Pictures

 

Guarding the beehive

Stingers!

Today, I was surrounded by things that were just waiting to prick, stab, and sting me. It was pretty exciting! 


This morning, discovered that violently ripping stinging nettle plants out of the berry garden is very cathartic. They seem to represent everything mean and nasty and painful in the farm microcosm, but donning a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves I went on the offensive in this weed battle. Unfortunately, while I was protected from the nasty prick of the nettle (which injects formic acid as a poison), my hair, jacket, jeans, and skin were snagged by thorny currant, gooseberry, raspberry, and blackberry bushes. Ouch! 


Towards the end of my weed-thrashing session, I heard an ominous buzzing and looked up to see one of the beehives here swarming! It is truly a magnificent sight and beautiful sound that descends with a swarming herd of bees. It's soothing too - the bees are busy sniffing out their new queen and trying to set up a new colony so they are perfectly oblivious to people standing around watching. Swarms are also a golden opportunity to snatch up a queen and her posse in our own hive box and let them make honey for us! 


The tricky part of the process is transferring the swarm - especially the queen bee - into the box and hoping they like it in their new home. Today, the swarm had converged on some currant branches on opposite sides of some netting making the situation a bit complicated. This afternoon, we tried two strategies:
1. We set up the hive - which stands on four legs a few feet off the ground - near the net and then wedged a wooden board from the hive "doors" (two holes in the box) to the ground under the swarm. We cut off a few currant branches and dumped the bees riding along into the box, then brushed many of them onto the ground near the board. Bees are remarkable creatures. Give them something to climb and a possible reward at the top and they parade up in a massive stampede. Exciting - yes. Effective - in this case, no. Apparently we left the queen behind on the bush so they marched up and then turned around and flew back toward her pheromones. 
2. Attempt #2 involved bending the branches of the bush with the largest clump of bees over the hive (with legs removed) and shaking them off into the box. Then. we again set up the whole board arrangement again. It looks unlikely that we got the queen inside this time either because few of the bees could be bothered to climb up their ramp - most of them writhed and squirmed  in a ball of yellow-black fuzz at the bottom. We left them to ponder a trip into the hive overnight - since it's raining hopefully they will find the prospect of a cozy, covered home appealing. 

Unfortunately, the swarm (that blob on the right) is having nothing to do with our hive box.

We are cruel, honey-greedy beekeepers here, so we took advantage of the forsaken hive to collect honey. A swarm occurs when a second queen in a colony attracts a body of followers and heads off to set up her rival castle elsewhere. The swarm today emerged from one of our existing hive boxes, which means that the box had been significantly depopulated. Perfect time for us to attack! 


The hive boxes we use are V-shaped with a row of wooden slats on top from which the bees create their honeycomb. There is a "Queen excluder" slat, which prevents the big-busted queen (well, big-bummed queen) from accessing part of the hive but allows here minions to pass.  In an ideal world, the bees would make straight, parallel lines of honeycomb along the wooden slats in a nice orderly fashion. Then, all the beekeeper has to do is lift up slats from the rear (away from the queen) and hack off a lovely, uniform chunk of honey-filled honeycomb. These bees, however, are more artistic - they make comb in all sorts of curvy shapes with varying thickness. I felt rather sad for this colony of bees. First, they lost many friends in the swarm, then giant monsters came in to fill heir home with smoke, steal their delicious food, and kill their brood (baby bees developing within honeycomb). 

Bee chain!

The feeling of pity was short-lived, forgotten as soon as I popped a piece of honey-laden honeycomb in my mouth. Delicious! We collected two very distinct types of honey today - which is totally dependent on the nectar available when the honey was produced. Honey from rape flowers (rape oil is considerately renamed canola oil in the US) is crystallized and more solid. It has a creamy, light yellow colour and fragrant sweetness. Honey from elderflowers (I think....) is much more fluid with a deep golden colour. This tasted more like the traditional honey from the store - with a rich, strong sweetness. The honeycomb filled with the crystallized honey was separated away for snacking - nature's candy! The other, more liquidlike honey was separated from the comb by mashing the comb and straining through a sieve to collect just the liquid honey without the wax. 

Honey!

Empty honeycomb - perfect little hexagons!

 I think it's interesting to explore the honey available in grocery stores in England - there are so many different varieties! In the US, stores usually sell clover honey and possibly orange blossom if they cater to a more gourmet clientele. Here, there are always several types of honey derived from a range of flora. And, if you need another reason to indulge in some liquid gold, some people believe that eating local honey helps your body recognize pollen and other allergens in the air without producing histamines. In other words, if you suffer from red-eyed runny-nosed allergies in the spring, treat yourself to some local honey! 

Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity. - Lindley Karstens

A weed by any other name....might be delicious!

Take a walk down any footpath or quiet lane in England and you will find yourself surrounded by all sorts of nasty nettles, gigantic brambly hedges, and explosions of indifferent flowers. Claire and I have learned over time that there are wonderful treasures hidden amidst the English weeds. 


Blackberry bushes: Often, the brambles that march along most roads and delineate different fields are blackberry bushes. In July and August, enticing bunches of berries hang off the branches, inviting the wandering rambler to pick some delicious, juicy fruit! Just beware the inevitable thorns and buzzing neighbours. 

Chamomile: Daisies are the friendliest flower (remember that wonderful discussion between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail?), but they are not always as they appear. Chamomile plants bear daisy-like blooms with thin, feathery leaves. Add a few fresh or dried stalks to a pot of boiling water for a comforting brew!


Sloe berries: Hedgerows often include sloe bushes, which bear a grape-like fruit that appears in summer and ripens in autumn. While bitter, the berries can be used to make burgundy-coloured sloe gin (ask Claire for the recipe). 


