Using A Deep National As A Bait Hive

Last year I bought a few new poly hives very cheaply as they were in a closing down sale. The were deep national hives, also called 12x14s, at the time I thought this could work well, but my concern since getting them is that my girls will struggle with the inspections with the bigger frames. It's surprising the weight that is in a frame. 

I might still use these, but while we have some standard national hives I'll use those first. I still want to use them though, so I decided I'd use them as bait hives. 

Bait hives are used to try to capture wild swarms of bees, that have swarmed naturally (or from someone else's hives). 

Another Weekend Working In Wales

 I had another weekend down in Wales with dad. 

Got loads done.

My main job was to hang the garden gate and two external doors for the boiler shed and storage shed. 

A Swarm In April is worth? A Barrel of Maple?

 Just before I picked up the children from school on Tuesday I saw that the garden was full of bees. A Swarm in April! 

I went and got the children and told the girls to suit up. The warm landed in our neighbours garden, but before we could get set up they took to the air again. Luck was with us and they landed on the fence. 

Cooking With Fire And Smoke

This weekend my brother and I went on a cooking course. It was at the same place I did a fermentation course a few years ag - Harts Barn cookery school. 

I'm never sure what to expect on these courses, but I'll start by saying I was blown away by the afternoon. 

I will also say a bit of bad stuff, the course was cancelled twice, once for bad weather, which was fair enough, and another time because they had another event, which wasn't ideal from our point of view as stuff had to be rearranged. 

 

When the course went ahead though it really did deliver. It was an afternoon of some of the best food I've eaten in a long time, and I'm fairly sure we ate more than what the course cost! 

We made pork koftas and cooked them on the BBQ, then charred some asparagus and aubergine as well as orange. this then went with some cold smoked feta to make an incredible salad. 

We also roasted some baby gem lettuce and made some more salads. 

We cooked flat bread in the bread oven, and made baba ghanoush, and when added with the kofta it was one of the best sandwiches I've ever eaten.  

"Dirty" steak cooked on coals was another incredible eat. 

Roasted rhubarb and creme brulee (which had charcoal added to it as it cooked) was a great pudding. But we also had cold smoked salmon, a blade of beef that had been hot smoking for hours and hours, the food just kept coming. 

I swear I've never eaten so much food in one go before, it was a truly brilliant afternoon, I loved it. I came away with enough food for the five of us to have a full meal Sunday night and for our lunch boxes on Monday. the chef was good fun and the other people on the course were great as well. 

Trying To Tick Jobs Off

 So I've been trying to do little jobs and often, it's a way I can move forward while keeping everything else running in the background. 

One of the jobs I've trying to get done (since this time last year) is the sweet chestnut raised beds. I really hate having this timber stacked up and not being used. 

The idea was to have them at the bottom of the veg garden where it lies wet all winter. I'm hoping this will provide a bit of drainage and make this area a bit more manageable. 

So far I only have a few fixed in place and I' haven't filled them yet, but already it's given that area of the garden a bit of structure. I can't wait to get them planted up. I'm very tempted to have one or two fo them for strawberries and try to get better at growing that fruit! 

Let's hope I can get the rest in before the growing season really kicks off. 

Do you like growing in raised beds? Or do the negatives outweigh the positives?

Two Large Baskets sold - But not collected

So I'm doing this post as a reach out to a lovely couple who paid for two of my jumbo harvest baskets at a talk I gave at Mickleton Gardening club the week before last. 

 They paid for the baskets even though I didn't have any with me at the time, the plan being they would come and collect - I was hoping for an email to arrange a time. If you see this blog post please send me a message so you can get your baskets. 

Many thanks

Kev

A Bit Of Burn Out

 Argh, what a couple of weeks I've had. It really feels like I haven't stopped and looking back I don't think I have. 

Until Saturday afternoon! I wasn't feeling my best on Friday, but had about £1200 worth of timber turning up and I have to carry each piece up the drive by myself as the lorry can't get up our drive. I had stupidly taken on another job which needed to be done that day as well (it was for a charity and someone local - more on that in another post later). By the end of the day I was feeling a bit broken, I cooked tea, ate it and went to bed. 

The next day I woke and felt terrible. Body hot and cold. Unfortunately it was also the day of a big organised scout hike here on the hills (900 scouts). If I dropped out our scouts and cubs (about 8 in our group) wouldn't be able to do it as I'm the first aider. So I forced myself up, the children got everything ready, did all the chores and made our lunches, whilst I hid under a blanket in the sitting room. Then we walked to the scout hut and set off on the 12km walk over the hills. By the end I was dragging my feet fairish. I'd felt worse and worse through the day. The children were great though and kept checking I was okay. 

