As featured in Country Living Magazine

We have discovered the perfect way to enjoy a bit of the countryside, and a well deserved treat, when you have a few days to escape from the city. We’ve just come back from a Feather Down Farm Holiday on Billingsmoor Farm in Devon and had the best time ever. Coming home, we found the apple trees in full blossom, another chicken has gone broody and the asparagus is growing thick and fast…

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Feather Down Farm Days

Regular readers may remember last year’s post about dairy farms, this month we’ve been able to stay on a farm as a family and see for ourselves the hard work and commitment of our British farmers. This was no ordinary farm holiday, staying in a converted barn or cottage, this time we were staying under canvas in a fantastic Feather Down Farm Tent. Based on an Old Dutch Farm House with wood burning stove at the heart, we were excited to explore every corner; Macy chose one of the bunk beds in the twin room, Andy and I enjoyed the romantic double room lined with cotton drapes and lit by candles in hanging lanterns, whilst James clambered into the cupboard bed that would traditionally benefit from the warmth of young animals sleeping in the cubby hole underneath. The tent was fully equipped with everything from vintage enamel ware and a wall mounted coffee grinder to reclaimed dining chairs and glowing oil lamps. If your experience of camping is lumpy ground-sheets and floppy air beds, you’ll be pleased to find that Feather Down tents have wooden floor boards and you sleep in real wooden framed beds complete with mattresses, duvets and pillows. Our tent that slept 6 shared a field with just one other, though there were 10 tents in total on the farm. Each tent had a personal chicken coop and the children, who are usually up first on a campsite, were delighted to join in the chase for next door’s hen who had escaped during the morning egg collection!

A Feather Down holiday will definitely help you switch off and relax, which is a good job as there is no Wi-Fi, no electricity (except for hair dryers in the shower block) and not even gas for your morning cuppa. Each day starts with the stove being lit and the large tin kettle being filled with spring water from the brass tap in the kitchen area. A slow breakfast is cooked with food gathered from the Farm Larder, an honesty shop stocking a range of local farm fresh foods and a few of the basics that make life easier. We took milk, bacon, bread and butter for breakfast, a salad bowl, steaks and burgers for a BBQ and just made a note of what we took ready to settle up on departure. Evenings were cosy, with cheese and wine, playing cards by candlelight and no midnight stalks across a wet field for a night-time ‘visit’ as each tent has its own flushing toilet!

Friends who had visited Feather Down Farms before assured us that each tent was exactly as promised in their brochure and website and as I stepped into our tent I felt like I’d been here before. This was so much more than a holiday, it was an experience for all the senses that you will only fully understand when you go yourself; with sites across the UK and into Europe you can choose your location, switch off and enjoy.

In our next post we’ll be telling you more about the farm that we stayed on and introducing you to Jayne and Robert Lammie from Billingsmoor Farm in Devon.

Thank you Feather Down Farm Days and Billingsmoor Farm, we had a great holiday and hope to see you again soon!

Other News:

• Our almonds did get pollinated in the cold months of February & March, we can see the new nuts forming
• We are harvesting a couple of bunches of asparagus a week and whisking up a regular hollandaise
• The first Bee Keeping course of the year was a great success, there are 4 more dates available…

Jobs for next week:

• Get the garden ready for a bespoke course to help celebrate a 60th birthday
• Try and split the bees to start a second colony
• Sow some salad crops under cover in the cold frame

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

As featured in Country Living Magazine

At last the sun is shining, the trees are in blossom, the bees are flying and all of our chickens are laying, except for Broody Butternut who is trying to hatch chicks from the other girls’ offerings… Our courses are well under way with bookings coming in regularly and requests for bespoke sessions. So let me officially welcome a new season at Hen Corner (and hope that I haven’t spoken too soon…)

