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Autumn 2014
Update from The Green Valleys team www.thegreenvalleys.org
Gareth Ellis – [email protected] Barnett – [email protected] Searl – [email protected]
Ideas needed!With so many great projects going on in all our member groups its difficult to create thetime to get around and see you all as regularly as we’d like! Whether you’ve neverworked with us or we’ve helped you deliver projects before we’d still love to hearabout your ideas and help you make them a reality. Get in touch with Gareth and we’llsee what we can come up with!
Make juiceWe have our apple/pear scratter and press available to borrow by community groups. Ifyou have an abundance of apples, rather than see them wasted, juicing is an ideal wayto make sure we make the most of our seasonal bounty! Juice can be pasturised, frozenor fermented into cider. What not try mulled juice or cider this winter? Get in touchwith Charlie if you’re interested!
Unwanted fabrics and sewing materials ?
Stitch Together
Stitch Together is a new projectfrom The Green Valleys wherepeople meet up to share, learnand develop sewing skills whilstpromoting a more sustainableway of living by recycling, and‘making do and mending’.
We have venues in Brecon andAbergavenny with equipmentand materials that some peoplemay not have access to e.g.sewing machines, fabrics, dress-making scissors, cutting outtables.
Stitch Together is run in Breconfortnightly on a Wednesday at Muse(the Old Museum), and inAbergavenny every Thursday at theMelville Theatre.The day starts at 10am, and peoplecan drop in at any time until 4pm.
Our aim also is to create a bank ofdonated fabrics, patterns, books andthreads (tapestry wools, silks,cottons) for everyone to share, andwe will be running environmentallysustainable workshops e.g. makeyour own draught excluders, liningsfor curtains, reusable shopping bagsetc
Teaching days will be arranged for specific skills by request, and we will hold up-cycling events.
Along the way we will be creating a relaxed, social environment where people cancome together to share ideas and chat over tea and cake.
If you would like to be involved or would like to make donations please contact:
Charlie Searl in Brecon, [email protected] 07967 343619OrLiz Barnett in Abergavenny [email protected] 07984581871
Brecon – fortnightly Wednesdays at The Muse (the old museum)Abergavenny – weekly Thursday at the Melville Theatre
This project is supported by the BreconBeacons Sustainable Development Fund
Where does your heat go?
Filling you home with heat during the winter is like filling a bucket with water – if thereare even the smallest holes the heat leaks out! We have an Infrared Camera availablefor community groups to borrow so that you can take a quick survey of properties inyour area. We’ll train you up to use the camera (its very simple!) and how to make abasic interpretation of the information it shows you. All you need to do is spread theword and get people ready to spend an hour or so having the survey done (which willrequire access inside and outside of the property). Groups can generally borrow thecamera for 3-4 weeks from November – February. Get in touch with Gareth to find ourmore!
RENEW Wales
We’ve found out that this excellent Wales-wide Lottery funded project will continueinto next year! The scheme provides several days of time for a local coordinator to helpdevelop your project and then more days help from whichever expert you need! Checkout the website to see what’s been going on across Wales and then get in touch withGareth if you have a project that needs some help to make it happen:http://www.renewwales.org.uk
Naturally, Bee keeping for the future…
It is widely known that our honeybees, and indeed all of our pollinators, are strugglingto live in the current climate. The various causes of this are hotly debated worldwide.What can we do locally though to build stronger healthier bee colonies for the future?Well, there are a few simple changes we can make like planting pollinator friendlyplants in our gardens. Even if you don’t have a garden you could leave shallow trays ofwater outside, with a safe landing surface or lip to prevent drowning, so that pollinatinginsects can access water easily and safely.Below are some links about planting and helping our pollinators:https://wiki.ceh.ac.uk/display/ukipi/Homehttps://helpthehoneybee.co.ukhttp://www.rhs.org.uk/science/conservation-biodiversity/wildlife/encourage-wildlife-to-your-garden/plants-for-pollinators
The Natural Bee Keeping Project
The Green Valleys CiC have teamed up with Andrea Jackman, a bee keeper of over 10years, to pilot a natural bee keeping project, BeeCaring. We bought 3 mature coloniesand transferred them to Warre hives and are blogging about their progress.We are aiming to create awareness about an alternative way of bee keeping, and thatyou don’t have to intensively manage your bees.In doing this we aim to support honeybee populations by providing safe areas forcolonies away from aggressively managed agricultural land. We are also encouraginghoneybee numbers and their natural development in the wild. This is very important asit aids the bees in evolving natural disease resilience, stronger food foraging, and in
having a more natural, organic existence. Eventually, we hope that honeybee numberswill strengthen and that people will understand a little more about their way of life andhow important this is.To find out more check out our bee blog at:http://beecaring22.blogspot.co.uk/
The Brecon Bee’s. Note the bees flying in and out of doorway at the bottom of the hive.They have gathered on the outside of the hive, which usually means that they are readyto swarm – the old queen flies away and takes roughly half of the colony with her tofind a new site and build a new colony.
What’s the Difference Between Natural and Conventional Bee Keeping?
