Come to Camel CSA’s Apple Day

We’re all set for our annual apple juicing event. The apples are picked and the presses prepared.

It’s all happening tomorrow – Sunday 17 October - between 10am and 12.30pm. You’ll find us on Camel CSA’s vegetable plot behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop at St Kew Highway in north Cornwall.

Our fest follows the success of last year’s event which involved lots of families. It’s just one of many Apple Day events taking place across the country.

Everyone will be able to join in washing, cutting up, crushing and pressing the apples. You’ll also have the opportunity to taste the different varieties.

In exchange for your efforts you’ll be rewarded with a fair share of the juice, either to drink on the spot or take away with you. Please bring a plastic container if you intend to take some home, as it freezes well. 

It promises to be another warm, sunny Cornish autumn day, so do call by.

Cornish apples in our weekly veg boxes

It’s apple harvesting time in north Cornwall! All the veg boxes contain a bag of delicious Lord Hindlip apples from our adopted orchard in St Mabyn.

This unusual old English dessert variety can be stored in the bag in a cool place for a couple of weeks or eaten straightaway.

We’re looking forward to this Sunday when the rest of our bumper apple harvest will be crushed and pressed at our annual apple juicing fest.

You’ll also find a large spaghetti squash in each of this week’s boxes. The name derives from the cooked flesh. This resembles spaghetti when you pull a fork lengthwise through it to separate the strands.

Spaghetti squash are a novelty as they’re quite difficult to get hold of in the UK. So be grateful that Jeremy Brown of St Kew Harvest Farm Shop has grown these to go in our boxes of locally-produced food.

This week’s small boxes have:
* apples – Lord Hindlip (Camel CSA)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* spaghetti squash (St Kew Harvest)
* calabrese (St Kew Harvest)
* celeriac (St Kew Harvest)
potatoes (Benbole Farm)

Standard boxes have all the above as well as extra potatoes and:
* garlic (Camel CSA)
parsnips (Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick)
cauliflower (Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick)

* = grown to organic principles

Tender leek and pancetta risotto

The tender baby leeks in this week’s standard veg boxes deserved special treatment.

What better than a risotto of leeks and pancetta from Nigel Slater’s latest book Tender?

The leeks and the mixed French beans that accompanied them were cultivated by one of Camel CSA’s expert growers, Jeremy Brown of St Kew Harvest.

We’ve passed another milestone

Our picking and packing team prepared a total of 30 seasonal veg boxes for our members this week – an all-time record.  Plus the box we’re offering in a prize draw at the St Mabyn Pre-School Valentine Brunch.

A further milestone was reached.  For the first time, all the contents of the boxes were bought in from other growers.

The fact that we’re buying in such a high proportion of the weekly vegetable box contents at this time of year may seem like an admission of defeat.  But this is far from the case.

In the UK, community supported agriculture comes in many different shapes and sizes.  There’s no “right” or “wrong” way of doing it.

As a not-for-profit organisation we rely totally at present on the goodwill of our members, who make up our volunteer workforce.  This will change as we expand and if we are successful in our funding bids to the Lottery and the Local Action Group.

As we’re working on less than two acres, we’re not in a position to grow large-scale main crops which need constant rotation like potatoes and winter brassicas.  Instead we are concentrating on “high-value” seasonal crops which would be either too expensive to buy in or do not travel well.

Benefits

As a CSA, we’re committed to building up partnerships between farmers and the local community, enabling farmers to sell direct to the public, and providing other mutual benefits.  So that’s why we’re happy to include varying proportions of vegetables in our boxes from small-scale, local growers.

The Camel CSA approach is very much community-led.  It’s organised democratically. Every member has a say in how our project is run.

The core management group is responsible for all the main decisions.  Under the guidance of our three volunteer expert growers, it works out what to grow, how we grow it, what goes in the boxes, what we charge our members and who should supply us. 

All our own onions and shallots – in store since last summer – have been used up at long last.  The remaining parsnips, artichokes and carrots are again well and truly frozen into the ground.

So the carrots, curly kale, onions, purple sprouting broccoli, swede and Brussels sprouts (complete with sprout top!) in this week’s boxes come from Richard Hore at Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick.  

Richard and his family, who cultivate 30 acres close to the relatively mild climes of the Camel estuary, have done us proud this winter.

The winter salad bag was supplied by Jeremy Brown, one of Camel CSA’s expert growers.  It contains a selection of baby leaves such as pak choi, watercress, mustard, rocket and spinach from his polytunnels behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop at St Kew Highway.

The potatoes were grown by Colin and James Mutton of Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn.

