May has been a month of highs and lows. Chilly nights defined the start of the month when I witnessed a volunteer bowing and saying hello to a magpie. I think he does this often enough for the luck to be spread all over the hill and shared among us; clearly evidenced by another very successful market at the Boston Manor walled garden and a brilliant night of open mic performances at Perivale Library, organised in collaboration with the Farm’s open mic events team.
Horsenden’s very first Beltane celebrations included a beating of the bounds walk to explore our local boundaries and the richness of the landscape in the company of a mysterious and marvellous Green Man. The joyous maypole procession with live music and dancing brought a wonderful sense of community and seasonal celebration to the farm. This year was very much a test run, but the ambition is already set to scale it up into something even bigger next year.
Work to keep pathways open across the hill has been ongoing, as have surveys of the dyers greenweed and wild service trees that are being recorded. A late night newt survey was a fascinating and exciting opportunity to explore the Hill after dark. Led by an Ecologist from Ealing Wildlife Group, a small team marched between “ponds” (divets in the landscape) of various depths, as if they were on a Bear Hunt, but for elusive amphibians. The recent focus on insect and butterfly data collection has now pushed Horsenden’s iNaturalist project to a total of 863 species. Any member of the public with an iNaturalist account can actively contribute to the Horsenden Ecology Project and we are grateful for all contributions that record wildlife encounters but please be aware that some species are protected so it may be illegal to seek/disturb them without a licence.
It has been a month for collaboration. Members of the farm team visited RHS Wisley and came away full of fresh inspiration for work at Horsenden. One of the real highlights was Wisley’s experiments with fruit tree guild planting (a permaculture technique that mimics wild ecosystems by surrounding a central fruit tree with a community of mutually beneficial companion plants) sometimes even using “thug plants” to keep each other in check, which sparked lots of ideas about how the growing teams might recreate something similar within the orchards here at the farm. There was also plenty of inspiration in the RHS World Food Garden, particularly some of the unusual perennial planting, and we’re hopeful that a Wisley fruit expert may be able to help us identify some of our orchard trees in the near future. This is a brilliant connection that continues to grow and evolve.
The farm team were delighted to welcome a group from the Harrow on the Hill WI for a tour around the farm. Last year this branch of the WI dedicated their fundraising efforts to Friends of Horsenden and raised over £2000 to support our plans to get our burgeoning schools’ garden up and running and ready to deliver educational visits. The funding will go towards building a handwashing station. The afternoon was a great opportunity to hear about each others work and make new connections, we believe the ladies very much enjoyed their pizza from Horsenden Loaf too!
There has been a lot of planting out this month, including the newly expanded growing areas in the tree nursery and the Hugelkultur beds in the school garden. The farm is bursting with vegetables, which the veg growing team are looking forward to sharing on the farm shop when harvests grow abundant enough. There have already been a few smaller shops, featuring early broad beans, lettuce, radishes, rhubarb, jams and cordial. But don’t fear if you missed them because there will be plenty more delicious produce on the way over the summer. Alongside the regular jam making, the preserves team have been busy foraging and producing elderflower cordial, which will be a great addition to shopping bags/baskets when it’s bottled and ready for consumption…
Russ is preparing for two more craft courses which will be running in the Woodland Workshop in June: a beginners pole lathe bowl turning workshop with renowned turner, Ali Asadi and frame basket making with master basket maker Ellie Morgan. These courses sold out quickly, so if you’re interested in future courses get in touch at friends@horsenden.org to get on our mailing list. He also needed the assistance of a team of strong lads to help move a very heavy Victorian treadle into the Woodland Workshop. Once this has been refurbished, it will be an exiting addition to the new makers space on the farm.
The flowers have been thriving, and Beth has developed a new flower-picking team to help with the harvests. The Friday arranging team has also expanded, and it really feels as though the flower project is going from strength to strength. The highlight this month has to be the sweet pea wall in the polytunnel, which is rather extraordinary and is filling the growing areas with colour and scent.
Following the success of Jean Claude and Van Damme (the collaboration between the Brewery and the Loaf), later in June the brewery will have Cherry Treeo coming out – three different beers, a cherry fruit sour, a cherry blossom kolsch, and a cherry wood smoked lager. There will also be a new hefeweizen and VeriCrisp will be back at end of the month, with the added freshness that nettles bring, now that they are available to pick again!
We ended the month on a soaring high note with a Leisure Society gig that marked the end of the bands’ trio tour of the UK. The cows were certainly pleased with their private performance and demonstrated with some tail flicks and a head nod or two. The temperatures soared too, with some of the hottest days and nights recorded in May, reinforcing the importance of all the soil-building and water-management work happening across the farm. Hopefully our Hugel swales will come into their own over the coming months!
The blue moon at the end of this month invites us to have another go at letting go and embracing adventure. On the bar, we have a lot of customers who ask for a recommendation, and it’s a joke in our small team that I find this question a bit of a challenge. If you have been waiting for a blue moon opportunity, now might be the time to work on finding some clarity about what to ask for. And if you genuinely want me to decide what you are going to drink, you might have to be ready to accept the adventure…
Coming up in June…
- There will be a Horsenden stall at the Boston Manor Farmers Market on the 6th of June.
- The Solstice Festival takes place on Saturday June 20th with a huge variety of activities across the farm, including early morning yoga, craft and making sessions, as well as an afternoon of live music
- The Perivale Brewery Acoustic Jam session will be moved to the second Saturday of the month (June 13th) to avoid clashing with the Solstice Festival, the Quiz on the second Sunday of the month (June 14th), Board Meeting (board games available) on the third Sunday of the month (June 21st), and the Horsenden Open Mic session will be held on the final Saturday of the month (June 27th).
- Milly has a printing workshop planned for August where she’ll be using Tetrapak packaging to create beautiful prints – so keep your eyes peeled for the dates & booking…
- Horsenden Loaf opening hours: Fridays 11am-7pm when you can buy a burger to go with your beer! Saturday & Sundays 10am-6pm with pizza available between 12 and 6pm.
- Horsenden Farm Flowers will be available for purchase on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
- Perivale Brewery opening hours; Friday, Saturday and Sunday 12-8pm.
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