Beekeeping has a reputation as a rural pastime, something you can only do if you have fields and woodland to play with. In fact, according to North London Beekeepers, urban bees can make more honey than their rural counterparts, thanks to the large variety of plants available in towns and cities - a London beekeeper can expect to collect an average honey crop of 70 plus lbs of honey, compared with about 30 lbs per hive in the country.
While the professionals do stress that you shouldn’t just rush into beekeeping it is an increasingly popular pastime, and there is plenty of help out there for those of you who are tempted by the thought of making your own honey.
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Now, I know a lot of you will be apprehensive at the prospect of inviting stinging-type flying things into your garden, but hear me out. Bees do an awful lot of good, and the bumbling ones will only attack when provoked. So no poking them with sticks. And if it weren't for bees busily cross-pollinating, we wouldn't have beautiful gardens to enjoy.
Which is why you should think about getting a Pollinating Bee Log. The £15.95 logs can be hung from walls or trees, and provide safe shelter for bees and other insects.
Product page
Related posts: Bee's beer | Ladybird mansion
Since we read that people in the UK throw away one-third of the food we buy, everyone in my house has been trying to cut down on our food waste. We already feed scraps to pets, but it looks like to really cut down on our waste we'll need to start composting.
In my search for a suitable composter today I discovered Smart Soil, whose sealed, rotating compost bin allows you to add meat and fish scraps along with the usual vegetable matter from your kitchen and turn it into usable compost in around eight weeks.
Personally, I'm taken with their Sun Frost Scrap Eater (pictured), as it allows you to grow plants off the compost you're making in the middle - and it looks much nicer too. Now all I have to do is convince my housemates to help me pay for it...
Related posts: Making recycling sexy | World's cutest composter?
On the 2nd of April, a group of allotment holders in London will be officially evicted to make way for the Olympic development.
The land was given to its tenants 100 years ago be used for gardening in perpetuity, but the London Development Agency wants to demolish them and use the land for a footpath during the Olympics, moving the allotment holders elsewhere. The gardeners are happy to give up their allotments while the Olympics take place, but claim that the plots could easily be incorporated into the development and do not need to be destroyed. They continue to fight to preserve their allotments, and have set up a website documenting their campaign.
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Carbon offsetting is one thing, but what if you want to know exactly where any trees you buy are, and get a reminder of your tree without lopping off any branches?
With TreeTwist, you can buy a tree for £20. The tree will be planted in the Caledonian forest in the North West Highlands of Scotland, and you receive a TreeTwist – a unique, handmade piece of jewellery you can wear as a reminder of your tree. If £20 is a bit of a stretch, a tenner will get you a TreeClip and a seedling. The company acknowledge that planting trees isn't the solution to climate change, but it is a step in the right direction.
Any orders received before 3pm are sent out the same day, so you still have time to buy your mum a TreeTwist before the weekend too.
Related posts: Tree shop, for the person who has everything | Plant some trees, get climate book cheaper
Want to prove your hippy credentials by hugging a tree? How about buying a wood of your own so that you have a choice of trees to hug?
While the advantages of carbon offsetting by planting trees continues to be debated in the press, Woods for All point out that by buying a share in an existing wood you can safeguard it against development, protecting existing biodiversity.
Related posts: Do carbon-offset schemes work? | Trees for life
Instead of leaving the basement idle, or worse, a catch-all for junk best either recycled, given away or (worst case) tossed, consider turning it into a year-round garden. With a Hydrogarden Grow Tent (for example) you can get a hydroponic garden up and running in surprisingly short time without having to know much - according to HydroHobby, anyhow. Growing it yourself would be the ultimate in local-local-local produce, and with hydroponics you know exactly what's going into the food (and therefore into your body). This particular setup costs £175 for a 1.2m version, or £345 for a 2m box. [GT]
Hydrogarden Grow Tent
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