January 31, 2011
Camel Community Supported Agriculture member Trish Gibson is to appear on Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 this Thursday talking about her newly-published book Brenda Colvin: A Career in Landscape.
Trish is a trustee of Cornwall Gardens Trust and has created her own beautiful millhouse garden at Pendogget near St Kew in north Cornwall.
Pioneering garden designer and landscape architect Colvin (1897-1981) has been hailed one of our greatest heroines. Yet most people have never heard of her.
Author Trish Gibson explains that Colvin had a very self-effacing attitude:
Her approach to all her projects – from the smallest town garden to the massive landscapes around power stations, reservoirs and new towns – was guided by a profoundly held belief that the control which modern man is able to exert over his environment is so great that we easily overlook the power of the environment over man.
Throughout her career Colvin fought for the cause of landscape, endeavouring to ensure that landscape architects be involved right from the start – not called in as ‘exterior decorators’ after the architects and engineers had finished their work. In Cornwall, as in the rest of the country, how many industrial estates have failed to follow this ideal, with ‘mega sheds’ plonked on hill tops with little or no attempt to blend them into their surroundings?
The book, which is published by Frances Lincoln, has already had favourable reviews in January’s edition of The English Garden and February’s Gardens Illustrated.
Trish will be talking about her book and Brenda Colvin on Woman’s Hour on Thursday 3 February between 10am and 10.45am.
January 29, 2011
We’re all set up for the vegetable growing season thanks to a generous donation of equipment from the Wadebridge branch of Cornwall Farmers Ltd.
Wadebridge branch manager Julie Russell (on the left of the picture) handed over the tools to Camel CSA growing team members Jeremy B, Bridget, Bob and Mark N. They include two types of spade (digging and border), forks, edgers and hoes.
The growers will be using the tools for the first time this coming Sunday. We need to dig up the perennial docks that are starting to sprout up all over the brassicas section of our plot at St Kew Highway.
Julie praised people in Wadebridge and the surrounding area for our ability to pull together. “There’s quite a community vibe going,” she said. “Cornwall Farmers is a growing business supporting a growing community, and we’re always trying to forge new links.”
Cornwall Farmers has been a Camel CSA sponsor ever since we set up just over two years ago.
Community veg team given tools to do the job – Cornish Guardian
Picture: Shayne House
January 28, 2011
From Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who says: “Of course, you don’t have to stick to three roots: you could use two, four or as many as suits you. Do always include potatoes, however, to give the mash body and to stop it getting too sweet.”
Swede or celeriac could also be used as a mash with potatoes.
Serves 6
Preparation and cooking: 30 minutes
Ingredients
500g carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
500g parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks
500g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
50g unsalted butter or 50ml rapeseed oil
100ml milk (or half milk and half double cream)
freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Cook the carrots and parsnips in a pan of boiling salted water until tender. Cook the potatoes in a separate pan. Drain the vegetables and let them steam dry for a minute or two.
Put the carrots and pasnips in a food processor (or mash with a potato masher), with half the butter or oil, and blend to a creamy puree. Heat the milk and the remaining butter or oil in the pan in which the potatoes were cooked, then add the potatoes and mash until smooth.
Combine the mashed vegetables, adding plenty of seasoning, including nutmeg if you like, to make a creamy, golden mash. Serve steaming hot, with sausages or roast lamb or venison.
This week, small boxes will have:
potatoes (Benbole Farm)
* savoy cabbage (Jeremy Brown, St Kew Harvest)
onions (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
carrots (Restharrow Farm)
sprout stalk (Restharrow Farm)
cauliflower (Restharrow Farm)
Standard boxes will have extra potatoes and an extra cauliflower as well as:
* leeks (Jeremy)
swede (Restharrow Farm)
* = grown to organic principles
January 21, 2011
From Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook. Serve with basmati rice and cucumber raita (yoghurt, garlic and chopped cucumber). It’s really tasty.
Serves 8
Preparation and cooking: about 40 minutes
Ingredients
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
a little vegetable oil
1 heaped tsp medium curry powder
25g fresh grated ginger
2 green chillies or 1 red, finely chopped
salt and black pepper
25g chickpeas, soaked overnight and cooked till tender, or 2 x 400g tins
400ml tin of coconut milk
250g button mushrooms, halved
juice of 1 lime
2 lemon grass sticks
15 medium kale leaves
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp Thai fish sauce
large bunch of coriander
Method
Fry the onion and garlic gently in the oil until soft. Add the curry powder, fresh ginger, chilli, salt and pepper and stir.
