Some dates to put in your calendar.

SOW events

Community Apple Pressing, Saturday 4 October, 12-4pm, 54 High Street Oakington

Everyone is invited to join in washing, crushing and pressing locally-grown apples, or to just watch and chat! Family-friendly, free refreshments, and local cider available to buy.

You can also come and help pick the apples at the Jordans’ orchard on Arcadia Gardens, 10–11am.
Organised by Blue Barrel Cider, Sustainable Oakington & Westwick and Oakington & Westwick Neighbours.

Community bulb planting, Saturday 18 October, 2-3:30pm, meeting outside the pavilion.

Jointly organised with the PSA. Families welcome. Bring a trowel or bulb planter! (NB still waiting for Council permission to confirm this can go ahead.)

Shared vegetarian meal, Wednesday 22 October, 7pm at the church hall

NOTE: EARLIER TIME! And not the last Wednesday in the month!

A sociable bring and share community meal open to all. We’ll be sending round an “RSVP” link.

Don’t feel you have to produce something amazing and home-made, just no meat or fish please. There’ll be plates and cutlery for everyone but there isn’t a cooker in the servery so hot dishes will need to be brought while still warm.

Community Apple Pressing, Saturday 1 November, 12-4pm, 54 High Street Oakington

Another chance to come along to an apple day!

Wreath making workshop, Wednesday 26 November, 7:30pm at the church hall.

Other Events

Hardwick and Dry Drayton Eco Festival, Saturday 27 September, 10:30-4pm, The Cabin in Hardwick. https://stmaryshardwick.org.uk/eco/

Wildlife Festival, Sunday 12 October, 2-4pm, Girton Pavilion. https://www.girton-cambs.org.uk/girton-parish-council-2/local-nature-recovery-plan/ We are hoping to have a stall there.

Cambridge 25 exhibition at the pavilion on Monday 13 October, 6:30pm-7:30pm. (TBC) Find out about this major development proposed in Oakington & Westwick parish. Comments made will inform the planning application. https://cambridge25.com/ (Note the public consultation response deadline is Monday 29 September.)

Open Eco Homes, tours and talks 26 October–23 November, online and in-person. Visit local homes equipped with heat pumps and other low carbon technologies and hear directly from homeowners about their journey towards increased comfort, savings, and sustainability. Gain practical advice from experts on working with professionals, cutting energy use, saving water, installing solar PV, and making affordable DIY improvements.
FREE; advance booking required. Full details and booking: https://cambridgecarbonfootprint.org/what-we-do/open-eco-homes/

Just a few highlights from Leo’s fascinating talk which prompted lots of questions!

Beekeeping is a symbiotic relationship – you get honey but the bees are also helped.

In summer there can be 60,000 bees in the hive – most bees die off in autumn so in winter it’s just a cluster the size of a fist. A hive includes a brood box covered by a queen excluder and then a honey box with another one or two added through the summer. Apart from the hive other equipment needed includes a veil and gloves, a queen trap, and a smoker. You don’t need much.

In a natural environment there are two honey flows, one at blossom time and one just after midsummer. With garden flowers all year the honey flow is more continuous. You might get 15kg honey in spring, 60kg over summer. You take it at the end of August so the bees have enough time to build up honey to overwinter. Sometimes wasps get in and steal all the honey first.

Grubs are fed on pollen (high protein), then pupate, and then the young bees move onto honey. Worker bees have different jobs throughout their lives. First they act as nurses, looking after the grubs; then as guards, then as foragers. Bees forage for four things: pollen, nectar, water, and propolis – bee glue – eg. from tree buds.

Drones don’t seem to do much – but perhaps there’s more going on than we think? Once a summer they join drones from other hives in a drone congregation zone to which the queens fly off to mate.

The queen lays eggs constantly for 2-3 years – 100,000 eggs from that one mating flight. The old queen must fly off (swarming) before the new queen hatches. This year Leo has been experimenting with encouraging the swarms into nearby boxes.

The native honeybee is small and black and only found in remote places like the Hebrides. All the honeybees you see are hybridised with striped Italian bees brought here in the 50s because they had a gentler nature and were more productive. So they are effectively domesticated.

You can help honeybees by planting flowers and flowering shrubs and trees. Bumblebees and solitary bees don’t have humans helping them so to help them it’s even more important to provide habitat to live in.

There are 24 different types of bumblebees; some look very similar. Only the queen survives the winter so these are the first you see in spring. They like old mouseholes to live in, but also grassy tussocks. Bits of turf stacked up somewhere sunny are useful to them. Bumblebee nests bought online are no use. Bumblebees also make honey but unlike honeybees don’t die if they sting.

