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Come on, soil your pants!

By
Editorial team
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Soil testing is often expensive and usually unfathomable – but there is another way to check your soil health says expert Charlotte Tombs.

Soil your pants? Ew! I hear you all cry. Disgusting!
What on earth is she on about now?
Allow me to explain… The latest science emphasis in growing flowers or vegetables is all about your soil’s health (is this something else we have to worry about now?).
On digging a bit deeper (excuse the pun) it does seem to make some sense. If your soil is super healthy and full of all the micro-organisms it needs, then your plants too will thrive and flourish as they take up all those lovely nutrients from that super healthy soil. But we need to understand more.

An unorthodox test lab
The conventional way to test your soil is to spend money on a specialist kit, send away the samples to be tested in a laboratory and then receive the results back – and not really understand what they are, or be any clearer on the findings (is a low Ph level good or bad? I barely knew what that meant at school …).
The unconventional way, and the one I have read up on, is far simpler. You need to ‘plant’ a pair of 100% cotton Y fronts or boxers (best to ask the owners permission before taking them – you don’t want to be burying his lucky pants) in the soil in your garden.
Bury the pants, several pairs if your garden is extensive, roughly 10 to 15cm deep in your flower or vegetable beds, and simply leave them for six weeks. Mark where you planted them (or some time in the future you will have men in white all-in- one suits looking for where the body is buried) and make a note in your diary of when to dig them up. After your six weeks are up, if the pants are still wearable and will protect your modesty then your soil needs attention. If they are ragged and rotting then you’ve lost a pair of pants, but can rest assured that at least your soil is alive and well. You should have good healthy flowers and vegetables. And probably buy some new pants.
Apparently the optimum season to try this experiment is in the summer months when the soil’s biology is more active.

What to do next
If your experiment reveals less than healthy soil, there are a few things that you can do. Firstly stop using pesticides and chemicals; their effects underground might not be obvious at first, but in time they might be having the opposite effect to the one intended and be destroying your garden.
Secondly, minimise digging so as to avoid disturbing the complex structure of the soil – farmers have almost entirely stopped ploughing their fields for this same reason.
Of course, do add peat-free – or better still your own – garden compost and other well rotted organic matter on the top, and just let the worms bring this down into the soil.
I will report back on the result of my test and share the results (but not the pictures!).

by Charlotte Tombs

The Easter bunny and the chocolate egg

By
Editorial team
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As we approach the Easter holidays, the Damory small animals team provide a seasonal reminder about choosing rabbits for pets, and on chocolate for dogs.

With Easter approaching, it might seem like a great time to buy an ‘Easter Bunny’. While rabbits make lovely pets it is always important to do your research before getting a new animal to care for.
Your main considerations when deciding whether to take on a pet rabbit should be whether you can provide enough space and suitable housing, the right kind of company (rabbits are very social animals and should be kept in pairs or small groups), the correct diet and suitable healthcare. It is always an exciting time to get a new pet, but it is important that you can commit to being able to care for them lifelong; the current estimate from the PDSA on the cost of owning a rabbit ranges from £6,500 up to as much as £30,000 for their lifetime – and they can live up to 10 years.
Choosing the right bunny for you should be well thought through, and ideally we would always recommend rehoming from a reputable rescue centre, such as Margaret Green Animal Rescue based in Church Knowle in Dorset. If you are thinking about getting a rabbit, check out the PDSA website for more information on caring for them and recommended suitable housing.

Chocolate
During Easter the amount of chocolate in your home will most likely be on the rise. This is great for you – but not so great for your dogs.
Chocolate contains an ingredient called theobromine; this is hard for dogs to digest, allowing it to build up to
toxic levels in their system very quickly. Different chocolate has different levels of theobromine:
Cocoa, cooking chocolate and dark chocolate have the highest levels of theobromine, whereas white and milk chocolate have the lowest. This is why it is very important to know what type of chocolate your pet has eaten so the vet can assess the toxicity correctly.
The amount that is fatal to your pet depends on its size. For example a St Bernard could eat more chocolate
than a Chihuahua before it would become ill, whereas the Chihuahua wouldn’t need much at all to make it poorly. In large doses chocolate can be fatal to dogs – it can cause seizures, irregular heartbeat, internal bleeding and heart attacks.
To try and reduce the risk of your pet getting hold of any chocolate try and keep any chocolate out of reach of your dog, securely stored away from them and sealed. If your pet has ingested chocolate we advise you
call your vet immediately. The usual protocol is to induce vomiting within two hours of the consumption to
ensure there is no chocolate left in the dog’s system.

