We’ve been sheep shearing here on the farm this week. All the wool is rolled and bagged ready to go to British Wool in Bradford. However, wool is not worth anything like it used to be years ago, wool clothing seems to have gone out of fashion. Maybe the care needed to keep your wool jumper looking it’s best in our hectic lives is just too much. Wool is in so many products, depending on the grade/quality of the fleece. From clothing and carpets to insulation in houses, a natural material in bed mattresses and a great slug repellent to name a few.

With an ever increasing awareness of our environment, the over use of plastics and looking to more natural alternatives, we would like to share with you some benefits of using wool in the garden that you may want to try.

Pop a good clump of wool into the bottom of summer bedding pots (don’t forget to drop a bit of crock over the hole at the bottom before you add the wool, to stop the hole getting clogged). Wool is like a sponge and holds loads of water, meaning you won’t have to water your plants as much in hot weather, great for when you go on holiday. Plus if the wool is from the rear of the sheep, it may have some extra benefits, sheep poo is full of trace elements and nutrients perfect for your flowering plants (don’t add too much just a small piece will be enough).

Now you’ve sorted underneath, wool works as a great mulch in pots or for plants in the ground. Don’t cover such a thick mulch if your plant is loved by slugs, as this provides a wonderful underground shelter until dusk, when they rampage through your borders!!!

If you have plants that slugs like to munch on, Dahlias, Delphiniums, Lupin, Stocks, Zinnias to name a few. Then wool is great at stopping them eating away those new shoots. Unlike a thick mulch to hold moisture in. Pull the wool apart so you have a really thin mat that you can see the soil through (you should be able to see all the individual fibres, you can go even thinner than the picture above). Wool fibres are barbed when pulled apart like this, the barbs are similar to us trying to crawl across barbed wire, slugs really don’t like it. Keep the wool in good contact with the soil so they can’t sneak under.

Don’t buy the plastic toppers for canes, wool wrapped around canes/sticks that support plants, stops people poking themselves in the eye and the nesting birds love pinching bits for their nests, which in turn brings birds into the garden to eat all the greenfly!!

If you can find a local farmer who has sheep ,ask them if you can take the clippings from the sheep’s behinds. We clip out our sheeps behinds before clipping, normally April/May time to keep flies/maggots away from the sheep. We call this part of the wool doddings, but it may be called something else in your area. Fill a tub with the dirty wool and top up with water. Leave to brew!!! Its’ the same idea as making a nettle tea but doesn’t smell as offensive. (You can, if you are feeling brave collect sheep poo from the field, pop it into an old pair of tights, drop it into a bucket of water and leave for a week). You want to add a few cupfuls to a watering can (it should look like really weak tea). Rich in nitrogen, potash, potassium and trace elements it’s perfect. Reduces your plastic too as you aren’t buying bags of granule feed or bottles of tomato feed.

Finally this one’s a recent discovery this year. We make these on our Creative Times Together days. Wool balls slightly felted make great dryer balls. Pop at least 3 of them in your dryer, add some essential oils, if you want your washing to smell of your favourite scent. It reduces your drying time by wicking away the moisture into the balls and as the balls bounce around the dryer in between your clothes, this aerates and aids drying.

Wrap chicken wire around the ring, making a shallow trough, where the plants will go.

Now wrap material around the chicken wire. Stitch the edges to the wire with a sturdy needle and wool. This holds the compost in place, retains moisture and tidies up the back of the ring. We use hessian, an old wool jumper that’s been shrunk (it takes on a felty feel, which is perfect) or fleece material. This is from an old fleece coat.

Then push you plants in between the copper rings; you can open them up to get the plants in and squeeze together to hold the plants in place. Pop small bulbs like Muscari, Crocus or Anemones for late flowering in between. Don’t be afraid to squeeze in plenty of plants. You can use herbs too, which you can snip for the kitchen.

You can either hang up on a wall/door, giving you your own little living wall/door or pop on a patio table to enjoy whilst you have a cuppa on a warm Spring day.