It’s jolly juicing time

We’ve located not just one but two fruit crushers and presses so we’re looking forward to Camel CSA’s apple juicing event this Sunday.

All members and their families are very welcome – children particularly so.  Just come to our site behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop between 10 a.m and 1 p.m.

Everyone will be able to have a hand in washing, cutting up, crushing and pressing the apples.

Please bring a clean plastic container to put the juice in.  You can either keep it in the fridge and drink it within 48 hours or freeze it in the container.

Wanted – more apples

We picked loads of apples last week in St Mabyn.  Thanks to Anne, Callum, Caroline, Charlotte, Kitty, Mark M, Mark N, Mike H, Mike S, Robert and Tess.   

The best of the fruit is going in this week’s share of the harvest.  The remainder will be turned into juice.

However we could do with some more.  The crushing and pressing process uses up a lot of fruit!  Around 20 lbs (10kg) of apples are needed to produce a gallon (4.5 litres) of juice.

So if if you know of any surplus apples going spare, please get in touch.  Even better, bring them along with you.

Click here to find out more about Vigo’s traditional fruit crushers and presses.

Children join the beanfeast

Three of Camel CSA’s youngest members contributed their own homegrown veg to this week’s boxes.

Lilac (8), Willow (7) and four-year-old August grew all the runner beans and some of the courgettes.

Core group member Antonina, co-owner of St Kew Harvest Farm Shop, explains:

“Lilac, Willow and August wanted to share their harvest grown at their home at St Kew. 

 

So I paid them £8.60 for lots of runner beans and courgettes and three large marrows which they have grown from seed all by themselves. 

 

They’ve been following our blog, and got concerned about the beans being eaten!”

Bring out your bungees!

Postal workers have been under fire for littering the ground with unwanted red rubber bands.  But at Camel CSA we’re looking for as many as we can get.

Our picking and packing team urgently needs rubber bands for bunching up spring onions, chard, parsley and other such delicacies to go in our veg boxes.

So if you know of any postboxes where they get discarded, or have a small stash lying around at home or in the office, please drop them in for us at St Kew Harvest farm shop.

BBC News came up with 10 uses for a red rubber band but makes no mention of veg boxes.  Pity.

This week’s share of the harvest

Camel CSA’s Big Lunch

Camel Community Supported Agriculture is hosting its own Big Lunch for members, their families and friends this Sunday 19 July.

 Just turn up at 1 p.m. on our site behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop at St Kew Highway near Wadebridge.  Please bring a plate or bowl of seasonal food to share (preferably using veg box contents), a chair, a plate, cutlery, a glass and a drink.

Watch our latest video: Camel CSA - Our first harvest

Our first veg boxes

We’ve done it - we’re starting to eat our own food! 

More than 15 Camel Community Supported Agriculture members receive their first vegetable boxes on Friday 3 July. 

A great deal of human effort has gone into providing these first fruits of our labour.  It’s hard to believe that we only started preparing our site at the beginning of March and sowed the first seeds just a few weeks later.

Our first share of the harvest will contain: - 

• broad beans
• potatoes
• onions
• beetroot
• Swiss chard
• a bunch of curly or flat-leaved parsley
• turnips and radishes – possibly
• green salad

We’ve grown the first eight items ourselves at St Kew Highway.  The salad leaves are being provided by Jane Mellowship, one of our expert growers, who has her own vegetable plot at New Polzeath.

Hard work

We’ve made enormous strides since March – entirely as a result of the dedicated volunteer labour provided by members and expert growers.  Some people said we would never manage it, but we have proved that we can.

Many hours of hard work have gone into preparing the 40-metre long growing beds, spreading compost, digging up dock leaves, sowing seeds, planting out seedlings, hoeing and an enormous amount of hand weeding.  We’re grateful to our expert growing team and all the volunteers who have turned up on Sunday mornings – rain or shine.

Last Sunday we thinned out and hand weeded the parsnips, weeded the Swiss chard, spread compost and dug up yet more dock leaves that were threatening to go to seed. 

A big thanks to expert grower Mark Norman, to members Charlotte, Diana, Mike H and Mike S, and to visitors Donna and Marianne.

Another team of volunteers will be picking and packing the boxes every Friday morning.  If you’d like to be included on the rota, please contact Mark Norman or phone Antonina at St Kew Harvest. 

Box collection

 

“Your name will be on your box, please take your own box and anyone else’s that you are delivering.  Remember to give us feedback as soon as possible.

 

A special thank you to to Penny and Robert Manders and to Mike Haywood for volunteering to help Mark with the first harvest and packing.

 

Happy eating!”

Feedback on box content and any queries about veg box administration should be sent to Cathy at thefarm@bodminmoor.co.uk