Foraging for yarrow. Yarrow, often called "nose bleed" and "soldier's wound wort", historically and currently used by herbalists for stemming the flow of blood in wounds, as well as used to support menstruation, having additional benefits such as anti-spasmodic properties (helps to prevent cramps). Yarrow also supports digestion.

We are coming towards the end of our summer harvest with the abundance of tomatoes and onions.

We are now working on our processing to make a tomato, onion and chilli chutney. ​

Deer at Badminton.

Harvesting some of our potatoes and shallots / onions...

These were so easy to grow. So for schools and early years settings planting, watering, nurturing and harvesting is a massive opportunity for outdoor and nature-based learning, and of course cooking and eating!

​Teaching children where there food comes from is one of the opportunities and wonders of nature.

Sharing activity ideas during Forest School training. Recipe for bubble mixture and playing with large bubbles. Activity can be tailored for different age groups, with different sizes of bubbles and including a level of alchemy for the older ones.

Forest School Training Course (July/August 2023). Tools that are suitable for Forest School and tools that are not suitable for Forest School. Lots of discussion and an opportunity to safely use some of the tools.

Forest School Level 3 training course. Learning about the woodland environment.

A way of winning hearts and minds is food! That could be campfire food or even a pizza. A few years back we built a pizza oven from clay and straw. It was amazing and cooked pizzas within a minute or so.

We would sometimes hide cards of pizza ingredients around the countryside and then hand the group of children a map with "X" markings for where to find the cards. For every card the children found they could use the respective ingredients for making pizza. Of course the point was to do some exercise, find all the ingredients and then have a feast to look forward to and enjoy.

Sadly the clay pizza oven started to erode in the weather and it was too heavy to relocate, and so it deteriorated to the extent that we needed to remove it.

We are now trialling a purchased pizza oven! Our initial thoughts are as follows:

• ​May be suitable for very small groups but large groups would be a challenge
• Oven surfaces get very hot so management of risk would be critical
• Oven needs lots of managing as heat between pizzas drops fast (consider serving slices rather than whole pizzas)
• Easy to light and get up to temperature
• Portable
• Use of polenta is important to prevent sticking
• Easy to make dough
• Can choose healthy ingredients

Marlborough is blessed with West Woods to the west and Savanake to the East. Both of which are worth exploring. Generally, there are not many people around, so it's great for running the dogs off the lead without too much to worry about and they love it.

​West Woods is predominantly beech and if you look closely you may even find some wild raspberries. Important note, to get to the raspberries before the dogs find them :-)