When it starts to look tired pull out, pop the spent bulbs in the garden for next year (leave the foliage on to let it die back naturally; this provides energy for the bulb next year) and plant up for a summer planter.

If you fancy a more natural design, line your chicken wire with moss, plant up with your chosen flowers and fill in with compost.

We are so excited about Monday’s Large Scale Installation class with the talented Fiona of FirenzaFloralDesign. Where students will get to visit our farm, pick flowers from the field, forage amongst the hedgerows, eat delicious food using local produce down by the river in our new Bothy. Named by Fiona some time ago, when we asked our followers what to call our new workshop; at the time its name was Shed on Wheels!! We had some lovely ideas but when The Bothy was mentioned it just seemed  a perfect  name for our workshop, that now allows us to work around the farm. It seems perfect that Fiona should be the first one to use the Bothy.

Fiona will be sharing with students her techniques and styles, at different locations on the farm.  She’ll use British Autumnal Flowers, foliage and fruits. The photos showcased here are of the Sarah Winward  Big Urn Class which took place earlier in the year; where Fiona and Sarah created the most stunning urn arrangements, in May. The photos were taken by Holly of Belle and Beau Fine Art Wedding Photography.

Keep an eye on our blog post, facebook, instagram and pinterest where we will document the run up to the day and on the day itself.

The beginning of British Summer Time heralds the time between the Spring Equinox and Easter.

For us it is one of the special times on the farm; lambing time.

It is a time when all the 3 generations of the family work together. All having their own individual roles, dependant on age!

Bringing new life into the world is such a special experience. Even after having seen thousands of lambs born over the years, each birth is unique. Something inside changes you when you give birth to your own, you become so much more understanding of each ewes needs, pain and the sheer exhaustion they feel. After a few days of nurturing inside, they are taken outside. For the ewe this is the first time she has been out for several months on lush fresh grass (several weeks before they lamb, we bring them all in and feed them a special feed mix and silage, to help them with the last stages of their pregnancy). No sooner has she entered the field, her head is down and she eats. Her lamb or lambs on the other hand have never seen grass or experienced wide open spaces. Its not long before they are skipping around and given a few days they will join up with the ‘gang’ of older lambs. (This brute was nicknamed Hercules. This picture was taken just a few hours after he had been born!)

Spring is seen on the farm in many ways; hedgerows bursting into bud, corn crops in the field start to blanket out the brown bare earth, the flower fields new shoots start to emerge, frog spawn in the pond, birds looking for nesting sites and the whole of the countryside takes on shades of vibrant green.

As the seasons turn, Easter is a time for family gatherings and celebrations. Spending time together, eating chocolate and making memories.

Here in Holme, the annual competition to see the first swallow is under way!!

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter and at last are enjoying the Spring warmth.

Happy new year to all our readers. We hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and are ready for the year ahead.

January is a time where Sue and I can at last get to grips with paperwork and planning; not just in our business lives but in our personal lives too. Houses are cleaned, decorated and sorted. Paperwork is filed, thrown, dealt with and the final part of our lives seems to be put into some sort of order!

This month also gives an opportunity to file and transfer all our photos and videos taken over 2014. The videos do make us laugh and would never be for public viewing, but for us, are more valuable in the planning process than photos. Twice a month, throughout the year, we take a video of the fields detailing what is growing, what we have been doing, things that have not worked, things we should do next year etc. Visually, this is so much better than photos for remembering what was happening at that time. We’d never make a BBC camera person, but is one of the most valuable things we do.

Photos of individual flowers, across the seasons, makes us realise that you really can’t have a favourite flower. Each season indulges you with other beauties. My favourite all time flower was always the Rose but now I really can’t say that just this flower captures my heart. Each season presents itself with some real treasures, some of which I never really thought I liked that much. When you work with flowers on a daily basis, sowing, growing on, feeding, watering, staking, cutting, arranging and ultimately sharing with others, it makes you realise that its impossible to have one favourite. Here are some of our Spring favourites:

Have a lovely weekend everyone. Wendy.