There are lots of species of solitary bees. They don’t feed their grubs. Ivy bees are emerging aruond now – have a very short lifecycle. Sawn-up bamboo is very useful to them and they use such “hotel;s” all year round.

Bees and Bee-keeping

Come along on Wednesday 24th September for a talk on “Bees and Bee-keeping” by our own Leo Jordan. 7:30pm at the Church Hall.

Free, but a donation of a quid or two towards the hall hire would be appreciated!

Also coming up!

• Saturday 4th October – community apple pressing day with Blue Barrel Cider. At the old stables on the High Street, afternoon. All welcome to this popular, family-friendly event – help wash and crush the apples, enjoy free refreshments, buy local cider.
• Saturday 18th October – provisional – planting bulbs in verges around the village which have been selected for management to encourage pollinators. With the PSA. More details to follow.
• Wednesday 22nd October – (note NOT last Wednesday in the month), 7pm (note earlier time!) at the Church Hall. Bring and Share Vegetarian Community Meal. We all enjoyed this very much last year!
• Saturday 1st November – another community apple day, another chance to help make cider, and enjoy great company and refreshments!
• Wednesday 26th November – wreath making workshop. 7:30pm at the Church Hall.

Tool Share Coordinator Needed

We have a community tool share kept behind Crossways House on the crossroads, but at the moment nobody can use it because there is no-one to act as a point of contact, arranging to unlock it when someone needs to borrow something. If you could help with this please contact SOW. It’s not a very time-consuming role, and would particularly suit someone who enjoys DIY or who knows their way around tools!

On 30th July 2025 we welcomed Judith Large who volunteers at Shepreth Hedgehog Hospital. 25 people came! Thank you for your generous donations, totalling £120 – enough to pay for three hedgehogs to have ringworm treatment.

Shepreth Hedgehog Hospital was started in 2012, and is run by the Shepreth Wildlife Conservation Society at a cost of £65,000 pa. Hedgehogs need specialist treatment. Successful release is very good at around 60% (compared to the usual ~30% of most rescues!). Rising costs mean there are fewer rescue centres and hedgehogs are brought into Shepreth from Bury St Edmunds to Milton Keynes.

Hedgehogs are classified as “Near Threatened” – numbers have fallen off a cliff in the last 60 years because of habitat destruction and climate change. Drought means they cannot dig out earthworms, their main food source, and have to resort to their least favourite food, slugs and snails. These carry lungworm which can kill hedgehogs. High temperatures also disrupt hibernation (should be Nov-Feb.) Climate change also means mothers leave their young too early.

“Out in the day is not OK”

Hedgehogs are nocturnal and a hedgehog out in the day is always in trouble. The only exception is if you see an adult purposefully foraging through the undergrowth in the breeding season (spring to late autumn) – this will be a lactating female. Otherwise, take the hedgehog to a hedgehog hospital. (Pick up with gloves or a cloth and put in a cardboard box with water, some cat food, and a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel (so long as there’s space for the hedgehog to move away from the heat).)

60% of hedgehogs brought into Shepreth are ones found out in the day. (Another 18% are orphans.)

Reasons a hedgehog might be in trouble include parasites such as ringworm, lungworm, mites, ticks and fleas. Never remove a tick from a hedgehog yourself, or use cat/dog flea treatment – these are toxic to hedgehogs. Hedgehogs also become entangled in mesh or netting, or suffer terrible injuries from strimmers. Other injuries are caused when hedgehogs are burned by chemicals such as bleach, weedkiller, patio cleaner and diesel.

Don’t disturb hedgehog nests

Making nests is an important part of hedgehogs’ activity, and there are three types: daytime (to sleep in), breeding, and hibernation. It’s not too serious if you disturb a hibernating hedgehog if you put it all back straight away and leave it – hedgehogs take 3-4 days to come out of hibernation. But disturbing a breeding nest is more critical – the mother may run off or even destroy the babies.

Daytime nests are flimsy, often in grass, and very vulnerable to strimmers. Before strimming, make yourself really obvious – noisy, “John Cleese silly walks” so wildlife will get away before strimming.

Dogs sometimes dig out hedgehog nests.

Hedgehog poo

If you don’t see a hedgehog at night you might spot hedgehog droppings – long, black and shiny with a tapered end, the length of a little finger.

At the Hospital

Caring for babies

Hedgehogs frequently give birth in the hospital. Volunteers foster the young families in rabbit hutches. But many babies are brought in as orphans; they need almost 24-hour care and are very tricky to rear.

Food

Hedgehogs at the hospital are fed jelly-based cat or dog’s food, and kitten biscuits to keep teeth healthy. They don’t buy specialist hedgehog food. Mealworms are not recommended as they can lead to bone softening.

