 onion, chopped

1 tin of black eye peas, drained

1 tin of chick peas, drained

salt and pepper

It's easy - stick all in a pot with a little stock or water, and cook with the lid on until the leeks and courgettes are soft and sweet. Delicious!