We got back, got our badges, and then walked home again, I got in the house, climbed into bed fully clothed and fell asleep. My sleep was fitful, I was too hot, too cold, changed my shirt three times, but I basically didn't get up until Sunday night, and then only for an hour. Monday I managed to eat some food and get up in the afternoon, and today I've been up most of the day, although I've had no energy whatsoever, I did manage to pick the children up though! 

Some of our friends (really brilliant friends) picked up the children for school and then picked them up again yesterday which made everything a bit more possible as I lay in my pit of despair! 

I'm hoping I'll start to feel a bit better tomorrow! 

There is a bug going round, so maybe it's a combination of that, along with a bit of exhaustion that's made me feel so run down. I don't think the big long walk helped either, but I really didn't want to let down a load of our scouts and cubs. 

I always really struggle when I'm ill, my life is so active and I am so full of energy that people wonder how I do what I do at times, and I don't get ill often, I keep myself fit and healthy and eat good food and so far I've had good luck (which is probably the biggest factor to being healthy), but when I go down I tend to go down hard! And I really hate not being able to do what I usually can.

My wife has been amazing and the children as well, went into the greenhouse to see my eldest had watered and tended for all the plants, she's going out each day to listen to her audio book, and doing gardening at the same time!

That first night as I was lay there feeling terrible, my boy came in at his bedtime and hugged me "If you need anything in the night daddy, just give me a shout..." 

A Fence For A Friend

The last few weeks I don't seem to have stopped! This last week I was out every evening doing something (two talks as well!). 

My mate Neil, who has been mentioned on here before when he went with me to collect my second larger greenhouse, needed a hand with his fence. So I gathered up my tools and went to give him a hand. 

As you can see the old fence wasn't in a great way. Luckily he'd cleared a space for us to work and dig the holes, he'd even dug the one already. I brought my graft ( a heavy hole digging spade) and we made short work of the rest of the holes. 

 

Luckily it was a lovely sunny morning for most of it, and in all honesty it didn't take long once we were going. 

Turned out to be one of those jobs where it was lovely to take a step back at and look at what we'd done in a morning. 

It's also nice that he can get that area planted up now. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it in the coming year. 

What's your favourite thing to grow against a fence?

Planting Seeds - Not me

My girls have really taken the bull by the horns the last few weeks. They've been out there in the garden sowing seeds for me, while I've been doing some other jobs. 

I give them the packets and tell them how many of each we'll probably need and they just get right to it! This was after they cleaned out the greenhouse for me! 

Two Year Di-iversary - Axe Throwing

A few weeks ago we "celebrated" a milestone in our lives. It was our eldest daughters two year anniversary from her diagnosis with type one diabetes. 

It's fair to say that it has given us many ups and downs in those two years, and already it's hard to remember how easy things were before that came and kicked us all - my daughter especially. 

She is incredible with it though, never openly gets her down, although I'm sure she thinks about it a lot. We all do, but she is so responsible and mature about it. 

So instead of commiserating the two year anniversary we go out to celebrate kicking it's butt for another year. My wife booked axe throwing followed by some rather amazing burgers (with a spot of warhammer shopping before hand for me and the boy). 

The axe throwing was great fun, with some great and truly awful shots thrown. It makes me want to make my own target! 

The burgers were great as well, although it's now come to the point where the children end up eating adult portions and leave me with nothing! I thought we'd be a few years off that yet!

So here's to the next 12 months. F-you diabetes, you won't get us down. 

A Third Greenhouse?

 It's fair to say that my concentration has been out in the "wider" smallholding (trees, hedges, etc) or in the workshop (trying to earn a living). But the sunshine yesterday made me long for the garden. I really don't want the bottom end to be a weedy mess again this year so I'm determined to get on top of it now. 

I have decided that the space is perfect for my old greenhouse to go there, there will be enough room at the back to trim the apple trees. 

I like to divide up my areas as much as possible, makes it all feel a bit more manageable.

This greenhouse will just be on oak sleepers on bare earth. Nothing fancy. The last one lasted 10 years and that was on softwood in the same way, so hopefully I'll get ten years from this. I doubt this greenhouse could take another move, some bits look close to breaking. 

Up the side of this greenhouse there will be three raised beds as well, jsut because it's so wet down this bottom corner. 

So a bit of work left (a lot of work really), but I'm already trying to decide what to put in it. It could be for melons and strawberries, and maybe have a plant that needs isolating for seed saving. I was tempted to have it as a netted greenhouse rather than glazed, but I have the glass here so it seems silly to have to buy something more to use it. 

