There’s always a few people that sigh when Christmas is mentioned before December, but I’m a firm believer in getting ready, planning and preparing so that when we light the advent candle we open the door to a whole month of celebrating.

It’s always busy in September. We take the honey off the bees, the apples off the trees and get busy filtering, fermenting, preserving and potting up ready to stash away for colder days or sell to local customers.

The Green Queens…
This year is the first year that I’ve used a ‘proper’ queen marking pen – yes, there is such a thing – and I haven’t been the most neat of artists whilst using it. Previous years have found me sporting an old bottle of nail varnish and, as you can see in the photo above, blue glitter was quite a favourite.

Oops I did it again…
This week on one of my favourite courses, A Day at Hen Corner, I made a classic ‘schoolgirl error’. Well, that might not be the best way of describing it as we didn’t make jam at school – probably too much risk letting teenagers boil sugar to very high temperatures. However, it was a mistake that I’ve made on more than one occasion before.

One of the things I love most about Hen Corner is that we share our hobbies and passions for sustainable living with so many other wonderful people.
Recently I’ve spent some time with my friend Elsa who is really living my dream! I know her originally through our Bee Keepers Association and was quick to discover that not only is she a dab hand at making preserves, but she also keeps chickens in her back garden.

It’s our birthday! I can’t believe that it was nine years ago that Hen Corner came into being.
It all started when we were thinking about a ‘brand name’ for our homemade Christmas chutney label and concluded that Sara’s Preserves was a bit boring.