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Spreading the Good News…

Last week, I was very pleased to have been invited to run a chicken keeping course at Hounslow Community Farming Association. This exciting project aims to provide vocational employment opportunities in horticulture/farming for individuals in Hounslow whilst at the same time improving the quality of the urban environment. They are based on an underused allotment and have set up an urban farm complete with growing plots, herb garden, polytunnel, and over 40 hens laying eggs for the local market. The training base was tables and chairs in an outside classroom and this electricity-free site is well equipped with a gas stove for making well needed mugs of tea and the most fantastic compost toilet! We had 2 1/2 hours together and were pleased that 15-20 people turned up to learn about Keeping Chickens in London; this is becoming not just a popular past time but also a positive response to the supermarkets who now cannot guarantee that their eggs are GM-free. We spent an hour in the classroom looking at the daily, weekly and seasonal responsibilities of keeping hens and then went over to the chicken shed to meet the HCFA girls. The association have built a secure run for their healthy flock of Rhode Island Red Hybrids and having so many made it easy for everyone to hold a hen whilst we went through the anatomy of the chicken and how to spot illnesses or health issues. The session ended inside the large chicken shed with the children rummaging in the straw for that morning’s fresh eggs. If you’d like to join us on a course here at Hen Corner, we still have spaces available on most of our dates.

Who will buy this wonderful morning…

The chickens are laying really well, we’ve had 239 in the last month alone! So not only are we enjoying them for breakfast, lunch and tea (a favourite is using yolks for a Hollandaise served over our asparagus and beating up the eggs into a meringue for a pavlova…), but we are now supporting our friends at Edible Ealing and supply their customers with local eggs that can be ordered with their Fruit & Veg Boxes. Do like them on Facebook and if you live in the area, why not try them for your groceries for a few weeks, it might change your life!

Why are The Bees good for the garden?

I have a Google alert set up for London Bees, just to keep up to date with the urban bee keeper scene and very quickly discovered that there are more fans of my local football club here in Brentford than those of us who don smocks and veils to inspect our colonies. Brentford FC is fondly known as The Bees, apparently due to the central role of Bee Keeping in Brentford in years gone by…

Well this afternoon, just before a big match, the large police horses were trotting passed our house to the club at the end of our road and I popped out with bucket and spade to scoop up the manure dropped in the road to add to our compost bins. This not only cleared up a mess on the street but will help boost the fertility of our kitchen garden helping us grow some fab veggie this year!

Book of the Month:

Lost in London: Adventures in the City’s Wild Outdoors
By Lucy Scott, Tina Smith

A wonderful hardback book that opens up the unlimited opportunities to discover quite a lot of country living within London. We especially love this book as we helped them with their research and are thrilled that the chapter on chickens tells the story of Hen Corner.

Other News:

• We received the April edition of Grow It! magazine and are very pleased with the 4 page article on Hen Corner
• We’ve replaced the insect bands around the base of our fruit trees, the codling moths will be out soon
• We have inherited an old Observation Hive and are lovingly restoring it ready for our courses

Jobs for next week:

• Research publishers and see if any are interested in our book
• Plan a bespoke course for a special Birthday Party
• Enjoy our postponed holiday at Feather Down Farm

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

As featured in Country Living Magazine

Thank you to all our subscribers and regular readers, we are thrilled to have welcomed nearly 50,000 visits. If you’d like to get a taste of the life for real, why not join us on one of our courses? As we celebrate, we remember some highlights of this last year…

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Click to view slideshow.

• A full Season of Courses that have encouraged others to keep chickens, bake and make preserves.

• Filming with Omlet has been great fun and several of our films are now on their website.
  

• Hatching Chicks is always a highlight, using Broody Butternut last year and working with St Paul’s School hatching chicks in the classroom.
  

• The National Honey Show where we were thrilled to win Best Honey in London!

• We took our produce to the market place at St Faith’s Christmas Fair and completely sold out of our Brentford honey

• Our Schools Projects have really taken off, with more in the pipeline

• As a regular reader, being featured in Country Living Magazine was a very special highlight for me

• It was wonderful to have the Lost in London Book in my hands and a delight that the chapter on City Chicks is based on our experience

• Various other magazines have published articles about all the fun that we are having and we are currently talking to others

So another wonderful year that we celebrate with a glass of home-brew and a garden-gathered supper!

