Whether you approach it from the point of view of conservation, entomology, crop pollination or simply a love of honey, beekeeping is an engaging pursuit and a fascinating window on the natural world.
So what does it take to become a beekeeper?
The essentials are simple enough: some sort of hive, a hat and a veil, an [...]

The wine you made in Part 2 is by no means great. It’s OKish, but it has lots of faults. Think for a moment about drinking a reasonably good wine made from grapes. What are your impressions? There’s a certain indefinable “feel” in the mouth, a sort of viscosity which your new wine doesn’t have. [...]

Method 1: by Red
you will need:
a washing up bowl
washing soda crystals
washing up liquid
hot water
The method I use is to only work on a small part of fleece at a time, the advantage being that it’s not so daunting and you can keep the rest of the fleece ‘in the grease’, in your shed!
When you first [...]

Messing around in a bucket
Those somewhat fictitious “traditional” ancestors of ours made wine in anything they could find. Usually, they would have started it in a big bowl covered with a cloth and then finished it off in a salt-glaze earthenware pot – at which point they couldn’t see it any longer. And that’s the [...]

Getting rid of the fairy stories By MKG
If I said to a fairly representative group “Take some fruit juice, squeeze some lemon juice into it, empty a bag of sugar into it, top up to about a gallon with water from the tap and then stir or shake until everything’s dissolved” then I’d witness no [...]

The subject of face masks and making your own beauty products recently came up on our message forum.  One of our members Manx minx posted a few of her recipes for making organic face masks, she gave her permission for us to put them up so here they are.
Dry Skin mask | Honey Face mask [...]

Despite our best efforts we don’t always have enough time to bake bread and end up nipping out to buy a loaf. The thing is each loaf comes in its own plastic bag. If you really can’t bring yourself to chuck the bags in the bin as they might have a use, or even if [...]

Many people are put off by the concept of Composting Toilets. The reality is that a basic, home made Composting Toilet is beneficial in so many ways and not really much of a chore at all.
What is so difficult about emptying a bucket covered in sawdust once every week or so?
I have now been using [...]

Dandelions are considered to be weeds, but the brightness of their color always makes me want to make use of these weeds to my advantage.
You do not have to go very far and sooner or later you are bound to come across a golden patch of dandelions.
Gather your dandelions (select from a site free [...]

Fear False Economies
You have probably worked out by now that BOGOF offers are a waste of time if you don