Release back into the wild

A good release environment is one which already has a good hedgehog population, linked gardens, water, shelter and food. Adults are released in the same area they were found if possible. The aim is to conserve local populations, not to reintroduce hedgehogs where there are none, but young hedgehogs are released where they can support “island” populations by increasing genetic diversity. Oakington is one such “island” and there is a release site in Saxon Close.

Hedgehogs in our villages

Hedgehogs are now rare and declining in open countryside, where there is less cover, fields are vaster, and there are badger territories. (However badgers are not responsible for many hedgehog deaths – 1.5% compared to 10% on roads – except in times of food scarcity.) So they become islanded in more built-up areas, such as villages/gardens, where their population has stabilised and may be recovering.

The best places for hedgehogs are where the community works together . It would be great if we could make Oakington & Westwick a safe haven each night for hedgehogs.

Easy ways to help hedgehogs in your garden

• Top task: Put out water. A steep-sided pie dish is ideal. Use tap water, and clean and refresh daily.
• Create a wild, undisturbed corner, all the better if there are wild flowers too.
• Make your pond safe. Either build a beach into the water, or put a plank ramp in parallel to and against the side (not into the middle because hedgehogs swim round the sides and won’t find it).
• Link your garden to others with a porous boundary (hedgehog highways). Hedgehogs need about 15 gardens to roam through.
• Deal with netting and litter. In allotments pin netting down really tightly. Put football or tennis nets up at night.
• Build a hedgehog house – better than a bought one. You can make one with 20 bricks and a slab, or if more room, from pallets and logs. Put in a quiet sheltered spot, filled with hay (better than straw.)

• Make a cat- (and corvid-) proof feeding station in a similar way from slabs and bricks, with a hole the size of a CD case. Include a baffle, and feed kitten biscuits not wet food.
• If you see a hedgehog, log it on the big hedgehog map: https://bighedgehogmap.org/ (organised by Hedgehog Streets: https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/)

Judith is keen to spread the word so if you know a group who would like to hear her talk, please email SOW to be put in touch with her.

Photos by Judith or from https://swccharity.org/about-the-hospital

Wednesday 30^th July, 7:30pm Oakington Church Hall

Have you been lucky enough to see one in your garden? Would you like to find out how to help hedgehogs?

All are welcome to a talk about hedgehogs and the work of Shepreth Hedgehog Hospital.

A donation of £2-£3 would be appreciated.

There will also be the opportunity to buy some keyrings, notebooks etc (£2-£3 range) to support the work of the hedgehog hospital.

If you have seen hedgehogs this year please record them on the Big Hedgehog Map!

Notes from a talk given at SOW on 21 May 2025.

Miria explained that learning about foraging had been a lockdown project, something to do with her son out of doors. An extension of her interest in gardening, gardens and being a qualified aromatherapist. Various useful books came her way; she particularly recommends The Forager’s Calendar by John Wright.

Principles

Foraging can be seen as part of a wider approach to life. It’s about connecting to the land (and we’re all custodians of the land), to nature and to the old ways. It’s a truly seasonal activity, and one that is as old as time. Wild food is “more than organic.”

It’s practical and easy – you don’t have to go out into the wilderness, start in your own garden. And it’s natural and normal – not a new fad or something exotic.

Foraging includes fruit, flowers, foliage and fungi. Once everything we needed to live came from nature, including cleaning, fuels, decoration, medicines and more. The talk focused on food and drink, but foraging can also be for tonics, for example.

Tips

• You have to decide: What do you like, what do you need, what do you have time for and what can you cope with? For example, Miria currently draws the line at roadkill, mushrooms, ants and snails. (Paul said he’d once eaten citrus ants, in South America!) She also avoids anything like celery or parsley, because of the danger of confusion with hemlock, which is very poisonous.
• You have to actually use what you pick! And you might only end up with a small amount you can actually eat of some things.
• Have a wishlist – both things that are easy to find/identify and longer term desires. Learn in advance what things you seek look like, so that you recognise them at the “moment of abundance.”
• Avoid the “dog pee zone” (eg pineappleweed is delicious but often in this zone)
• Use a good (OS?) map, stick to paths, avoid cliff edges!
• If on the side of a road – consider how busy the road is, how low down
• Kit: long trousers, maybe wellies; scissors, secateurs, Swiss Army knife; plastic bags and boxes. Remember though that often you make your most significant finds when you aren’t expecting them and don’t have these with you!

Laws & codes

The countryside code says leave only footprints, take only litter. So this is modified by the foragers’ code and which includes some of the following.

