Wiggly Wigglers

Wiggly Wigglers Richard and I went down to record an edition of The Naked Scientist podcast last weekend. You can listen in with Dr Chris and Dr Cat by clicking on or by reading the show notes at
We had a lot of fun recording it, and I think they do a great job to make science understandable and interesting. I hated science at school but I really enjoy these episodes. They have around 100,000 listeners live every Sunday evening in the South East via BBC local radio and over 40,000 podcast listeners worldwide!

Podcast 16 show notes

The great hedgerow row this week. There are several schools of thought on hedges, so this week Richard and Farmer Phil battle through whether it is best to cut your hedges on the farm every year or every three. It may sound very gentle but I can tell you I am supposed to be Harry Carpenter - the commentator and ended up being the referee. They both have some fascinating points to make and of course it makes you think about your own hedges in the garden. So many of us just choose a single species hedge, box, beech etc, I suppose they look so tidy and formal - but variety is undoubtably best for wildlife. Here at Blakemere in the Wiggly Garden we have planted a mixed hedge wiggling (of course) through the middle of the garden. Planted in 2002 its just got to the stage where you cant take a short cut through the middle of it in summer or winter.

Wiggly Show Notes

Wiggly Podcast 14 Show Notes
This week I've completed our first ever Skype interview via the podcast - what fun! And I sat in on Michael editing the podcast which was fabby too. You can make people sound really intelligent when you take out the "ums" and "ahhs"! Not that there were many...... The Wiggly Interview this week which is out on number 14 Wiggly podcast was with Matt Dunwell from Ragmans Farm. He has grown all our Shiitake Mushroom logs and talks about how this fits into his farming mix. Shiitake Mushroom Logs have been really popular from Wiggly Wigglers this Christmas and Matt explained how they innoculate the logs, store them and then how they fruit. He reckons they taste fab and have health benefits too. Listen in, there's lots more - Monty's worm cast, Farmer Phil talks about Penquin Quarter - (its a bull), Richard talks about Kitchen Gardens' Composting Review and we give a Chocolate rating to a great wildlife gardening resource -

Merlin sighting

The other evening as I was driving from the farm to Preston on Wye I followed a Merlin down the road. They are the UK's smallest bird of prey and we did see one on the farm last year. They can fly at amazing speed and hover and hang in the breeze as it pursues it's prey. Then on Friday Richard was pretty sure it was in the Wiggly Garden hovering around the ivy near the bird table.....as long as it doesn't wipe out too many small birds.....(it is on the Amber list itself).

The Victoria Derbyshire Show

On Wednesday last I received a telephone call from the FSB to say that BBC Radio 5 Live was looking for a small business to talk on the Victoria Derbyshire Show about the TUC's new report about unpaid overtime. They have brought out research that says that somewhere around 5 million people are working nearly a day every week doing unpaid overtime. They are talking about salaried workers as opposed to those on hourly pay. My points were that although it certainly isn't a good thing for a business to expect exceesive hours to be worked that flexibility and goodwill is the key. In this world of high tech it is Saturday evening, I am blogging, having just cooked my son his tea and completed the tescos shop online. Later I'll be listening to a couple of podcasts and checking the Wiggly Orders - work is no longer easily defined in terms of time spent or location, and in my case thats great in terms of flexibility and interest.

Review of Composters in Kitchen Garden magazine

Just had through my latest copy of Kitchen Garden and they have reviewed 13 composters. The beehive composter from WW comes out as pick of the bunch as the best looker and among the smaller bins the CompostBox came out as one of the clear winners.

Interestingly they talk about the best way of making compost as piling it all up in the bin and waiting. This is all well and good but in my experience adding waste gradually is much more practical and as long as you add plenty of carbon in the form of cardboard composting making is easy. Worms will help aerate and speed the process up, and of course they will reduce the volume meaning you can add more waste.
Anyway check out www.kitchengarden.co.uk

Happy New Year

Phil the Gardener is out today moving our feeders in the garden. Over Christmas there were 2 dead green finches under one of the feeders and I know that they are particularly prone to ecoli. As we've only just cleaned all the feeders with anti bacterial cleanser, we're now moving them to other places in the garden to ensure that if there is any problem that we minimize the risks. Time and time again I hear people saying they dont feed the birds because of all sorts of reasons - sparrowhawks, cat, squirrels, etc etc but it really has been proven that feeding birds is much more beneficial than not - its just a question of minimising the risks and carrying on.