What would you plant in an extra greenhouse?

Basket Willow Planted

 I finally got some more willow planted. I've wanted to do a bed of basket willow since I planted the hybrid stuff over ten years ago.

I got some from a friend and some I got online (from world of willow).

Willow I've planted - Salix Viminalis Brittany Green Harrisons Green Golden Rod Black Maul Golden Deep Purple Austrian Grey

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this lot grows, with plants to maybe increase the area in future years.

Anyone else grow willow for weaving? What's your favourite variety?

Restoring a Hedge Part 2 - Replanting

 So I manged to do a bit more to the hedge I'm restoring last week. I got in the trees I ordered to fill up the gaps. 

I planted a mix of hawthorn and hazel, but also added in a fruit tree in a light patch that we had.

It's not much, but another 60 trees added to our part of Herefordshire and another variety of fruit added to what we're already growing, as I added in a Mirabelle De Nancy in the lighter patch of the hedge. 

I may regret planting so many fruit trees in the hedges in future years, as it'll make laying hedges harder, but not for a long while yet. 

Another Trip To Wales

The last couple of weekends I've spent in Wales with my dad. We've been working but it's been really good fun. 

This weekend just gone started a bit slower though  - 

Dad - "when you come over this weekend do you fancy doing me an extra favour?"

Me - "Go on..." 

Dad - "Would you come here first (an hour extra) and take a trailer with you?"

Me - "Yeah, no probs..."

 So Saturday started like that, a drive for an hour, a hook up to the trailer, then a three hour drive in the pouring rain! 

We got there, spent a few hours unloading, then did a few hours work on the house. That night we were sat having tea in a local pub and dad said "I don't feel like we got much done today..." I had to bite my tongue somewhat! Lol, he's always the same, wants a lot done in a day. He does love a project, so he's been loving doing up this house. 

Half term this week now I'm back, so catching up on my own work, but also doing a few bits with the children hopefully - we've got axe throwing and a burger booked later in the week to "celebrate" two years of our daughter kicking type one diabetes butt. should be fun. 

Feburary Walk Around

Sorry for the lack of posts the last week. I've been busy with articles, work and life. The weekend just gone I went to Wales to help my dad do some building work, a long weekend of it, I had scouts Monday night (fire lighting in the rain) and a talk last night in a village called May Hill! 

Today has been a bit calmer though, the boy is off ill and I managed to take a bit of time off to play a load of games with him this afternoon which was great fun. 

 I did a walk around of the smallholding at the start of the month and didn't share it here, it shows what we've been up to in January. I managed to make it a really productive month and tick off some big jobs from my long list. 

Let me know what you think. 

Anyone else think life just gets busier and busier?

Hereford Seedswap 2025

Not many photos of the actual swap I'm afraid, just a few before it all kicked off. 

As always it's great to be involved in this event. Hundreds of packets of seeds changed hands and I got to see some faces I only see at this event and lots of people I've met at gardening clubs when I do my talks. 

 We had a great talk as well from Catrina Fenton, who is head of the Heritage Seed library. Was really interesting to hear her talk about seed saving and the lengths they go to to keep varieties pure, as well as trying to find new old varieties to save. 

I think seed swaps are amazing things, it feels right, it feels like it's what we should be doing with seeds. Its encouraged me to save more seeds and I'm a far better seed saver because of all these years doing it. I had so many different types of tomato there this year someone said "Ah, so you're the tomato man..." Which made me laugh! 

Do you go to a local seed swap? What was your best find?

Seed Swap This Weekend!

So the annual Hereford seed swap is on this weekend!  

Always one of my favourite events of the year. Hope to see some of you there! I can't wait! 

Restoring A Hedge

 With the oak tree down it has left a rather large gap, and although it was set back form the hedge by a good 14ft it feels very empty down there now. 

But it has let a good amount of light into the old hedge that runs in parallel to it. It's also made me realise how much this hedge needs some work, especially this first section. It's very gappy, with the trees that are left looking very little like a hedge. 

Want to seize the bull by the horns I decided to keep on working with the wood on our land and lay a bit of this hedge. 

INDOOR Camp OUT

This month our eldest turned 13! In all honesty it's made me feel rather old. 

We asked her how she wanted to celebrate and she suggested a camp out with her friends. I have to say I wasn't that keen on camping outside so I suggested a compromise. We'd camp in the scout hut. 

 There's not many advantages to being a scout leader, but using the scout hut when we want to is one of them! 

Chipping Brash

 I seem to have done a lot of work with the trees on these 5 acres the last few months. What I need to do now is start tidying up before the grass starts to grow. 

