Hedgelaying, beekeeping and smallholding
Join Mark Stephen and Euan McIlwraith for the latest outdoor activities from Shetland to the Borders, plus the key stories for those who live and work in the countryside.
Euan chats to the winner of the New Entrants: Against All Odds award at the recent British Farming Awards. Andrew and his wife Aileen took on a farm tenancy in Dumfries and Galloway despite neither of them being from a farming background and have grown it into a successful business.
Mark hears about the shortage of skilled butchers facing Scotland.
Laura visits a smallholding in Angus and finds out what being a smallholder involves and why people are attracted to that way of life
Ploughing with horses with the way farmland was cultivated for hundreds of years until the arrival of the tractor. Euan learns it’s quite a skill as he has a go.
From September to March, the craft of hedgelaying takes place in the Borders. Mark visits a hedgelayer in Kelso to find out what it involves.
Listener Jill got in touch to tell us about the jackdaw she helped raise after the nest it was in fell from a roof. Jacko the jackdaw is now tame as Euan discovered when he visited Jill’s farm.
Mark visits an ethical beekeeper based in Aberdeenshire whose hobby hives turned into a business
And Euan tells the story of the woodcock moon, traditionally known as it was always thought that woodcock would wait for moonlight nights before crossing the North Sea to arrive.