Growers and veg box volunteers sprout up in numbers

We’ve had a great response in the last few days from volunteers keen to help out both on our growing team and our picking and packing squad.

Camel CSA’s volunteer growers worked hard today to weed the veg beds, mulch around the celery, celeriac and sweetcorn with green manure and to harvest the garlic.

Many thanks to expert grower Jane Mellowship and her team – Anne, Cath, Charlotte, Danny, Mark, Mike S and Rebecca plus junior members Finn and Keira. 

On Friday the volunteer picking and packing squad harvested quantities of our own Swiss chard, perpetual spinach, salad leaves, lettuces and garlic to match the rest of the veg box contents from expert growers Jane, Mark Norman, and Jeremy Brown of St Kew Harvest.

Thanks also to picking and packing supremo Trish and her squad – Anne, Charlotte, Henrietta, Jenny, Jeremy, Mark N, Penny, Robert and WWOOFer Gillaume, who’s visiting Cornwall from his home in the French Alps.

As Trish said: “It was good fun this morning. What a difference it makes when there’s a fair number of people there to help!”

The garlic’s now strung up inside our packing shed, where it’s drying out.

All the volunteers were rewarded this week with some freshly-picked boysenberries, which are ripening quickly at the perimeter of our plot in this warm, humid weather. 

If you’d like to take part in the growing operation or veg box preparation, just turn up on our site at St Kew Highway on a Friday or Sunday morning at 10am.

We need some more help with packing our veg boxes

Now our spring-sown crops are beginning to mature, there’s more harvesting to do for the veg boxes on a Friday morning. So we could use some more volunteers on our picking and packing squad.

The team meets every Friday at 10am in the new packing shed on our plot at St Kew Highway. 

Veg box preparation takes about two hours and involves harvesting and sorting vegetables, weighing them and distributing them among the 25 or so weekly boxes.

Afterwards, there’s always the opportunity to relax and have a friendly cup of fair-trade tea or Cornwall-crafted Origin coffee and home-made cake next door at St Kew Harvest Farm Shop. 

If you’re able to help out please contact Robert Manders on 01208 880022 or e-mail him at manders@waitrose.com  

Veg growing jobs for Sunday

After a welcome day of rain, we won’t need to do any hand watering in the near future. However, as usual there are plenty of things for our volunteer growing team to do on our site at St Kew Highway this Sunday.

Expert grower Jane Mellowship says:

Jobs for Sunday include sowing salad for our own mixed salad bags, coriander and bulb fennel. None of which particularly thrive in hot, dry conditions, which is exactly what it has been of late. So when germinated the crops are going to need some extra care to ensure they don’t get tempted to bolt!

And of course there is always a little weeding to be done. See you Sunday.

A little help from our friends

Our visitors from Trevalon Organic Co-operative set to work on Sunday and gave us some very welcome assistance on the veg plot. 

It’s amazing what a team of dedicated vegetable growers can do in a short time. They helped us get through all our weeding, watering, planting and sowing chores.

In the blazing sunshine we sowed plenty of carrot seed and planted out bee borage. But we decided not to risk planting out the celery in such hot, dry conditions.

At the same time we exchanged news and views about organic cultivation methods, how to make local food work and the growing number of community supported agriculture schemes here in the south-west.

Many thanks to all five members of the Trevalon group who’d travelled from Herodsfoot, led by landowner Mark Simon.

Camel CSA’s expert growers Jane, Jeremy B and Mark N organised our own volunteer growing team of Charlotte, Danny, Kitty, Mark M, Mike S, Rebecca and Tess.

We deserved our al fresco lunch, when we were all joined by fellow Camel CSA volunteers Dan, Kate, Penny, Robert and Theresa.  Plus members of our junior wing – Brooke, Carla, Finn, Keira and Seth along with babes-in-arms Daisy and Hollie.

We’re raising the roof

At long last we have a shed to shelter our volunteer picking and packing team from the Cornish elements.  

We’re marking the occasion with an informal picnic at the veg plot this Sunday 23 May.  This will start to happen as the volunteer growers finish work about 12.30 pm.

It’ll be a chance to get together and celebrate the season, plus anything else that comes to mind…

Everyone’s welcome. All ages of course.  Please bring your own food and drink and be prepared to share it!  I expect we’ll be on site until around 3pm.

According to a rumour from the Met Office it promises to be sunny and warm, so keep your fingers crossed.

Time to flex those muscles

Feeling energetic in the spring weather?  The growing team has lots of jobs on the veg plot this Sunday.

We need to spread barrowloads of compost on some newly-formed beds and dig out a base for our new shed. We’ve also more sowing, weeding and planting out to get done.  

We’ll be on the site between 10am and 1pm on Sunday. If you’re able to come, please bring an assortment of spades, rakes, hoes, hand tools and, if possible, a wheelbarrow for the compost shifting. And don’t forget to include gloves and a snack!

Last weekend expert grower Jeremy got the tractor out and formed several new growing beds for us to spread with the compost.  We have carrot, parsnip and spinach seed to sow.

