Selected winter salad leaves in Camel CSA’s veg boxes

In spite of the lack of warm sunlight, our indoor winter salad crops are going strong in the polytunnels. All vegetable box members are getting a bag of freshly-picked mibuna, mizuna, baby leaf beet, pak choi, lettuce, rocket,  red mustard and golden mustard greens, thanks to our picking and packing team.

All boxes have: –
* mixed salad bag (Camel CSA) **
* sprouting broccoli (Camel CSA)
leeks (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
onions (Restharrow)
carrots (Restharrow)
beetroot (Restharrow)
potatoes (Restharrow)

Standard boxes also have:-
extra 500g potatoes
* black Tuscan kale – cavalo nero (Camel CSA)
Brussels sprouts stalk (Restharrow)
swede (Restharrow)

* = grown to organic principles
** mibuna, mizuna, baby leaf beet, pak choi, lettuce, rocket,  red mustard and golden mustard greens

It’s time to… sow indoor radishes and tend our winter salad crops

The ground outside may be saturated, but Camel CSA’s growers have plenty to do in the polytunnels.

Carrot washing goes on as polytunnel goes up

It’s been a productive end to the week on Camel CSA’s site at St Kew Highway in north Cornwall.

While the new polytunnel framework was being painstakingly put together, the volunteer picking and packing team were harvesting our own homegrown carrots, sweetcorn and beetroot from the veg plot.

As the freshly-dug carrots are so muddy they all need to be washed before they can be weighed and placed in the veg boxes. This Friday the job fell to Penny and Anne, who tackled it with characteristic goodwill and enthusiasm.

The eagerly-awaited polytunnel will house all the winter salad crops we’ve been sowing – corn salad and rocket, as well as two varieties of both mustard and mizuna. It’s the first of three big polytunnel constructions that our expert growers Jeremy and Mark N are overseeing at the far end of our two-acre site over the next 18 months.

Also on our shopping list are a small seeding tunnel, cold frames, a borehole, water tank, pump, irrigation, rabbit fencing, tractor, plough, cultivator, rotovator, storage sheds and other vital horticultural equipment.

Time to sow winter salad and harvest our English apples

Big excitement! The first of our three big new polytunnels is on order and should be on our site at St Kew Highway in a couple of weeks. It’ll arrive just in time to house all the winter salad crops we’ve been sowing.

It’s also time to pick our delicious Cornish apples. We’re harvesting them this coming Sunday from the old farm orchard we’ve adopted in the nearby village of St Mabyn.

The most delicious variety – Lord Hindlip – will go in Camel CSA’s veg boxes next week. The rest will be crushed and pressed into apple juice. This will happen on Sunday 17 October on our veg plot next to St Kew Harvest Farm Shop.

We do hope you’ll come and get stuck in at our annual juicing event. It’s an outdoor activity that’s suitable for all ages. And, as our hard-working press gang discovered at last year’s juicing fest, it’s really good fun!

Veg box packers brave the Cornish monsoon

Our veg box picking and packing team got soaked through this morning as they dug carrots and harvested sweetcorn in torrential Cornish rain.

The carrots were so muddy they had to be washed by hand under the outside tap. No fun in such a steady downpour!

Grateful thanks to volunteer picking and packing supremo Trish and her team – Anne, Mike S, Penny and Robert. They deserve the celebratory drink we’re all planning in the St Kew Inn tonight.

The growing team has been busy sowing winter salad seed. So far we’ve planted corn salad and rocket, as well as two varieties of both mustard and mizuna. They’ll go into the new polytunnel we’re about to construct on our full two-acre site at St Kew Highway.