Other News:

• Butternut is broody, but as the bantams are in the Eglu Go, there are no chicks for her this year
• The bees are flying at every opportunity as the weather begins to warm
• Two of our Bee Keeping courses are completely sold out!

Jobs for next week:

• Mowing the lawn for the first time this year
• Catch up with the other bee keepers – it seems the season is delayed
• Take the growing chicks back to school – they are getting quite big now

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

As featured in Country Living Magazine

So it’s Easter weekend and I’ve just received an email from the Nation Bee Unit warning us that due to the cold weather our bees are at risk of starving, we were due to go on an exciting camping holiday with Feather Down Farm but have postponed until warmer weather and have brought home the School Chicks for the Easter holidays…

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Spring Fair at River Cottage

Today we took the family to Park Farm, Devon, to join the team at the River Cottage Spring Fair, I hadn’t been to the farm since 2009 when I did my first Bee Keeping Course and it was great to be back to enjoy all the fun of the fair! It was a long drive from London to Park Farm, but it was well worth it to meet the gang and enjoy a day in the beautiful spring sunshine. Head Chef Tim Maddam‘s session with pigeons was great fun and the Produce Exchange rewarded me with fantastic chocolate & beetroot brownies, some honeycomb & dark chocolate truffles and a jar of fresh lemon curd; a great swap for my apple & chilli jelly, courgette & cumin chutney and a box of eggs. Other highlights were the slow roast lamb for lunch with warm mulled cider, Craig giving me some growing advice in the poly tunnel and catching up with bee keeper David Wiscombe, letting him know how we’ve got on since that first course. We’re already planning our next trip back, watch this space….

A Good Egg – Genevieve Taylor

Book of the Month:

A Good Egg: A Year of Recipes from an Urban Hen-Keeper

By Genevieve Taylor

My mother in law recently passed on a newspaper article about urban hens, as she does, and I instantly recognised that it was about my twitter friend and fellow blogger Genevieve Taylor. The feature was to celebrate the launch of her latest book which is a diary of inspiration to other urban hen keepers and all round foodies in general. With a new recipe every few days throughout the year (you need to give the girls time to lay enough eggs for the next recipe) it includes favourites such as Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Lemony Hollandaise and Rhubarb & Rosewater Pavlova through to the more adventurous Malaysian Egg & Aubergine Curry and Spiced Nut Meringues with Marsala Cream. It is beautifully produced (feely touchy hardback), down to earth (read 6th Nov), and obviously a favourite for our Speckled Sussex chick (see photo)…

Other News:

• Our almonds are in full blossom but the bees aren’t flying to pollinate them
• We knocked up some orange liqueur (oranges, sugar & vodka) and it tastes amazing even after a week
• The first Bee Keeping course of the year is nearly fully booked

Jobs for next week:

• Get a wood chipper to recycle tree pruning into chicken mulch (good for scratching in!)
• Paint the cold frame and patio edges; spruce it up for summer
• Watch the weather; will it be warm enough for a shook swarm?

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

As featured in Country Living Magazine

Well it’s still pretty chilly and our bees are too cold to venture out of the hive but Spring is officially here. Today, 20th March, the sun has crossed directly over the earth’s equator giving us the same amount of day and night meaning that winter is over and the days will just get longer!  So with Easter just around the corner, we ask ‘Which do you love the most, new chicks or baby lambs?’

