With whisps of autumn in the air and summer sun now a distant memory (oh the irony when we had a mostly wet August, dear Reader…..), I can’t help but miss the heady scent of our lavender. After what felt like a lifetime of picking, we still didn’t quite manage to harvest the whole field before the rain set in for the rest of summer. However, the hard work was worth it and early mornings picking are now a distant memory until the purple spires appear again next year. I did get the chance to daydream about the field looking like we had stepped into Provence one last time though when the lovely new quarterly journal Creative Countryside asked me to write a little something on lavender and its folklore before I begin to pen all things autumnal.
From the spoils of our harvest, we’ve managed to keep a fair bit in the shed where it’s been left hung out to dry. Its soothing powers will last a little longer in the form of the homemade lavender wreaths we sold to friends and family as well as lavender bags to hang in our moth-ridden cupboards. There’s even a batch of my very bath salts to enjoy once hot baths are back on the agenda following the instalment of the new boiler, not forgetting the leftover flowers we’ve reserved for lavender tea.
You won’t be surprised to hear that I’m already planning a few other little lavender strings to my bow for next year. Our first harvest from the field also got me thinking about getting started on a long held smallholding ambition of mine too, dear Reader. Keeping bees.
One of the best things about walking through the field was listening to the hum of the huge numbers of bees that visited our garden daily. Everything I read of late seems to point towards encouraging more bees into the garden – whether it’s planting bee borders or sowing wild flower meadows, installing nest boxes for solitary species of bees or rescuing thirsty and hungry bees with sugar syrup. Since bees do so much for us, it only seems fair that we return the favour, dear Reader. My father was an amateur beekeeper in his youth and Poppy and Primrose love hearing the stories he tells of how he used to take his friend’s bees for a holiday to the heather moorland on the roof rack of his car. I think they were even stopped by the police, on one occasion, who quickly got back into their Panda when they realised the potentially angry cargo being transported. Travelling bees aside, his beekeeping tales have always made me wish for my own hive and moving to our own little farmhouse has given us a great opportunity to expand our smallholding repertoire, dear Reader.
Enter Sara Ward from Hen Corner, all round lover of the good life, keeper of bees and hens, vegetable grower and urban farmer. Sara and I have known each other through the powers of Twitter and Instagram since I began my blog properly in….gulp…2013 and after rather a lot of tweets, advice on hens, growing veg and a good deal of mutual blog post sharing, it has taken us nearly 4 years to meet in person! So imagine my joy when Sara sent us an invitation to come to one of her Bees for Children courses in the summer.
Sara’s urban smallholding at Hen Corner is a marvel. With 20 hens, 2 colonies of bees, a plentiful vegetable and fruit garden and micro-bakery producing bread for sale in her local community, Sara and her family make the good life look easy from their Victorian terrace in West London. You really wouldn’t think sitting in Sara’s back garden that you were in London at all. It’s a real testament to just how much you can achieve in a small urban outdoor space.
So whether you want to learn the art of wood carving, to make your own preserves, bake bread, keep hens or learn to charm bees, Sara runs a whole host of courses and workshops helping to encourage others to give smallholding life a go regardless of how large or small their plot is. What I love most about her is her determination and commitment to encouraging the younger generation to think ‘big’ when it comes to urban farming and she spends a lot of her time as a regular feature in local school programmes.
Brilliantly hands-on, Sara’s Bees for Children course aims to get children up, close and personal with nature’s buzzy little friends. Sara explains how the bees live and work, their importance when it comes to our own food, how honey is made and how to handle bees as well as how to spot the queen.
Fully kitted out in mini beekeeping suits and rubber gloves, Poppy and Primrose were encouraged to hold a frame and check it over with Sara’s help but if you don’t want to get that close, there are plenty of other bee activities to keep your children entertained as well as the all important honey taste testing. Now who wouldn’t want the chance to scoff a load of award-winning honey, dear Reader?!
We all thoroughly enjoyed it and got to try some of Just Bees’ new deliciously infused spring water drinks too – all made with, yes you guessed it dear Reader, a drop of honey. If you’re looking for a way to encourage bees in your garden, then the wonderful people at Just Bee Drinks have started a campaign to help save Britain’s bees with a free bee-friendly planting guide for your garden and free bee friendly wild flower seeds to sow – all you have to do is fill in a simple form online and they’ll send you all you need to claim your free seeds. Quick, easy and so good for all those bees out there – they need more of us to do it, it would seem. So get buzzy, dear Reader!
With bees on the brain all the way home, we are determined to get some of our own bees next year. I’ve been looking into local beekeeping courses already so I can learn more of the nitty gritty I’ll need to start out on my own. Do look Hen Corner up if you are looking for a fun day out with the children, dear Reader. The girls loved it and I shall definitely be popping back to visit Sara again soon. Hive fives all round I’d say….
You’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve been swotting up on the good life this month, dear Reader. As most of you will know, when we first moved here in summer 2013, it marked the beginning of a new life for the four of us – turning our back on the urban sprawl and learning the ways of the countryside. In fact it was the view above of one of the cottage’s neighbouring fields which convinced us to move. For a couple of beginners like Jerry and I, the prospect of living the good life was more than a little daunting. Yet here we are, nearly three years down the line and we’ve raised orphan lambs, adopted a Large Black called Cumberland and an elderly pony named Willow, taken on hens and now have a share in three little piglets, Huff, Puff and Snuff. We never intended to grow such a menagerie – it just sort of happened. I often wonder if our friends ever thought that we would turn out to be this animal mad when we left the Big Smoke.
to the benefits of planting wild flower meadows…
keeping pigs and hens, planning an orchard and getting started in the kitchen garden. Nick and Bella’s aim with The New Homesteader is to inspire others to give modern homesteading a go whether it’s in the countryside, city or suburbs. You might not be able to keep pigs in a courtyard garden in South West London but you can grow fruit and veg in pots or try your hand at making your own butter (not as difficult as you may think). Honestly, dear Reader, even if you have no desire to up sticks for a rural living, I challenge you not to fall in love with the wonderful pictures and story which Nick and Bell tell in The New Homesteader. It’s a rare treat and the perfect read for those who yearn for a slice of the good life. The pictures of their delightful home will have you on Pinterest seeking to recreate their country chic in a jiffy!