By Damory Veterinary Clinic

The Spring Countryside Show

By
Editorial team
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1

What a great day we had at the Spring Countryside Show today – are you going tomorrow? There’s so much to see, but here’s our own highlights:

Spring Countryside Show dorset 2022

📍 The Sheep Show. Brilliantly entertaining whilst being oddly educational – seriously do NOT miss this show. Way more fun than one man and his sheep has any right to be.
You can find it in the Friars Moor Farm Yard, three shows through the day

sheep show at the Spring Countryside Show

📍 The Farrier. For those of us not fortunate enough to have a horse, the Spring Countryside Show is a fascinating chance to see the farrier skills up close, and Sam is great at explaining as he goes.
Find him in the Garden Village, three demos through the day

farrier at the Spring Countryside Show

📍 The Falconry display. I never miss the opportunity to watch Mere Down Falconry, it’s always a brilliant show. Made even more entertaining today by an unrepentantly bolshy falcon refusing to come home – he simply buzzed the crowd with flashy fly-bys, showing off his skills.
See this in the Gritchie Brewing Company Rural Ring, two shows

📍 Heavy Horse Logging – it’s amazing watching the team at work, and incredibly interesting to learn about an ancient industry that still has a place in modern forestry. Definitely worth stopping to watch it.
See it in the Gritchie Brewing Company Rural Ring, two shows

Toby the Dorset horse logger at the Spring Countryside Show

📍 Jonathan Marshall’s Free Spirits Show at Dorset’s Spring Countryside Show – no one could walk past without stopping to watch the beauty of Jonathan’s Amadeus (yes, he’s one of the Lloyds Bank black horse) and Aria the falcon. Not the show you’re expecting – see our interview with Jonathan Marshall here.
See Jonathan in the Gritchie Brewing Company Rural Ring, two shows

Jonathan Marshall

📍 Terrier Racing – Hilarious! Think your dog has the speed? Enter them in the terrier racing (not just for terriers, we saw all sorts having a go) – it was just beautifully brilliant chaos. And the commentator is ace. Don’t miss it!
In the Gritchie Brewing Company Rural Ring, two shows a day.

📍 ALL THE FOODS! Seriously. Cheese, gin, great burgers, hog roast, jams, chills, pancakes, doughnuts, sausage rolls, cakes, fudge… Go prepared.

Why not head down to the Spring Countryside Show, it’s a great day out!
Gate Price is £12 per Adult & £1 per Child.
Find it at the Turnpike Showground, Motcombe (between Shaftesbury & Gillingham), SP7 9PL

Tractors at Gillingham's Spring Countryside Show
The police are happy to chat at the Spring Countryside Show
the vintage car rally at the Spring Countryside Show
monster combine at the Spring Countryside Show
working vintage farm at the Spring Countryside Show
Dorset axe men at the Spring Countryside Show

Self-employed Milk Recorder | National Milk Records plc

By
Editorial team
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0

A great opportunity to work within a Farming Environment

National Milk Records plc is looking for an enthusiastic person to become a part-time, self-employed Milk Recorder, visiting 8-9 dairy farms in the Dorchester/Wareham/Bridport areas. The work involves taking individual cow milk samples.

Hours will vary but the work will take up approximately 5-8 early mornings and 5-8 afternoons per month and applicants must have their own transport. A perfect role if you enjoy the outdoor life.

Please contact: [email protected] for more details.

Closing date: 16/5/2022

Spring – the most dangerous time of year for emerging hedgehogs?

