Surrey

Anita Rani is in Surrey looking at the revival of the county’s hop industry.  She meets Bill Biddell who manages Puttenham Hop Garden, the last commercial grower in Surrey.  Bill shows her round the hop garden and gets her to breathe in the fragrance of the hops they grow.  Anita then gets stuck in with the harvest helping pick the bines and sees the drying and bagging processes.

Tom Heap is on the hunt for one of Britain’s best loved mammals, the red squirrel. After finding out how the invasive American grey muscled the red out of much of the UK, Tom comes face to face with another rare mammal that is seen by some to be the red’s saviour, the pine marten. It’s thought that pine martens have a bit of an appetite for greys, but can’t catch the reds! So are we on the verge of a red resurgence?  

Yes, it’s finally time for your winner of this year’s Countryfile Photographic competition to be revealed. John’s here to announce which one of these 12 fantastic pictures you voted for to grace the cover of the Countryfile calendar for 2017.

If you’d like one of next year’s calendars sold in aid of BBC Children in Need, please click here  

Anita travels to a small independent brewer who’s looking to bring back Surrey’s fabled white bine hop.  Rupert Thompson of the Hogs Back Brewery, has planted the first white bines seen in Surrey for years. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries Surrey was one of the most important hop growing regions of the country thanks to the white bine, but by the 1920s it was gone, wiped out by disease. But what does the beer it produces taste like?

It’s just one week until the Countryfile Ramble and we’d like to see all of you out and about in the countryside rambling for BBC Children in Need. Matt Baker meets Levana who lost both of her legs after contracting meningitis as a baby. Next weekend Levana will join Matt on his ramble in the Lake District, but first she needs to test out her new prosthetic legs with Matt on a slightly more gentle walk in Gloucestershire.

Find out more about the Countryfile Ramble here 

Down on the River Wye Anita is helping Jim Jones of the Surrey Wildlife Trust look for a very special creature, the humble harvest mouse.  Jim and his team of volunteers are looking at the genetic similarities between different populations.  This work is vital if they are to show how effective the county’s wildlife corridors are.  But the weather is against them and it seems they might be out of luck.

Find out more about harvest mice   

Harvest is the busiest time of the year on Adam’s farm. When the weather conditions finally improve, Adam and his team get the chance to bring in his crop of spring barley. Most of his animals are raised out in the field and a new litter of Gloucestershire old spot piglets are finally ready to be turned out, it's their first taste of the great outdoors. Adam’s also preparing for next years lambs. 

Anita joins a crowd of locals celebrating the first new brew of the season.  They call it a T.E.A party – that stands for Traditional English Ale, and involves drinking a brew made with green hops that hasn't been dried. But Anita’s actually very keen to try something else, a beer made with the legendary white bine hop.  But what’s her verdict?