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First Pickings

Our monthly harvest of news! Plus extra online articles

Grant will help discover how to make bees more hive proud!

The British Beekeepers’ Association, which represents more than 16,000 of the country’s amateur beekeepers, will give a £36,000 grant to support the work of a post graduate student over the next three years, in the prestigious Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI) at Sussex University.

The BBKA has been calling on the Government to ring fence £8-million from the £10-million set aside to research pollinator decline promised in 2009 specifically for honey bees. Now the organisation has put up its own money to help in the development of methods for investigating the genetic basis of hygienic behaviour in honeybees.

‘Hygienic’ bees are able to detect and remove diseased larvae from the colony, and so reduce the spread of disease within the hive. Increased understanding of this behaviour may provide opportunities to improve the resistance of honeybees to a number of the diseases which affect them.

Dr David Aston, chairman BBKA Technical Committee, said: “The BBKA is delighted to be able to support this work which will not only help in the development of a number of techniques which will be used to further our understanding of hygienic behaviour as a heritable trait and its potential exploitation in bee breeding, but also the implications of this behaviour in the management of honey bee diseases.”

Professor Francis Ratnieks who will oversee the reasearch, said: “The support for scientific work on bees given by organisations such as the BBKA is vital if we are to carry out practical research on honey bee health and well being.”

Saskatoons – a superfood growing in UK gardens now

One Scottish gardener is trying to single-handedly introduce a new fruit crop to the UK. Gardener and artist John Stoa from Dundee first saw the saskatoon, the fruit of the flowering shrub Amelanchier alnifolia, being grown as an edible crop on a visit to Canada where some 800 hectares are currently grown and rising all the time. He liked the fruit so much that he decided to do some research when he got home to Scotland. There he found that in fact the saskatoon is quite widely grown in the UK as an ornamental shrub but mainly for its pretty, white spring flowers and wonderful autumn foliage. The attractive black berries which are produced in fairly large numbers are largely left to the birds. John started to grow the plants in his vegetable garden and is now on a mission to get us all to try them.

He told KG: “Amelanchiers grow on most soils and unlike blueberries, which are similar, do not require acidic soil conditions. They grow faster and taller than blueberries and have very few pests and diseases likely to trouble them. They reach full fruiting capacity in five years in Canada, with up to 10lb of fruit per bush, and remain productive for 30 to 50 years.

“Nutritionally the fruit has higher levels of iron, potassium, magnesium and calcium than blueberries and an abundance of anthocyanins which are responsible for the deep purple colour of the fruit. These are antioxidants which may help prevent heart disease, strokes, cancer, cataracts and other chronic illnesses associated with ageing. The potential for saskatoons in the UK is huge.”

In Canada saskatoons are being used as fresh fruit in season, usually July, and also processed for jams, jellies, chutneys, pie fillings, yoghurts, syrups, juice concentrates, cider, wine and liqueurs. The bush can also make an invaluable addition to a diverse low maintenance landscape where its flowers, autumn colour and fruit will attract birds and other wildlife.

John has been busy propagating to try to meet the needs of those who wish to grow the fruit and is offering plants from his website: www.johnstoa.com/saskatoon.htm

Plans for more growing spaces lack urgency

More spaces for people to grow their own food were proposed by a Government report on food production launched on 5 January. It said an estimated 33 per cent of people grow or intend to grow their own vegetables; and that growing food can produce a number of other benefits, including better mental and physical health. However, its writers clearly did not understand the potential contribution that could be made by gardeners to solving the looming world food crisis.

The report acknowledged that humanity faces a huge problem to feed a growing population sustainably; but did not mention that gardening, apart from its other merits, is well known to be the most effective way of growing the most food in the smallest area. Nor did it mention that thousands who could help solve the problem by growing their own are prevented from doing so by lack of garden space.

What the report did offer were proposals for developing a 'meanwhile lease' to make land awaiting development available on a temporary basis, and setting up a feasibility study for a community land bank which would act as a broker between land holders and community groups wanting land on which to grow food.

Polythene UK promotes compostable bags

Polythene UK, the largest broker of polythene film and bags in the UK, is showcasing its compostable bags, called ‘Polycomp’ bags, to UK outlets at a forthcoming trade show.

Amazingly the new bags biodegrade in just over a week. To show this the company have produced a time-lapse film which shows how the bags break down – speeding up 10 days of action into just two minutes and will be playing it to visitors at the show.

James Woollard, managing director at Polythene UK said: “British shoppers use more than 17 billion plastic bags per year – the equivalent of 350 for every adult. We use each one on average for only 12 minutes before throwing it away. But there is no ‘away’. These plastic bags are destined for landfill as soon as they are created, adding to the 2.8 million tonne mound of plastic waste produced in the UK every year.”

Polythene UK’s ‘Polycomp’ bags help solve this problem. The biopolymers used in the bags consist mainly of starch and biodegrade fully within just 10 days. The bags are certified as fully biodegradable and compostable according to European standards, which has been set up to regulate products which are disposed of in composting sites.

Biodegradation within Polythene UK’s ‘Polycomp’ bags takes place as soon as mirco organisms are present, and the process is accelerated even further when temperature is increased.

The compostable bags can be used as general carrier bags, garden and kitchen waste bags. The company says that customers will use them as they would most normal plastic bags, but as these can be used in all home compost operations, instead of creating a visible litter they are returning them back to nature. The company hopes that more and more UK retailers will soon be using and stocking them.

Home-Grown Vegetable manual

Growing and harvesting vegetables in your garden or allotment By: Steve Ott

More and more people are discovering the delights of growing their own vegetables, whether in their back garden or on an allotment.
Written by our very own Kitchen Garden magazine editor, Steve Ott - The Homegrown Vegetable Manual gives you all the information you need to make your vegetable plot a success and is an essential reference if you are about to take up the challenge and grow your own for the first time.
Experienced gardeners will also find this manual extremely useful as it is packed with down-to-earth advice on everything from pest control and seed saving to month-by-month reminders that will help you get the very best from your plot year after year.

Hardback, 270 x 210mm, 192 pages, 600 colour illustrations

• Available from Amazon books

 
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