• Take only what you need for your own personal use. (Foragers often won’t tell others where they found things.)
• Only pick something you’re 100% sure you’ve identified correctly
• Harvest only in abundant areas (which does depend on the season and weather)
• Don’t trample on other plants to get to the one you want
• Must have permission from landowner when relevant
• You may only take wild food; scrumping apples from a farm doesn’t count as foraging!
• Never carry a lockable blade or fixed knife – a small Swiss army knife is legal as it is under 3 inches and does not lock.
• It’s not food for free – there is no such thing. We need to give gratitude by treading lightly on the earth; eg composting, donating to nature charities
• Murphy’s Law – if you go looking for something you probably won’t find it!

Examples

Some of the foraged foods mentioned were:

• Jelly ear and scarlet elf cap – distinctive, identifiable edible fungi
• Dewberry – like a grey-blue blackberry, taste OK, but hard to pick enough
• Seaweed – but there are complexities
• Nettles – Miria hasn’t tried, but nettle soup is popular
• Wild garlic – one of the most rewarding and popular but (so far!) hard to find in quantity in Cambridgeshire
• Fat hen and marjoram are often found in the garden.

Miria’s top targets for foraging are: garlic mustard, ground ivy, three-cornered leek, wild garlic, and chickweed.

Tasting!

Miria had brought many examples, all but one from around the village and two-thirds from her own garden; including garlic mustard (aka Jack-in-the-hedge), dandelion, lilac flowers, mallow, feverfew, hawthorn (leaves and flowers), magnolia petals, chickweed, sweet woodruff, fennel, lemon balm, elder, dog rose, water mint and lavender. We sampled a lot of thes

We tried spring water with goosegrass (cleavers) steeped in it, and hawthorn flower tea.

She had made a salad which included some of these ingredients – salads are one of her favourite ways to use foraged food. Tear the leaves for a salad rather than using metal implements.

If you would like to borrow the SOW sharpening equipment, please email SOW (sustainableow@gmail.com) or put a message on the WhatsApp group.

Nikki who sharpens at Repair Cafes, including ours, led a workshop on 25 June. The focus was on sharpening unserrated blades.

SOW has used some of the surplus from the Repair Cafe to buy the tools asterisked below to share around the group (better for the environment and everyone’s wallets!)

How to tell if a blade is sharp

It’ll have no dinks and divots, and be very thin. It will catch at your fingernail stroked across the blade. Note that secateurs usually have a blade only on one side.

Kitchen knives and scissors

Foil – cutting through aluminium foil with scissors will sharpen them a bit – this trick works with pinking shears (serrated scissors) too.

Anysharp – there are lots of kitchen knife sharpeners but this is the only brand/type Nikki has found that works. (Available from Lakeland.) You just pull the knife through. It will maintain an already mostly sharp knife but won’t rescue a blunt one.

For the rest of the sharpening tools you need to get the angle right: always sharpen at an angle of 22.5 degrees (half and half again a right angle). HOWEVER: consistency is more important than accuracy. Keep the angle the same. Pull/push the knife away from you, for safety. (Note: You will find sharper and blunter portions along a blade.)

If you want sharpening tools to last, use them wet.

Swiss sharpener* – will work better on slightly blunter knives and on scissors, to knock off burrs.

Kitchen steel – works well if you can get the angle right.

Sharpening stone (whetstone)* – Must soak in water first – won’t work if not wet. The numbers refer to the grit (like sandpaper) – the higher the number the finer the grit. Start with the coarser side. (Use the rubber foot to hold it to the table, and an old tea-towel to mop up splashes!) Push the knife along the stone – doesn’t need to be fast, but apply gentle pressure.

Care of knives

Kitchen knives – use a wooden or plastic chopping board (not glass, not a plate) and use the back of the knife to scrape pieces off the board.

Sheath knife – oil it before putting it away (wipe with a little sunflower or rapeseed oil on a kitchen towel.) Then it should stay sharp while stored.

Garden tools and draw knives

Diamond sharpeners* – Nikki’s mainstay at Repair Cafes. Wet first (they will work dry but won’t last as long.) They have grit numbers on the back, 150, 300, 400 – start with lowest and work up – when you see a silver edge on your blade you can go up from the lowest.

You can take secateurs apart to sharpen them (carefully keeping track of screws!). One or both sides of the cutting edge may be bevelled. Sharpen the bevelled edge first, then draw the tool flat across the flat edge to remove burrs.

Boatstone – curved, very coarse stone, better for curved blades like lawnmower blades.

Care of gardening tools

Wipe off any plant material, dirt or moisture with a clean dry rag before storing in a dry place.

SOW will be there in the afternoon at Oakington & Westwick Village Day, at the Rec on Saturday 28th June, from 12:30. Come along and say hello, take the recycling sorting challenge and find out more about helping pollinators through the APollOW project.