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Right on cue

As we said in our last post, we have been working with quite a few London Schools now helping children understand where their food comes from and studying life cycles with chickens and habitats with bees. Last week we were really pleased to have been part of an ‘Animal Day’ and packed up our largest and smallest chickens to take into classrooms allowing children to learn the responsibilities of looking after animals and getting up close and personal with our feathered friends. Whilst the four bantams stayed in a large cage for the day, Butternut our buff Orpington was more than happy to allow 120 children to stroke her in turn! Bunty, our chocolate bantam Orpington came to work with me on Friday for our Easter Danceabout – the perfect illustration of the new life we celebrate at Easter and today, the first day of Spring, has welcomed the first chicks hatching in the incubator at St Paul’s School. First out was the dark Andalusian chick, closely followed by three Speckled Sussex and on the far left you can see a Light Sussex at just an hour old! The first chicks out are helping their unhatched siblings by encouraging them out of the shells with cheerful chirping, so cute. The fertile eggs were sent in the post by Andy Cawthray at Chicken Street and Gillian Dixon at South Yeo Farm East, so very good breeding and I can’t wait to see which others have hatched in the morning…

If you know a school that would be interested in visits from us, please do pass on our details.

Lambing Live

Something else to look forward to this season are the baby lambs being born around our beautiful countryside. With all the bad press of animals being farmed intensively indoors, do take the opportunity to breathe in some fresh air and delight in the joy of skipping lambs in green fields. We are off to a Feather Down Farm soon and are very excited to hear about all the new lambs that they are expecting over the coming months, we’ll be sure to tell you all about it when we come back. Don’t forget that we have a good collection of bank holidays coming up, so why not pack up your wellies and a jumper and get away to the country for a weekend?

Book of the Month:

Lost in London: Adventures in the City’s Wild Outdoors
By Lucy Scott, Tina Smith

A wonderful hardback book that opens up the unlimited opportunities to discover quite a lot of country living within London. We especially love this book as we helped them with their research and are thrilled that the chapter on chickens tells the story of Hen Corner.

Other News:

• Hen Corner was very pleased to have been featured in Country Smallholding magazine
• Our rhubarb is ready and we’re collecting 9-10 eggs a day now…
• Our new season of courses have started, we had a great time with three other families last weekend.

Jobs for next week:

• Decorate some eggs for our Easter Celebrations
• Research pig-keeping – that’s still on the agenda!
• Check the mistletoe, has it taken on the old apple tree?

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

As featured in Country Living Magazine

Whilst it was sad to hear the news that Good Life actor Richard Briers had died, the legacy that his character Tom Good has left sees a new generation pull on their wellies. This week we look at a bride to be,  London school children and a nation of food lovers that want to know what’s in their food…

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A Hen with a Hen!

Hen Party at Hen Corner
‘Oooh Sara, I’m organising the Hen Weekend for a friend, can we all come to Hen Corner please?’ said Jess one of the young graduates at church. ‘We all read Country Living and would love you to teach us!’ Well of course I’d love to help, but what can we do with 20 young ladies in their 20′s on a cold afternoon in February? I wasn’t sure what they would like to do and certainly wouldn’t be able to fit them all in my kitchen at once… So Jess and I got together and cooked up a plan, we designed a bespoke course that included baking biscotti, making marmalade and drinking bubbly. It all seemed to go rather well and, judging by the laughter and subsequent Facebook comments, everyone had a great time. Dr Seuss, our green egg layer, popped into the conservatory for a cuddle with Vicki (the bride to be) and made herself at home with all the other ‘hens’. For more info see here and if you’d like to talk to us about a bespoke course, get in touch!

What comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Food Glorious Food!

It has never been more important to know where a child’s food comes from than today. With stories of horsemeat (potentially contaminated with the veterinary medicine bute (phenylbutazone) in everything from Tesco beefburgers, to Findus lasagnas, Bird’s Eye chilli con carne and Ikea meatballs, it’s essential for families to value their food, reduce waste and choose a healthy diet for their children. This week’s news tells of the high numbers of UK children living in poverty and the link to obesity due to cheap ready meals and junk food. Please, let’s raise another generation that has dirt under it’s fingernails not because of poor personal hygiene but a fresh fascination of growing our own food. This week, we are really pleased to be working with another London school; last year they came to visit our chickens and this year we are helping them hatch their own in the classroom. ‘Go to work on an egg’ was a healthy eating campaign of post war Britain; today, a three-minute boiled egg is one of the best fast foods you can get!

If you know a school that would be interested in visits from us, please do pass on our details.

