courses

There was some consternation in our house at the weekend when we were given quinces from a friend’s allotment. What to do with them? How to cook them? How even to cut them without slicing your fingers off (they’re really hard!).
It turns out they’re very nice poached in apple juice with a baked ham. For Sara Ward at Hen Corner, quinces are the final harvest of the year. She reckons they need cooking with sugar. They do have a considerably sharper in flavour than their orchard cousins apples and pears.
Read my guest post on The Chiswick Calendar website.

Clinging, climbing, creeping… ivy certainly knows how to make itself at home! It scrambles up walls, wraps itself around tree trunks and, left to its own devices, it can get a bit too much. I know the temptation this time of year – grab the secateurs and pull the lot down. But please, don’t cut it yet – wait a little longer!

That’s a wrap on our bee keeping courses, the honey is finally gathered in and this has definitely been my biggest honey harvest so far. A good job too as we’ve just won another Great Taste Award for our Brentford Honey – Hurrah!

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.

Here we are, a New Year with loads of new opportunities ahead of us, just inviting us to grab hold of them as they come into reach.
I know I’m not alone in having good intentions for a new rhythm that brings balance to work and home.

It’s certainly getting a bit more chilly and, as one season makes way for another, we have a couple of Shows to Tell you about (not on TV this time)……

As Summer days shrink at both ends and a new term starts at school we celebrate the harvest and look forward to all the lovely Autumn activities ahead and, as usual, say ‘All Aboard and Join us on the Journey’…

This year, we have enjoyed working with many different school groups encouraging them to consider where their food comes from and giving them opportunities for some hands on experience and…

As the door to a new year opens, we look back at 2017 with thankfulness for good friends… Last year was our third year running Hen Corner as a full…