A brief burst of warmth have kick started the bees’ activity at Hen Corner and when she hasn’t been running Easter courses, Sara Ward has been decamping bees into new homes. Plus a last minute competition for free tickets to the Ideal Home Show!
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If there’s anything to remind us that Easter is on its way, surely the sound of a clucking hen announcing her freshly laid egg ranks a little higher than endless aisles of chocolate in the supermarket.
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Sara’s appearance (on TV) reflects a wider shift we’re seeing across homes and gardens.
More people are looking for ways to make their living spaces work harder for them – from creating beautiful outdoor areas to growing herbs, vegetables and even keeping hens. It’s all part of a growing desire to live more sustainably while getting more enjoyment from our homes. -
When the production company who make the ITV show ‘Jimmy and Shivi’s Farmhouse Breakfast’ got in touch to say:
‘We feel that it is important for Shivi Ramoutar to show how food is also being produced in creative ways in her hometown in London.’
We invited her over to Hen Corner, of course!
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Sara Ward is living her best life, occupied with sprouting vegetation and reawakening honey bees.
This is her best time of year, she says, when everything in nature is coming to life. -
We’ve been munching our way through Real Bread Week, enjoying the delights made on our Introduction to Scandinavian Baking course, planning Pizza for supper and looking ahead to the classes that we are running up until Easter.
We were delighted to discover that our Seville Orange Marmalade won another award at the World Marmalade Awards, so good job we’ve got Real Bread to toast for breakfast each morning! -
As every day is a little longer, and hopefully warmer, than yesterday, now is the time to start planning all things in the garden. If you dream of scrabbling for new potatoes or picking your own peas, now is the time to get ready.
Our column in this issue of Out & About Magazine focuses on planning your plot and presents our new course Growing the Good Life on Tuesday 24th February
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The trouble with root vegetables is, they tend to be underground.
‘I planted way too many potatoes last year and, after their plants had died down, I completely forgot which were planted where and randomly discovered them as I was turning soil to plant out other crops’ writes Sara Ward, doyenne of Hen Corner in Brentford (aka a terraced house with chickens in the back garden).
She has learned the error of her ways and is planning this year’s planning with the enthusiasm and care that others might muster for an exotic holiday. -
We’ve tidied away last year, hopefully, you feel a sense of achievement? Now it’s time to look forward and start to dream of what we hope to weave into the weeks and months ahead.
I’m writing this with a big bowl of oranges in front of me, we are making marmalade tomorrow, and I’ve bought some new seeded malted flour to bake bread with – I bet it will be delicious with butternut squash soup for lunch. We’ve got some exciting things coming up including our TWO DAY course Making Cheddar, Stilton & Sourdough, our business start up course Become a Bread Angel – Start your own Micro Bakery plus a brand new course that we’ve created because people have asked for it.
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Now is the time for trying out something new, she says, Now is the time for making marmalade from Seville oranges. If you would like to breakfast like royalty, making two types of marmalade and a loaf of bread, she has the very course…