By
Editorial team
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“It’s the time of year I hate most” – Jeanette Hampstead of the Hedgehog Rescue shares why so many hedgehogs are seriously hurt in spring.

Below is a video of one of this winter’s successes – press play and sound UP for a sleepy just-woke- up excellent hedgehog prickle shake, a serious scritch, and then some clearly delicious munchies.

Having released the majority of our winter hedgehogs I am now busy organising our next Hedgehog Rescue fundraising event which will be held on 21st May. We have over 30 Craft stalls ready to join us on the day, the field and Pavilion in Hazelbury Bryan are booked … all we need now are volunteers to help us on the day! If you are interested in helping out, please do give me a ring 01258 818266 or contact me on [email protected]. Alternatively, a raffle prize would be a wonderful help too. As the weather begins to brighten and the days lengthen our minds turn to garden maintenance and cleaning up all those messy areas in the shed. It’s the time of year I hate the most. We have more hedgehogs admitted into the rescue with life-changing injuries than at any other time.

Burns
People always say to me that they light the fire from one side so the animals can run out the other but hedgehogs do not run. They are scared by the voices and noise, so they simply curl up into a ball. And that is where they stay until they are burnt. Even then they do not run out the other side, because they do not understand about fear. Just by moving the pile to be burnt you could save several hedgehog lives that you do not even realise need saving.

Strimmers and lawn mowers
Hedgehogs make nests in long grass. They are virtually unnoticeable, even when you know what you are looking for. Most of the time a nest just looks like a lump of grass with leaves and twigs. By cutting an area to be strimmed but leaving it longer, then walking through the area before cutting it short may help you identify a nest and rescue a hedgehog.

Major works
Removal of sheds and other garden buildings require planning but a good time to start that planning is now as hedgehogs are waking from hibernation. Removing an outbuilding in the spring gives the hedgehogs time to find an alternative nesting site. Finding a nest of baby hedgehogs is traumatic and stressful for both finder and hedgehog. If the worst happens and the nest is disturbed give the mother an opportunity to
remove her babies if possible.

The rescue will be closed for the coming month so that I can have some electrical work, with new sockets and heater installed; we are also doing some much-needed painting and emergency repairs. See you on 21st May!

by Jeannette Hampstead

The hairy footed flower bee

By
Editorial team
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They may sound like a character from a Brambly Hedge book, but Mr & Mrs hairy foot are a quintessential 20’s couple, says Jane Adams
The hairy footed flower bee is one of the first solitary bees to emerge in spring and people often confuse them for small bumblebees, although their quick darting flight motion is a good way to tell them apart. Image – Jane Adams

She’s a head turner.
Orange stockinged and with eyes that match the dark velvet of her tasselled dress, she somehow has the knack of looking glamorous without being garish.
Her beau’s the same; they’re a well- matched pair. He sports a loose-fitting suit of reddish- yellow tweed and as he fusses around her, the fringe of his silky scarf ripples in the breeze. They’re the quintessential 1920s couple. Or they would be, if they weren’t bees.
But these aren’t any old bees. These are hairy-footed flower- bees, one of many harmless solitary bees that live for just a few short weeks in gardens and green spaces in Dorset.
Males appear first, in late February or March, depending on the temperature. You’ll often meet him in the garden staking his claim over pulmonaria, primroses, dead-nettles, daffodils, and cowslips, and though bumblebee sized, he has a distinctive darting, jazzed-up way of flying and high- pitched buzz. He gets
his quirky name from the long, silky ginger- brown hairs hanging from his middle legs and feet, and if you’re
in his territory, he might try to chase you away. It’s all bravado. He’s harmless, and in common with other male bees, doesn’t have a sting.
Besides chasing you and insects that stray into his patch, he will hope for a female (or two) to come and feed, which they do within a week or two. Black, but for her gingery-haired back legs, the female couldn’t look more different to the male and once mated, she’ll make a nest within the soft mortar of a wall or vertical surface of a coastal cliff.
Here she’ll leave pollen collected on her orange stockinged legs for her unborn young and, after repeating this several times in several nests, her job is done. She won’t see her progeny grow into adults. By June, she and any males will usually have died, but don’t worry, new head-turners will be back again next year.

