Camel CSA and Trevalon CSA get growing together

Camel CSA’s growers joined forces with the growing team from Trevalon CSA on our vegetable-growing site in north Cornwall to share skills, ideas and challenges.

A big thank you to the Trevalon team – Mark, Rod, Tom, Zulu, Peot and Emma for coming to visit us on one of the last bitterly cold days of our Cornish “spring”. 

In the space of three hours we managed to fork over a couple of our long, narrow growing beds, remove most of the couch grass, spread a topping of compost and sow the first of the onion sets.

We also swapped experiences, ate cake and talked a great deal!

Thanks as well to our own growers – Mark N, Jane, Mike S, Mark M and Charlotte.

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Camel CSA launches vegetable box home delivery

Great news if you live in north Cornwall – we can now deliver a weekly veg box to your doorstep.

Expert grower Mark Norman is delivering the boxes – a choice of standard or small – in his van every Friday afternoon.

You can join the veg box scheme if you live within a 10-mile radius of our site at St Kew Highway, near Wadebridge.

We grow much of the fresh seasonal box contents ourselves, using organic farming principles. Other local growers supply us with an extended range of vegetables to give the boxes all-year-round variety.

A small box (feeds 1-2) costs £8.15. The standard box (feeds 3-4) is £11.50.

You get a £2 discount if you pick up the box yourself from our vegetable-growing plot. We have a lease on two acres of land behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop.

Camel Community Supported Agriculture is a community interest company, so any profits are ploughed back into the project. Volunteers work with paid growers to produce, pick and pack the vegetables.

If you’re interested in a one-month trial or want to sign up for a regular weekly or fortnightly vegetable box please ring Cath Simmons on 01208 812685 or email her cath@camel-csa.org.uk

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This week’s local seasonal veg – sprouting broccoli

More freshly-picked sprouting broccoli from our own plot for all the boxes. Standard boxes have beansprouts lovingly cultivated in expert grower Mark Norman’s linen cupboard!

Everyone’s box will contain:
* purple sprouting broccoli (Camel CSA)
* chillies (Camel CSA)
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
cauliflower (Growfair, Cornwall)
leeks (Growfair, Cornwall)
carrots (Growfair)
cabbage (Growfair, Cornwall)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes plus:
* sprouting mung beans (Mark Norman/Camel CSA)
* spring onions (Camel CSA)
loose sprouts (Growfair)

* = grown to organic principles

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Camel CSA’s autumn veg growing to-do list

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Do you know anyone who can supply Camel CSA with freshly-picked carrots?

We need carrots! Unfortunately we haven’t got any carrots in this week’s veg boxes as we’ve used up all the indoor-grown crop.

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Volunteers show ready and willing on Open Farm Sunday

It always helps to have lots of people on our community veg plot. So we took the opportunity to plant out squash and pumpkin seedlings and to dig up more dock weeds on Open Farm Sunday.

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Peas… peas… please visit us on Open Farm Sunday!

Enter our slug spotting competition, take part in the National Farm Pollinator Survey, and help us plant hundreds of squash and pumpkin seedlings this Sunday on our plot at St Kew Highway. 

Photo: Shayne and Lucia House

There’ll be guided tours of our Big Lottery-funded vegetable plot and polytunnels. Also family fun and children’s activities, a veg box raffle, cold drinks and home-made cakes.

Entry is free to our Open Farm Sunday event this Sunday 17 June from 1.30-4.30pm – rain or shine.

Come and see: -
• What vegetables we’re growing
• What’s in our weekly vegetable boxes
• How we support other local growers
• How we promote local, seasonal food

You can find us on the A39 near Wadebridge at the St Endellion / St Mabyn crossroads, behind St Kew Harvest farm shop at St Kew Highway.

• AND even if the sun’s shining bring your wellies!

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Come and see what we’re growing on Open Farm Sunday

Love local food? Like to eat fresh, seasonal local vegetables? Come and visit our Big Lottery-funded project on Open Farm Sunday - this Sunday 17 June from 1.30-4.30pm.

Come and see: -
• What vegetables we’re growing
• What’s in our weekly vegetable boxes
• How we support other local growers
• How we promote local, seasonal food

There’ll be family fun and games, guided tours, vegetable box raffle, home-made cakes, cold drinks.

Find us on the A39 at St Kew Highway beside the St Endellion / St Mabyn crossroads, behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop. Look out for the signs.

• Watch these short videos to get a quick taste of what we do

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Cornish mill house garden open to the public

Camel CSA member and garden author Trish Gibson is opening her beautiful north Cornwall garden again this Sunday 3 June from 2-5.30pm under the National Gardens Scheme.

The Mill House at Pendoggett near St Kew is a 1½ -acre country garden on the site of an old mill with ponds, stream and bridges and extensive views across farmland. Entry is £3 (children free) and there will be cream teas and plant sales. 

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We veg growers hate those meeces to pieces!

Wee, sleekit, cow’ring, tim’rous beasties? Or nasty little pests that dig up our seeds and pee all over our polytunnels?

Sharing a vegetable-growing site with Cornish wildlife can have its drawbacks. We’ve been overrun by a plague of long-tailed field mice.

They’ve taken up residence in our potting shed amid the piles of cardboard that we’re using for our lasagne gardening. They’ve run riot all over the polytunnels and eaten everything from beetroot to onion seeds.

So we’ve begun to hang the seed trays from the rafters of the polytunnels. And we’ve decided to resort to more drastic action.

Camel CSA 1: Meeces 0

But as the war against pesky predators continues, so much for the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men. Now we’ve discovered an entire newly-sown bed of broad beans have gone missing…

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