The first job is to chip all the brash that I've got piled around the place. The picture above shows the blackthorn I've taken from my little coppice. I'm still not finished in there, but it does feel like I've made an impact to stop it's spread. 

Rabbit Damage On A 13 Year Old Trees

I couldn't quite believe when I saw my apple trees the other day. These trees are 13 years old and the one had been chewed by rabbits! I thought the bark would be hard enough now to discourage them. 

When I see stuff like this my work is flexible enough that I can deal with it straight away. I went and got some rabbit wire and wrapped around them. I hate using wire like this and will try to make use it doesn't grow into the trunk. 

I really thought they'd be big enough now that I wouldn't have to worry. I guess there isn't much goodness in the grass at the moment. 

I foresee rabbit pie in our future...

Giant Oak Dismantle

Last spring one of our oak trees fell over. 

I was gutted. Really gutted. I like to think we're here to look after the land, but this came down due to high winds and a very, very wet winter. It blocked the gateway. 

Pizza Oven In January

We have a few birthdays in in January, the youngest had a few friends over at the weekend for a sleepover - although they were up at 4 so I'm not sure much sleeping happened! 

 We fired up the pizza oven for feeding them. It was frosty and cold outside, but I much preferred standing out there, cooking the pizzas, to being inside with the noise and chaos!

Large Flour Scoops

 Before Christmas a small bakery asked if I'd make a couple of my regular flour scoops a little bigger. to hold around 500g of flour per scoop full. 

Short Rotation Willow Coppice Year 10

Last weekend I got my next section of willow cut. That makes for 4 years in a row I've cut a section. 

This time I didn't log it up straight away, instead I've kept it in long lengths. That way I have other options of what I can do with it. It's a great resource that I can use for building temporary structures around the smallholding, or the children can use it for building dens. 

Moving Beehives - But Not Far

 So The two hives that have bees in were set up very quickly last year when we caught the swarms. 

The weren't quite level or completely stable though. Nothing much, but enough to annoy me. 

I decided that as it was cooler and the bees were all in their hives I would put some slabs down and try to get them level and stable. 

I made three spots for two full hives and one empty one. I moved the one hive, just a few feet back, but the bees were not happy about it! So I've left moving the second one until I'm suited and giving them their treatment for varroa in a few days time, no point up setting them too much. 

It's a really nice area in the coppice where they are, and I think they should thrive there next year hopefully. 

Wooden Gate Latch

When you think about it, the way we go about doing things now is completely alien to most of our history. We used to make everything ourselves and fix them, somehow now we think the first thing should be to buy the fix. 

And in the past most stuff was made out of wood, stone and little bits of metal. I know we used other materials, but there were so many jobs working wood in different ways it's unreal. 

Which brings me on to my latest temporary fix, the latch on the gate post to the apiary.  

My Wife's Books Of 2024

 It's fair to say my wife and I egg each other on when it comes to books. We push each other to do a bit more reading and frequently end up reading too late at night when we should have already turned out the light. 

A few people said they'd be interested in what she read as well o I thought I'd do a short blog post on it. 

Shuffleboard Table Top

 Before Christmas, just before, I had a customer drop off some oak for me to make a shuffleboard table top. 

The oak came at the last minute, and wasn't quite what I was expecting. 

January Walk About The Homestead

 Things haven't exactly gone to plan since I last blogged about what I was doing in the garden. 

Probably best to watch the video to see what's been going on, but long story short everything has been eaten! I need to really up my game on crop protection. 

How is your garden looking in the middle of winter?

Happy New Year

 Happy New Year everyone!

We've had a great time over Christmas, and I do love this weird time where I have to constantly ask what day of the week it is, but I also look forward to getting back into routine. 

I managed to have a good bit of time in the workshop completing a project I wanted to sell today, so that feels a bit more normal.

We had a great time last night seeing in the New Year with a few friends, a lovely laid back evening, with some great food and company. All the children get on so well as well (there was 10 children to 6 adults), they played board games all night! 

My wife made cheesy garlic bread to take with us! 

We met up with lots of family over the time between Christmas and New year, and even had tickets bought for us to go to the theatre in Oxford to see War Horse with my wife's side of the family. I'm not sure I can describe how good War Horse was, it got a standing ovation at the end and it was completely deserved, it made me cry multiple times and was visually stunning as well! I've been around a lot of animals in my life and for the the whole play you'd believe these were real, you forget the puppeteers are even there. I know its been around for a long time, but if you've not seen it I really urge you to, you won't be disappointed. 

So here's wishing you all Happy New Year, thank you for following and encouraging me. I can see 2025 being a good one.