People will forever tell you that harvesting veg when it is young and small will provide a tender, less fibrous taste.

Not so apparently, at least not always. We've still got some parsnips and leeks left in the soil from last season and while many people might have pulled theirs up by now, ours are still happily sitting it out. Even the mild, wet winter hasn't caused any spoil from rot or pests and although we plan to cook and freeze them over the next few days we decided to give one of the leeks a try tonight.

It's pretty big as modelled by our three year old, it had a beautiful strong smell and tasted fantastic.

A brand new monstrosity

So for some time I have been collecting pallets and today with a few hours to spare I managed to go and fetch the last that I needed from a local builders yard who offered some to me for free. Bonus.

What I've had in mind for some time is using some old pallets to 'fence' off a sitting area in our fruit tree area and with the industrious use of some spare weed fabric that has been hung inside the pallets like buckets planting lots of alpine strawberries that create a living wall type of thing.

Our plans were halted some time ago after our first pallet collection because we decided to paint the wood green and it took some doing...pallets really soak the stuff up which not only causes a greater expense than intended but is really, really time consuming and very boring.

But today we decided to plough on so in about two hours we bashed a raggedy rectangle of pallets then decided to add an entrance archway for a bit of snobbery. The result is an absolute eyesore which looks so horrific that we are likely to finish painting it just so we are happy having visitors again.

Still the romantic in me can see the potential for it once it has been painted and planted...we'll see.

A very interesting day today to really kick off the imminent bee season....

Today I attended an intermediate beekeeping day with Monty Bees at Gregynog Hall, Mid Wales with around a dozen other people all with some (though ranging) levels of practical beekeeping experience. The day was taught by Brian, a second generation beekeper with over fifty years of experience whose wealth of knowledge and ease in front of an audience made the day extremely worthwhile.

For me the major benefit was not only delving into the material but in Brian's manner. So far as I skim the surface of the mysterious world of keeping bees I have met many affable 'beeks' who quite rightly have their own methods and preferrences because of the things they have experienced or just 'feel' to be right. However beekeeping's unofficial mantra "if you ask two beekeepers how to do a particular thing then you will receive three answers and they may all be right" can sometimes cause them to dilute their advice or give it in such a self deprecating way that as a newbie you still feel like you haven't been given an actual answer. At least at times I have.

With good humour Brian was a bit more direct. Careful as he was to re-iterate that no technique is absolute he was not afraid to tell us what he really thought and even go as far (shock horror for beekeepers?) to explain why he thought several traditional beekeeping techniques made no sense to him.

So why was this different? For me the fact that he is a second generation beek with fifty plus years of experience helps but what really impressed me was the fact that he has obviously devoted a massive part of his life not just to beekeeping as many have but in the pursuit of diverse beekeeping. Having handled bees in the US, Australia and Tanzania with all their idiosyncracies and environmental needs he has also collected (and presumably read) over five hundred beekeeping books that reach as far back to the 1700's. This meant that he seemed able to quantify his opinions not just because a method 'feels' right but because there was an observational, historical or scientific reason be they his own or someone who has gone before. This broad experience and his obvious interest in researching 'how' and 'why' seems to have left him very accepting of the various methods and motivations of breeders and amateur keepers which is refreshing. Comparrisons drawn from commercial practices where not designed to create a moral arguement but made neutrally and simply designed to identify why various practices have been developed and what can be learned from any sector with a view to making us better, stress free beekeepers. When comparing domestic techniques against those used by comercial keepers prompted us to question whether some of the mainstream modern gadgetry is really needed it wasn't just ruminating pub talk because he could point out the benefits and pitfalls of each system with the easy confidence of someone who has seen both in action. That made beekeeping clearer to me in one day than any of the books I have read, videos I have watched or people that I have chatted to thus far.

For example, when discussing hive types he politely refrained from admonishing anyones personal choice and in fact highlighted the problems with his own hives but was able to explain, from memory, how and why each hive system was produced. Whether those that created the common hive systems were driven by bee studies, commercial gain, material availability or an excess of free time created by only working on Sundays (many were apparently vicars). His enthusiasm for identifying the background of beekeeping techniques and asking potentially controversial questions makes me think there might be a pathway to not only learning by amassing our future successes and failures but by looking backwards and questioning why a technique has become mainstream, how it was motivated and therefore judging its application to current practice and our own desired outcomes. This can only improve knowledge and speed up our learning experience.

Such an intellectual approach may well horrify many experienced beekeepers to whom 'feeling' the bees out is so important and to those that have contributed to the many (very many) texts on the subject of standard practices but in my mind having someone that causes you to consider why some techniques have become vogue or who points out that many books that are considered beek bibles were written some years ago and provide advice that may not be in keeping with current temperatures and seasons is invaluable. Similarly explaining the issues of swarm risk in terms of hive type on the basis of there being 61000 potentially available cells in a Langstroth versus 84000 in one and a half National Brood was both an interesting and refreshingly stark means of provoking thought. I'm sure most beekeepers have worked this stuff out for themselves but as a new beek it is great to have the information put across so succintly that after one day we feel that we can make better choices about our approach for our bees.