Fact File:
Found: all over Dorset from late February/March until June. The female nests in soft mortar of walls and soft coastal cliffs.
Males: bumblebee sized. Ginger/beige-coloured hairs, cream face. Territorial. Hairy legs.
Females: bumblebee sized. Black with orange back legs Fast, darting flight. Hover in front of flowers to feed. Often rest on ground or leaves.
Favourite flowers: pulmonaria, red dead nettles, primroses, daffodils.

by Jane Adams – Naturalist. bTB Badger Vaccinator. Nature writer. Photographer. Bee Watcher.

It’s time to find the first mushrooms and your crop of hairy bittercress

By
Editorial team
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April sees the start of mushroom season, and expert forager Carl Mintern says you definitely have hairy bittercress in your garden right now.
St George’s Mushrooms are the first traditional mushroom (grows out of the ground) to start showing across the country, hailing
the start of the season proper. It can be found in fields, by the side of roads, the edge of woodland and on patches of grass throughout Europe, North America, Russia and Japan. In Italy it is known as Marzolino (the March mushroom), and in Germany, Maipilz (the May Mushroom).

As we tick into April, the changeable weather can often remind us of winter one moment and tease us with tastes of summer the next. This year, after such a mild winter, I am expecting a bountiful wild harvest to begin earlier than usual; indeed we can already see magnolia trees in full flower. Elsewhere, those of us with a gardening bent will likely see the increased determination of our garden weeds to populate our beds and pots, and that is where we will begin this month’s Foraging guide.

Hairy Bittercress tastes like cress crossed with rocket and is great for salads, salsa, pesto (hairy bittercress pesto recipe here)and anywhere you would use cress raw

Hairy bittercress
Like so many of our most common garden weeds, hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) is a diminutive, unassuming plant that you probably don’t notice despite its eager determination to pitch up on every small patch of ground it’s given a chance to find. A Pioneer plant (hardy species which are the first to colonize
barren environments, or previously biodiverse steady-state ecosystems that have been disrupted, such
as by fire), it can take root in ground deemed unworthy of many other weeds and as a result it can be found in well-trodden paths and, well, just about anywhere from pavement cracks to plant pots.
Its name is somewhat misleading however – its not that hairy without a very close inspection indeed, and it’s definitely not bitter. In fact, it serves very well as a replacement for any commercially-produced cress, and feels very at home in an egg sandwich! It truly is a delight to eat, and every forager owes it to themselves
to familiarise themselves with this abundant plant – if you have a garden, then right now you
have this plant growing in it somewhere I’m willing to wager.

Birch leaves

Birch tea
Next up, lets talk about an often-overlooked tree, the Birch; specifically the Silver Birch (betula pendula) and Downy Birch (Betula pubescens). The young leaves of the birch tree are often one of the first to greet the Spring, and can be infused with hot water to make a peppery, slightly minty tea. A refreshing drink after a
morning’s forage, and rich in vitamin C.
Silver Birch leaves are simple, with serrated edges and round corners, whereas the downy birch has rounder leaves than those of silver birch, but both grow all over the Blackmore Vale. If you cared to be a little more adventurous, you could also attempt to tap these trees for sap, although the season for doing so is ending as we leave the winter months behind (note to self; let’s talk tree tapping next February!)

St George’s mushroom rings can often be spotted long before the mushroom actually appears as they exhibit circles of lush
grass, a deeper colour than that of the grass around them.

St George’s Mushroom
Finally, let’s talk about the St George’s mushroom (calocybe gambosa). The first eagerly- awaited prize of a new wild mushroom season. Traditionally late April and May is peak St Georges Mushroom time – hence the name, since it would tend to appear around St George’s Day. I would expect to see these any time this month or next, if you are lucky, and committed enough to go looking for them. They have a pale complexion, and an unevenly shaped cap with gills that match the pale colour of the cap. A stout stem attaches this mushroom to the grassland habitat they grow in. They will grow in rings, and these rings can often be spotted long before he mushroom actually appears as they exhibit circles of lush grass, a deeper colour than that of the grass around them.
It has what is often described as a ‘mealy’ smell – to me it smells like bread flour – and this smell is one of its key identification characteristics which makes it a quite safe mushroom to identify. And the cherry of the
mushroomy cake is if you find yourself a patch, they will likely come back every year!