Book of the Blog Post:

Lost in London: Adventures in the City’s Wild Outdoors
By Lucy Scott, Tina Smith

A wonderful hardback book that opens up the unlimited opportunities to discover quite a lot of country living within London. We especially love this book as we helped them with their research and are thrilled that the chapter on chickens tells the story of Hen Corner.

Other News:

• Hot chicks on page three! Our family and hens are in this month’s Your Chickens magazine
• We’ve collected some berries and are trying to propagate some mistletoe on our old apple tree
• We’ve started selling our spare eggs through Edible Ealing Box Scheme

Jobs for next week:

• Keep an eye on the eggs in the incubator at school
• Check out the holidays at Feathers Down Farm
• Keep counting the eggs (we collected nine yesterday!)

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

Featured in Country Living Magazine

Whilst it still feels pretty cold, the longer days and the brilliant sunshine that we are being blessed with (albeit occasionally!) is a sign of things to come. As bulbs are sprouting and buds appear on the trees, we can be assured that Spring is on its way.

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The new Egg Ramp from Omlet

The Early Bird
Our last post introduced the green eggs from our hybrid Columbine and, this week, it’s been very exciting to discover that one of the bantams bought at the National Poultry Show has started laying the tiniest white eggs and it’s not even Valentine’s day yet! It’s great to have a selection, all shapes and sizes, but it’s really important to store/eat them in date order.
I received the most perfect gift recently that ensures that each egg is stored safely and in order of freshness, the Egg Ramp is the latest brainwave from the fab team at Omlet. Coming in a selection of colours and a sturdy plastic, its contemporary design combines stylish looks with good old fashioned practical features. Whilst able to hold a dozen large eggs or loads more bantam eggs, I love the subtle textured edge that ensures your eggs don’t roll at such at speed that they slip off – perfect!

The three mile forage area for our bees

Psst, Pass it on…

Last month we were contacted by two schools and a Beavers group asking me to go and talk to them about Bees. We had a great time; I took in some of my bee keeping equipment and asked them to guess what each item was used for (‘No I don’t keep the bees warm in the smoker!’), then told the story of Plan Bee at Hen Corner. The sessions included who’s in the hive, where do they go, life cycle of the bee, how a colony works, the value of bees today and tell me about the honey, mummy! We are always pleased to pass on what we have learned on our journey, if you know a school that would be interested in visits from us, please do pass on our details.

Book of the Blog Post:

Eggs

By Michel Roux

A beautiful book with enticing photography tempting us with hundreds of recipes, old and new, each one starring the humble egg.

As they are currently stacking up I’m going to pop on a pinny and bake a cake… yum!

Other News:

• As things are starting to grow in the garden again, it’s time to think compost. Check out this film I presented for Omlet explaining their Hungry Bin Wormery
• Our latest article will be in the March edition of Your Chickens magazine
• We are planning a number of other projects with different schools

Jobs for next week:

• Make some cakes with all our lovely eggs
• Set aside some time to write more of my book
• Research grow your own mistletoe; I believe that February/March is the time to introduce seeds to a new host

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

Featured in Country Living Magazine

I do I like them Sam I am… When my son, James, was very young I used to poach eggs in food colouring to serve him a lunch that reflected one of his favourite Dr Seuss books, but now our Columbine hybrid hen has started laying green eggs, it’s a multi-coloured nest box every day!

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Come on you girls…

Whilst it’s still pretty cold outside, and snow flurries are more the norm that a magical surprise, the days definitely are starting to get a little bit longer. As we said in our New Year post, it’s Valentine’s Day that normally heralds the pure breed hens coming back into lay, but I suspect that some of mine are popping out a couple here and there already. Here at Hen Corner, we have four little bantams that are in an Eglu Go by themselves, they are so tiny they just wouldn’t be able to hold their own with the big girls. Then in our bigger Eglu Cube we have 4 hybrids and 7 pure breed hens. I like keeping chickens that lay different coloured eggs as, not only are they pretty but, it helps me check which girls are laying and how often. So between them, our hybrids lay one white, one green and two brown. However, recently, I’ve been collecting light brown, speckled brown, large brown and small brown; these can’t all be from two hens… Well, as we begin to see more sunshine, more of the girls will present us with eggs and we should be able to discover who lays which one!