All in all the pleasant company, insightful questions from the group and good biscuits created a great learning atmosphere and I'm sure that we all came away with valuable information that will not only develop the way we manage our hives but fire up our motivation for the coming season.

A buzz in the air...

Perhaps the most obvious challenge living where we do is the infamous welsh weather patterns (or lack of them.) Like most places in the UK we no longer get 'proper' seasons and as a testament this winter has been frustratingly mild (very few frosts to help sweeten our parsnips and help our garlic and absolutely no sledging!) and exceedingly wet. This has caused us to have to undertake some emergency path constructions involving around six tons of gravel all having to be man and woman-handled around the garden just to enable us to trudge about without our wellies getting sucked from our feet.

That said for the last two days the sun has come out to play and already we feel like spring has really started. Yesterday was very warm in the sun and we are pleased to see that the bees have taken a few tentative flights from both hives. a very fast recent check indicated that both hives still have their respective colonies. As these are our first over wintered bees we've been keen to take a proper look at them however it is still a bit cold. After hefting the hives last week they still seem pretty heavy but just to be sure that they have enough food we stuck some sugar fondant on the crown boards as a back up for them. A quick peek this week looks like they are untouched...

Hopefully in another week or two it will be warm enough to open the hives properly and see how things have been going. It'll be good to identify the food that remains, colony sizes and guestimate the swarm risk. We are hoping that this season both colonies will need to be artificially swarmed so that we can start of another couple - we'll have to wait and see.

For now we've satisfied ourselves with tidying around the bee garden and throwing down a load of wild flower seeds.

Massive Wardrobe. Tick.

Well it has taken a while but at long last our new bedroom decor is well on the way...

Karen was away last week on a course and as a surprise I decided to not only finish (at long last) the wardrobe that she has been waiting for but also re-decorate our bedroom including the building of an alcove cupboard to put our books in that matches the ginormous wardrobe. I managed to rope in a couple of people to help too but my VERY long week looked like this...

Sunday - finished building the wardrobe fascia, prepped and painted a first coat onto the walls.
Monday - full day at work then painting the final coat onto the walls up to about 11pm
Tuesday - I had a full day at work so left my mum and stepdad behind to spend a few hours wallpapering a 'feature' wall. Got in late then started sanding and painting the wardrobe with a special primer to help deal with (and hide) knots and stuff then stuck on a first colour coat of paint too. Finished at 4am wednesday morning.
Wednesday - after about three hours sleep I took one look at the wardrobe and realised that the subtle cream colour (Dulux Vanilla Mist 4) we had expected actually looked brilliant white and therefore had been a waste of energy. I then started building the alcove cupboard to match the wardrobe. Finally I dashed of to Dunelm Mill to pick up some bed linen and curtain stuff.
Thursday - builders merchants at 7am to buy a better wardrobe paint (after staring at the ridiculously large list of even more ridiculously named paint shades I actually found one just called 'cream') then met up with my dad who helped me re-paint the wardrobe and alcove cupboard plus put up a new curtain pole (with two additional door curtain poles for downstairs that I'd also bought.)
After jump starting dads van (he always leaves his lights on) I cracked on with making and painting a door for the alcove cupboard before a friend turned up late on for moral support, she then helped me put the doors onto the wardrobe, hang the curtains and start tidying up.
Friday - Full day at work, Karen got home before me and didn't notice the bedroom for the first hour.

....still got some things to do but we are very much geting towards having a beautifully decorated bedroom (for the first time ever) and a place to hang our clothes (first time in two years.)

Still to build...

- Kingsize Bed
- Blanket Chest
- Make-up Table and Stool
- Dressing Gown hooks
- Anything else that my lovely wife decides she desires....

Growing season upon us once more!

Wow It's March already!! When did that happen? One minute it is February, cold drizzly and depressing. The next it is March, warm sunny Sundays, longer days and daffodils abund... So today after celebrating a birthday in the family, I sprung outside to clean out the chickens (long overdue), and then in the spirit of outdoor cleaning, I tidied and swept out the greenhouse in preparation for the many seedlings soon to be planted.

Yesterday whilst out and about I went and bought my seeds for this year. I am branching out into more vegetables. So in addition the carrots, potatoes, peas, runner beans, garlic, onions, leeks, brussels and parsnips (and tomatoes in the greenhouse) I am also going to grow this year: beetroot, butternut squash, patty mix squashes, beetroot, swede, fennel, asparagus, rhubarb, rocket, perpetual spinach, kale, cabbage and some spring onions...

I love the stirrings of spring - bring on the growing season!!!!