It is also worth mentioning that wild garlic, and all the other plants I mentioned in March’s issue of the BV magazine are still available to harvest, so you might want to click that link and revisit before you leave the
house.

See details and availability of Carl’s local foraging courses on his website: Self Sufficient Hub

by Carl Mintern

Various Vacancies Available | Gillinghams New Inflatable World

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Editorial team
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Brickfields Industrial Estate, Gillingham

BE PART OF THE BIGGEST AND BEST NEW ATTRACTION TO GILLINGHAM

  • 2 X Arena Managers – Full time 37.5 hrs PW              Salary Circa £21k   
  • 2 x Receptionists – 35 hrs PW                                    Salary National minimum wage
  • 2 x Catering Assistants – Full time 37.5 hrs PW         Salary National minimum wage
  • Party Leaders – Weekends and Holiday Times Only             National minimum wage

We are seeking responsible, dynamic people to be part of a brand new exciting venture in Gillingham. The new inflatable world is a community led venture that will cater for all ages and abilities.

The new team ideally would be people who love working in a very busy buzzing atmosphere where work is fun, not mundane. We are launching the New Inflatable world hopefully on the 2nd July 2022 but hoping to employ as of the 2nd week of June for staff training and pre-opening events.

The Roles will ensure that we successfully meet all of our customers’ requirements in a welcoming, fun but safe environment. From greeting the customers to feeding them and even helping them have fun is a pinnacle part of the new team’s ethics.

We are offering an array of roles where you design the sites future as it’s your business 

We envisage these role to be very much focused on building positive customer relations and ensuring our little customers come back for more.

Proposed Opening hours of the inflatable world:  9.30am – 19.00pm

Staff Rotas are based on all staff working one week end in two. Rotas have been produced for these roles and we are happy to share these via email if requested.

The requirements below are based on the position you are applying for a Job description can be sent via email.

Ideally you would have:

  • Qualifications in Child Care / Catering / Reception Dependent on position applying for
  • DBS or CRB clearance required for Arena Managers and soft play staff only
  • Commitment and enthusiasm for  Child Based Activities
  • Experience of working with young children / Catering environment / Front of House Dependent on position applying for

To apply for the positions, please send your CV and Covering supporting letter to:

[email protected]

Closing date for all positions Monday 9th May 2022

Attendance Officer | Fairmead Community Special School

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Editorial team
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ABOUT THE SCHOOL  

Fairmead Community Special School transforms the lives of pupils aged between

4-19 years with additional learning needs (MLD and ASD). The school works in partnership with parents/carers and other stakeholders to develop our pupils in becoming positive individuals who make a valuable contribution to their community.

Attendance Officer – 37 Hours per week, Term Time (41 weeks)

Grade 12 – £20,499 – £23,547 (gross annual salary). Salary reflective of experience.

Working hours Monday – Thursday 8.30 – 4.30pm, Friday 8.30- 4pm.

The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate skills and knowledge to ensure support for the school in raising pupil attendance, investigating persistent absences and improving punctuality. To advise the school on strategies to promote the regular and punctual attendance of all students and assist with the implementation of these strategies.

To obtain an application pack please view http://www.fairmeadschool.com/vacancies or contact [email protected]

Prospective candidates are warmly invited to visit our school; this can be arranged by contacting [email protected]

Closing/Shortlisting Date: Thursday, 12th May   Interviews: Tuesday, 17th May.

Fairmead School is committed to safeguarding the school community. All job applications must contain the disclosure of any spent convictions and cautions. The school will carry out pre-employment vetting procedures, which include the successful outcome of an enhanced DBS.

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