Camel Community Supported Agriculture » mushrooms

Cornish Earlies in the veg boxes

charlotte — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:21:22 +0000

We have some more of those small Cornish Early new potatoes to enjoy in our vegetable boxes this week. They come from the milder climes of Penwith in west Cornwall, which is always the first UK region to lift new potatoes in the spring. We’ve also got another bunch of that delicious Cornish asparagus.

In all the veg boxes we can expect: -
Cornish Early new potatoes (Penwith)
Cornish asparagus (Lower Croan, Sladesbridge)
cauliflower (West Cornwall)
* spinach (Jeremy Brown)
* salad bag (Jeremy)

The standard boxes will also contain: -
* green garlic (Jeremy)
as well as extra potatoes and salad leaves

Green garlic is also known as “wet” garlic. Wash and then slice the whole plant like a leek, then use it to flavour as normal. Jeremy warns that this batch is rather strong!

* = grown to organic principles

How we intend to bridge the ‘hungry gap’

charlotte — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:24:12 +0000

We’re now entering the traditional “hungry gap”, which means that the normally wide variety of local, home-grown veg is becoming increasingly hard to come by in the UK.

It’s the time of year when the root crops and brassicas of winter and early spring either run out or start to bolt in the increasingly warm weather.

At the same time, we’re waiting for the late spring and summer crops to grow.

So what can we do to fill the weekly vegetable boxes short-term?

Rather than go beyond Cornwall or even outside the UK, we’ll probably start to fill the boxes with more ”high-value” vegetables such as Cornish mushrooms from Tregonning Farm, Stithians.

When the asparagus season begins, you may find that it’s one of only a few vegetables in the boxes. But well worth it! And extremely local – from Cornish Asparagus at Lower Croan, Sladesbridge.

We’ll also have some vegetables cultivated in polytunnels by our own expert growers - salad leaves, radishes, spring onions, spinach and coriander.

Growing fast

The growing team have been busy preparing seed beds and sowing all kinds of veg - Swiss chard, rainbow chard, perpetual spinach, beetroot and carrot seeds.

They’ve planted out the first of the lettuces brought on in the polytunnel, and pricked out celery and celeriac seedlings.

Over the last two Sundays our volunteers have also been erecting a much-needed fence to keep out the rabbits, which seem to be multiplying by the minute.

Thanks to expert growers Jeremy and Mark N and to volunteers Cath, Charlotte, Danny, Fiona, Fred, Jerry, Kitty, Mark M, Mike S and Theresa. And to our younger helpers Finn and Keira.

Mushrooms this week!

Trish — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:52:24 +0000

In this week’s small veg boxes there’ll be:
* onions/shallots (Camel CSA)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* white cabbage (Camel CSA)
potatoes – Wilja variety (Burlerrow, St Mabyn)
cauliflower (Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick)
leeks (Rest Harrow Farm)
Cornish mushrooms (Tregonning Mushrooms, Stithians)
* curly parsley (Camel CSA)

Medium boxes will also have:
* parsnips (Camel CSA)
* swiss chard (Camel CSA)
calabrese (Rest Harrow Farm)