The main differences are as follows:• Warre hives are used instead of National, Langstroth, Top Bar or BeeHaus
hives. Warre hives have been designed to support colony growth as it wouldbe in the wild, mainly creating space below the colony so that they builddownwards. Whereas conventional hives add supers on top of the colony,forcing the bees to build upwards.
• Queen exclusion: as the bees build brood and make honey stores, mostkeepers will separate the queen using a queen excluder to keep her in thebottom boxes. This will leave the top boxes or supers full of honey and free ofbrood so that the bees honey stores can be easily removed and extracted forhuman consumption.
• Extracting honey: most keepers keep bees for the honey, taking the honeystores and then feeding the bees a sugar syrup replacement. However, sugarsyrup does not contain the goodness that honey does. Natural bee keeperstend to leave the honey on over winter, so that the bees can eat as much asthey need, and will only take the honey leftover in Spring. Some Naturalkeepers never take any honey, but simply keep bees to strengthen numbers.
• Using chemicals: no chemicals are used in natural bee keeping, much likeorganic farming methods. There are many diseases affecting bees in the UK,and traditionally these have been controlled using chemicals, for exampleVarroa and the use of fluvalinate strips or ‘Api-guard’ or using Oxalic acid.
• Encouraging natural behaviours in bee colonies, by not interfering or enteringthe hive, the bees are left to practice natural life cycles. Conventionally,keepers go through the hive every 10 – 14 days during the summer and destroyqueen cells, to ensure that their bees don’t swarm and stay in their hive. Also,destroying drone comb to maintain a productive hive, as drones are lazy andeat honey contributing nothing to the colony. It is a natural instinct for bees toreproduce and swarm, and maintain a 15% drone number in their colonies,fighting against their natural instincts is a waste of their energy, and yours!
AA TT LL AA SS TT !!
Nearly 6 years in the making, the conclusion of how a smalldedicated group battled against the relentless power of LocalAuthorities, Planning departments, Government Agencies,Financiers, Grant providers and general indifference to finallysucceed in their quest for sustainable electricity. At great expenseand involving a cast of hundreds it is finally coming to a valleynear you
DD yy ff ff rr yy nn CC rr aa ww nn oo nn tt hh ee -- -- -- -- -- -- HH YY DD RR OO
The Dyffryn Crawnon Green Energy CIC is thrilled that after all this time theircommunity hydro installation is now in progress. The intake is now completed asis the installation of the penstock, buried a metre deep down the hill side to where theturbine house will be. Work on the turbine house has now started and all being wellour community scheme will be commissioned in January.
The new transformer and cable installed byWestern Power to the top of the new postjust up from the turbine house.
Early work showing the mass concretebase for the intake dam to be constructedon.
Close up of form work ready for the pouring of the concrete.
Concrete base and footings forthe turbine house now underconstruction.
The new transformer can beseen across the track and thefilled in trench carrying thepenstock is visible as it comesdown the hill side to the turbine.
Allotments yield healthier soil.
A study by the University of Exeter has shown that the soils under Britain's allotmentsare significantly healthier than intensively farmed soils, researchers have found.A recent study, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, is the first to show that bygrowing at small-scale in urban areas, it is possible to produce food sustainably withoutdamaging the soil.
Its authors, who include Professor Kevin Gaston, Director of the Environment andSustainability Institute (ESI) at the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus, say plannersand policy makers should increase the number of allotments available in light of thefindings.
One of the greatest challenges facing the growing human population is meeting risingdemand for food without undermining the soils on which food production – and otherservices such as carbon storage, flood mitigation and locking up pollutants – depend.Intensive farming often results in significant declines in organic carbon stocks in soil, aswell as reducing the ability of soils to store water and nutrients and damaging soilstructure, which can lead to soil erosion.
The researchers took soil samples from 27 plots on 15 allotment sites in Leicester, alsosampling soils from local parks, gardens and surrounding agricultural land.They measured a range of soil properties, including soil organic carbon levels, totalnitrogen, and the ratio between carbon and nitrogen (which are all directly related tothe amount and quality of organic matter in the soil) as well as soil bulk density, anindicator of soil compaction.
Compared with local arable fields, the allotment soil was significantly healthier:allotment soil had 32% more organic carbon, 36% higher carbon to nitrogen ratios,25% higher nitrogen and was significantly less compacted.
Read the full survey:http://biosciences.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_381071_en.html
Eco Travel Network
The ETN goes from strengthto strength, recently winning yet another accoladefor the promotion of low energy travel. Have alook on the website. Then follow the travels ofToro, ETN’s rural Twizy , on its travels to the wildside of the Scottish Highlands and Islands.
ETN have adapted a standard Twizy to cope betterwith the rural environment of rough roads andtracks. Higher and tougher suspension, carrier rackto the rear, larger tyres etc. and a wonderful newcolour scheme.
www.ecotravelnetwork.co.uk
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Newsletter of The Green Valleys Community Interest Company ~ comp. no. 6889229
Cric, Beaufort Street, Crickhowell, NP8 1NU. telephone 07969 137719www.thegreenvalleys.org