Kitty, Mark M, Penny, Rebecca, Robert and Charlotte performed some painstaking tasks. We dug out thistles from the garlic and onion beds, weeded beetroot and pricked out celery seedlings.

See: -
What we’re growing for the veg boxes this year

Come and get stuck into our veg plot

Make the most of this lovely spring weather.  Come and share in the push to get our vegetables in the ground.  There’s lots to do.

We need plenty of people at our volunteer growing session this Sunday 11 April to prepare some more beds and spread compost.  There’s also celery and broad beans to plant out as well as beetroot and parsnip seeds to sow.

Please join us between 10am and 1pm on Sunday.  You’ll find us on the plot behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop.  If you can, bring tools – hoes, spades, forks, trowels, rakes, wheelbarrows. 

Help us to get veg growing again

It’s time to get growing again

What we’re growing for the veg boxes this year

Now the moment everyone’s been waiting for.  We can finally reveal what’s going to be in Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s vegetable boxes from June onwards. 

There’s a fantastic selection to look forward to.  Our own volunteer growing team will be cultivating a variety of root crops, salad leaves and herbs on our plot behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop at St Kew Highway.  

Our own share of the harvest will include early carrots, broad beans, parsnips, beetroot, radish, celeriac, Jerusalem artichokes, self-blanching celery, bulb fennel, sweetcorn, salad leaves, Swiss chard, perpetual spinach, parsley and coriander. 

Our team of three expert growers will be providing the bulk of the other vegetables, apart from winter brassicas and main crop potatoes.  Between them, they’re growing a tremendous variety.

Organic

Jane Mellowship, who gave birth to Daisy in February, is concentrating solely on growing in her polytunnel on the coast at New Polzeath.  She’s supplying early spring onions, French beans and chilli peppers.

Mark Norman has a permanent bed system and a polytunnel on his sloping, south-facing plot on the eastern outskirts of Bodmin.  He’s planning to supply quantities of runner beans, main crop carrots, courgettes, garlic, kohl rabi, leeks, onions, spring onions, early potatoes, squash, pumpkin, swede, peppers and blackcurrants. 

Jeremy Brown grows vegetables for his business at St Kew Harvest Farm Shop on land and in polytunnels adjoining the shop.  This year he’s also cultivating some autumn raspberries and strawberries.

He’ll provide the veg boxes with main crop French beans, purple sprouting broccoli, main crop carrots, courgettes, leeks, onions, spring onions, peas, early potatoes, squash, pumpkins, turnip, cucumber, tomatoes and basil. 

All the crops listed above will be grown to organic principles.

CSA members will also be harvesting dessert and culinary apples from the orchard we’ve adopted at West End, St Mabyn.  These will be used for juicing as well as eating.

Local

Once again, we hope to buy in autumn and winter brassicas from Richard Hore, who cultivates a range of all-season crops for his own veg stall at Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick.

He’ll be supplying us with Brussels sprouts, purple sprouting broccoli, calabrese, summer and winter cabbage, cauliflower and kale from his fields close to the Camel estuary.

Next winter we aim to get main crop potatoes from Johnny Brown (Jeremy’s Dad) at Benbole Farm, St Kew Highway and from Colin and James Mutton at Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn.

If we fall short of filling the boxes with a good variety or if the box numbers rise significantly, it’s possible we might need to buy in extra quantities from other small-scale local suppliers.

It’s time to get growing again

You’re all invited to join our first vegetable growing session of the year this Sunday 14 March.  It’s exactly a year to the day since our volunteer team started preparing the ground and planting the first seeds.

We’ll be out in force from 10am onwards on Camel CSA’s site behind St Kew Harvest Farm Shop, just outside St Kew Highway.  There’s plenty of parking.

Please turn up any time between 10am and 12 noon.  We’re a friendly and energetic bunch and you’ll be made to feel very welcome.  We represent all ages, shapes and sizes. 

Be prepared to get your hands dirty.  Wear old clothes, boots and a hat and bring gardening gloves. 

If it’s threatening rain you’ll need a waterproof jacket and some waterproof trousers, as there’s limited shelter from the elements.  If you can, please bring tools - forks for tackling the dockleaves, plus hoes and hand tools for weeding the broad beans and garlic.  We’ll be planting some celeriac and parsley seeds into modules as well.

We always stop for a refreshment break – tea, coffee and water are provided.  You may want to bring a snack to boost your energy levels as it can be hard work!  If you’d like to know more about these Sunday growing sessions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Other jobs

If you’d rather help with preparing vegetables and packing veg boxes, you can join our volunteer picking and packing team on a Friday morning between 10am and 12 noon.  

This enthusiastic and sociable group has been turning out every week since our first harvest last July.

A few of the regulars normally have a cup of coffee or tea (cakes optional!) in the shop afterwards.  Please contact us if you’d like to join the Friday picking and packing rota.

Lastly, if admin’s more your thing we can always use your skills.  Please get in touch with a member of the core group to find out what needs doing.  There’s always something on the to-do list.

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.