While the weather outside is frightful…

Children played in the snow, grown ups huddled round a fire and bee keepers learned to make skeps! Andy and I joined a small group from Ealing Bee Keeping Association to not only learn  but make our own skeps. We had expert tuition from Martin Buckle who brought all the equipment for our group to make an old fashioned bee hive each. It was quite a long day as it takes a while to make one, but there was a great sense of achievement as we watched our skeps taking shape over the hours. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite finish mine, so brought home extra straw and rattan to complete it soon. Skeps are usually used today for collecting swarms and I’m hoping that, by having two in the house (mine and Andy’s), we will never need them!

Book of the Blog Post

I was very jealous to read Emily Heath’s review of this book back in October and responded by putting it on my Christmas list! At last I’m reading it for myself and find it an inspiring story that weaves in a wealth of information. Please be assured that no beekeeping experience is needed to thoroughly enjoy this book!

Other News:

• Some of the films that I’ve presented for Omlet have now been released, check out this one on chicken netting
• I’ve been commissioned to start writing for a new magazine, watch this space for more info
• We visited an Enfield school to talk about bees and are planning a number of other projects with different schools

Jobs for next week:

• Make up new frames for our Beehaus – haven’t started yet!
• Visit a local Beavers group for another session on bees
• Keep an eye on those seedlings, make sure they don’t grow too leggy indoors

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

Featured in Country Living Magazine

And, as Neil from The Young Ones says, ‘We eat the seed’, I guess this is showing my age… But as a food lover, my mouth was watering as I was working in the garden this afternoon, although the fruits of my labour won’t be ready to eat for many months yet…

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Pruning the Almond Tree

All back to work…

I can’t believe it’s been just five days since the children went back to school and I went back to work; the holidays seem so long ago already! Well, this afternoon brought a real treat; bright sunshine, albeit a bit chilly, and the opportunity to get ahead of the game with some gardening jobs. We have already pruned most of the fruit trees and bushes, but today was the turn of the almond, the loganberries and the grapevine. The almond tree is only a few years old and last years pruning resulted in around 80 perfect nuts, but, sadly, the London squirrels helped themselves to the lot before we got a look in. I do need to have a think about the squirrels but at the moment my priority is definitely trying to keep the chickens safe from the foxes. Last weekend we spent quite a bit of time repairing the fence between us and next door, the preferred route of the fox, but seeing him back in the garden this morning revealed that he has another easy access point under the fence closer to the house. Vigilance is key and, at the moment, we are only letting the girls out for a roam when we can see the whole garden clearly…

Sowing the Solanaceae

Come alive, sprout and thrive…

Today I brushed off my seed box and sorted out the Solanaceae; the family of plants that we often associate with the Mediterranean. Aubergines, Peppers, Chillies and Tomatoes (it sounds like a recipe for Ratatouille doesn’t it?) are quite simple to grow and the fruits shine out their bright colours through green foliage in high summer. These are always the first seeds sown here at Hen Corner and once established, in heated propagators or above radiators, make space for melons, squashes, and cucumbers.

I need to plan when and where to sow the Honey Bee Wild Flower Mix as I want to make sure that I’m doing all I can to help our bees this year. I wasn’t the best bee keeper in 2012  (although it was only my first year) and I’m keen to support them multiplying into two colonies and making lots of yummy honey!

Book of the Blog Post

RHS Allotment Journal: The Expert Guide to a Productive Plot

After a good start on the garden at the beginning of the year I’m going to dig out my RHS Allotment Journal that my little sister, Emma, bought me last year. It’s a great little book that outlines the top fruit and veg jobs, a seasonal recipe and general allotment reminders for each month. I’ve been using the notes pages throughout the year and can use it to learn what went well and how we can improve in 2013. Hopefully we’ll get some better weather which would be a starter to see improvements all round!