Elderflowers: As mentioned previously, elderflowers can be picked at peak pollen to make elderflower cordial or sparkling elderflower wine. 


Dock leaves: Supposedly, dock leaves are excellent anesthetics for relieving the burning pain from a stinging nettle. I have not tried this out yet, but probably will have many opportunities before the end of the summer. Nature, in her subtle brilliance, often provides dock plants near stinging nettles. 


Weeds are nature's graffiti. - Janice Maeditere

Rain, sun, wind, and repeat

Today, I learned that onions, garlics, and shallots produce flowers and seeds. Perhaps I was a bit naive, but I've always thought that they just grew from bulbs. These bulbs, however, are grown in nurseries from seeds. This morning, we harvested the flower buds of onions and shallots, which can be sauteed and added to stir fries or treated like spring onions. Most importantly, the flower stalks make a satisfying *POP* noise when snapped off. 


Being an island with winds converging from all four directions, the weather in Britain can be quite temperamental. Rain, wind, and hot sunshine each wreak havoc in their own unique ways in the fields.


Rain is obviously a necessary supply of hydration for the plants. Newly sown and naturally delicate plants can suffer damage when the precipitation changes from a light, soaking mist to a heavy downpour. While it's possible to supply water during dry periods, there's no way to drain away excess water from the soil. If the soil is too wet, some plants will be susceptible to rotting. Often, the amount of water significantly affects the flavour of the fruit - particularly cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and melons. These plants are grown in polytunnels so the moisture can be more closely controlled and the temperature stays warm.


Wind was enemy #1 today. When planting brassicas in the field, we had to be careful to get as much of the stalk below the soil as possible to prevent the wind from snapping the plant in half. It's always important to be careful when securing tarps, nets, and Mypex (plastic) sheets - anything that can catch on a gust of wind has to be securely held in place with cinder blocks, steel poles, and heavy flower pots (or whatever heavy items are lying around). Wind can also evaporate surface water more efficiently, so it's good to keep an eye on the moisture of the soil, particularly when watering in newly sown plants. 


Warm sunshine is the source of the energy that creates our food, but if the sun is hot and bright for days (rare in England), all plants need to be kept thoroughly watered. It's also best to keep air flowing through polytunnels and nurseries to prevent damage from high temperatures or temperature fluctuations. 

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field. - Dwight Eisenhower

Piggly Wigglies

Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes. Today, Bart and I spent hours with potatoes - harvesting, lugging crates, and spray washing. The weather and soil conditions have conspired to promote slug infestations, so the whole potato patch had become a slug feast. Washing potatoes is not my favourite job - mainly because I am drenched at the end of it - but I reward myself by feeding the rotten ones to the pigs. I love feeling like their best friend when they all rush over to nick their share of the food. We have so many piglets on the farm now, I was kind of intimidated by the inundation of squeals and yelps that greeted me and my basket of rotten potatoes. Lesson of the day: never come between a pig and his food.

We have several breeds of pigs on the farm. While many farmers in England pride themselves on raising pure rare breed livestock, others are beginning to interbreed a few types of rare lines to build up larger populations that are more robust. The farm currently has some lop-eared varieties (whose ears flap all over the place when they run!) and pink-and-black saddlebacks.

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. - Winston Churchill

Return to South Farm

I returned to South Farm this week, which means it's time to dust off my old farming blog. Claire-belle decided to spend half of her birthday working when she dropped me off for a couple weeks. Much of the day was spent packed in a car full of five people zipping around the local area hunting for weeds. Like many other delectable plants (i.e. chamomile, blackberries, sloe berries....), elderflower bushes grow in ditches along the roads and nestled in nettles along fields. Elderflowers have a lovely, distinctive smell, and the flower heads can be used to make elderflower cordial or sparkling elderflower wine. (I would attempt to make some sort of clever pun here about Claire growing older while looking for elderflowers but I will spare the world my sad attempt.) The real essence of the elderflower flavour comes from the pollen, which is why we were assigned this mission on a bright, sunny morning with little wind. I don't suffer from seasonal allergies, but picking pollen-filled flowers the whole morning - often reaching overhead to do so - gave my nasal cavity some problems. We collected about 15 kg of flowers - less than expected perhaps in part because we were told off for picking flowers on private land (oops....). Back on the farm, we stripped the flowers away from any leaves, thick stems, and bugs to prepare them for cordial-brewing. Here's a rough recipe for elderflower cordial:


Elderflower Cordial
Ingredients:
15-30 elderflower heads (exact number depends on amount of pollen and size of heads), unwashed
~5-8 lemons and/or oranges, cut into wedges
sugar - 500 g per 1 L 
water


Heat water and sugar together until slightly syrupy. Allow to cool. In large bowl, combine citrus fruit and flowers. Pour cooled sugar water over and cover. Let sit for 2-3 days, stirring every 12 hours. Filter and serve mixed with water, soda water, or tonic water. 

 

 

 

Although I worked at the farm around the same time last year, the dry winter and cold, wet spring have delayed most of the crops. Last year I arrived to currants and cherries being harvested, tomato plants beginning to fruit, and all of the fields planted and happily growing; in contrast, this year I have arrived in the middle of the strawberry harvest and will be doing a great deal of planting. Today, we planted most of a field of runner beans because the initial planting (that's 600 plants!) died due to the weather-induced slug infestation. It is an amazing reminder of how dependent agriculture is on the local weather!


A mountain is the best medicine for a troubled mind. Seldom does man ponder his own insignificance. He thinks he is the master of all things. He thinks the world is his without bonds. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Only when he tramps the mountains alone, communing with nature, observing other insignificant creatures about him, to come and go as he will, does he awaken to his own short-lived presence on earth. - Finis Mitchell

Happy Birthday Claire!