Other News:

• We we thrilled to receive Country Living Magazine through the door featuring Hen Corner as Country in the City.
• Sara was pleased to share her first year Bee Keeping stories with the delegates on the Introduction to Bee Keeping Course run by the Ealing Association
• There seems to be quite a bit of interest in our courses this year; some are nearly fully booked!

Jobs for next week:

• Start making new frames for the Beehaus ready for the Shook Swarm that we’ll do again in March
• Order some new jam jars from the team at French Flint
• Track down some Seville Oranges as it’s nearly Marmalade time!

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!

We hope that you have had a good break over Christmas and are now looking ahead at all the opportunities that 2013 may hold. If, like us, you’d like to weave a little bit more of the country life into your busy day to day schedule then maybe you could make it a resolution to produce some of your own food and learn a new skill…

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The London Apprentice

A Beautiful Day…

As I write this, from the sofa, I’ve got a bowl of leftover trifle to hand (loganberry and fresh custard don’t you know…) and am enjoying the end of another bank holiday musing about the weeks and months to come. Today welcomed beautiful weather which we hope will be the beginning of much more throughout 2013. As a family, we took a cycle ride down to the Thames towpath and along to The London Apprentice, a local pub with stunning river views. We popped in to the garden centre on the way back and I had a good hunt through the seeds in the 50% off sale. My bounty included Aubergine Prosperosa, Tomato Cuore Di Bue, Purple Mangetout Shiraz, Melon Eldorado, and finally some Honey Bee Wild Flower Mix to keep the colony happy.

Romanesco Cauliflower

Hiding in the Brassica Bed…

For a while now we’ve been gazing out of the window at the over grown greens in the Kitchen Garden, ‘I’m sure that they will sprout broccoli soon…’, I try to reassure Andy. With all the bad weather last year the beds were either flooded or decimated by slugs and snails, I was pleased just to see something green that was still alive. Only this week, on a closer look, I discovered this wonderful head of Romanesco Cauliflower and another behind it. There were also Winter White Cauliflowers starting to form in the centre of other grand green ‘bushes’. Hopefully we are past the caterpillar season and too early for the slugs of spring so we may have a few dinners from the veg patch still to come, elsewhere the leeks look happy and I’ve popped a bottomless dustbin over the newly sprouting rhubarb crowns.

Salt – Our Faithful Layer

Lay a Little Egg for Me…

It’s been our faithful White Leghorn, Salt, who has kept us in large white eggs over the recent weeks, along with the small brown eggs from Bluebelle our new hybrid who just started laying last month. I can’t believe that, with 15 hens here at Hen Corner, we are not even guaranteed one egg a day. Fortunately, we’ve had enough for a couple of pavlovas (using raspberries that we froze in the summer) and then used the egg yolks for the custard in the aforementioned trifle, we also added our loganberries that have been steeping in sugar and vodka for a few months, topped with whipped cream it was really something special, albeit rather boozy! So why aren’t the other girls laying eggs at the moment? Well it’s mainly due to the shorter days; the more sunlight, the longer they eat hence the more eggs they lay. It’s traditional for pure breeds to go ‘off lay’ during the coldest, darkest months so that counts out 11 of our girls, then from our 4 hybrids, one hasn’t started yet, one has just been concentrating on growing new feathers and the other two are laying 4-5 eggs each a week. ‘Well roll on Valentine’s Day’, as for us hen keepers, it marks the beginning of the new season and I could get up to 15 eggs a day… best order some egg boxes!

Book of the Blog Post: 

Other News:

• We have quite a few people already booked in for our courses this year
• All our honey has now been sold with advance orders for next year!
• We treated the bees with oxalic acid for varroa mite and fed them extra sugar fondant

Jobs for next week:

• Sow seeds in the propagators ready to catch the winter sun as they germinate
• Write my next article for Out and About magazine
• Give the fruit trees a prune and winter wash

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!