Next, add the cooked chickpeas (drain and rinse tinned ones if using), coconut milk, mushrooms, lime juice and lemon grass sticks, and simmer for 30 minutes.
Remove the stems from the kale and chop the leaves into strips. Steam them for 5 minutes and then add them to the chickpea mixture. Add the soy and fish sauces.
Scatter with coarsely chopped coriander. This is best served warm when all the flavours seem to sing out.
This week small boxes will have:
potatoes (Benbole Farm)
onions (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
curly kale (Restharrow Farm)
cauliflower (Restharrow Farm)
carrots (Restharrow Farm)
* leeks (Jeremy Brown, St Kew Harvest)
Standard boxes will have extra potatoes and onions plus:
* jerusalem artichokes (Camel CSA)
red cabbage (Restharrow Farm)
swede (Restharrow Farm)
* = grown to organic principles
January 19, 2011
Cornwall planners will decide next Monday 24 January whether to approve three giant supermarket applications on the outskirts of Wadebridge.
Protest group lovewadebridge.com is fiercely opposing the proposed developments, which would encircle this thriving Cornish market town.
Both Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s want to build brand new superstores on the east side of Wadebridge – Sainsbury’s on council land. Tesco has applied to expand its existing store at the top of West Hill.
Planning officers are recommending that councillors give the go-ahead to both Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s proposals. But they want them to reject the Morrison’s application, which involves moving Wadebridge Town Football Club to a new site outside the town’s boundary on the road to Rock and Polzeath.
Lovewadebridge.com was set up by local residents and traders concerned that all three out-of-town developments are against national, regional and development plan policies and would damage the heart of Wadebridge – its character, economy and quality of life.
Group members maintain there are already an adequate number of supermarkets in the area and the proposed superstores could turn Wadebridge into a ghost town.
They argue that more would have an adverse effect on the vitality of Wadebridge town centre and the viability of small, independent businesses in the town and surrounding villages in north Cornwall.
More than 577 supermarkets have been approved in the UK in the last two years, leading to accusations that the “big four” are distorting local food markets and putting independent traders out of business.
Update: Tesco’s expansion was given the go-ahead; both Sainsbury’s and Morrision’s applications were turned down during a marathon six-hour council meeting.
January 17, 2011
A solar panel on every suitable roof – that’s the dream of a new community-wide initiative in the nearby town of Wadebridge in north Cornwall.
Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network (WREN) wants to harness the sun and wind to generate 30% of the town’s electricity consumption by 2015.
It intends to offer householders and businesses the opportunity to host photovoltaic solar panels on their roofs. This will help reduce their own electricity bills, provide local employment and build up a substantial community fund for investment in community projects.
The project has the support of North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson, town councillors, Cornwall councillors, and Wadebridge Chamber of Commerce.
The launch event is this Saturday 22 January in Wadebridge Town Hall between 10am and 4pm when there will be a public exhibition and displays. Local MP Dan Rogerson, renewable energy experts, local councillors and business leaders will be giving talks and answering residents’ questions from 2pm onwards.
WREN is a not-for-profit cooperative. It intends the financial gains to stay in Wadebridge so jobs and other benefits are brought to every section of the immediate community.
Cornwall has experienced a rush in recent months from developers and landowners wanting to set up solar energy farms and take advantage of the Government’s generous solar electricity feed-in tariff.
Camel CSA’s landowners – Benbole Farm, St Kew Highway – are due to start work any day on the county’s first solar farm beside the A39 near Wadebridge just across the road from our veg plot.
January 14, 2011
From Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook. Based on a recipe by Irish chef Denis Cotter, she says it ‘has lots of different flavours, with a lovely after-bite.’
Serves 6
Preparation and cooking: 20 minutes
Ingredients
450g onions
½ savoy cabbage (about 400g)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 red or 4 green chillies, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
about 5cm fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed
800ml good vegetable stock
400ml tin of coconut milk
bunch of fresh coriander, chopped (optional)
juice of 3 limes
salt and black pepper
Method
Finely chop the onions and very finely shred the cabbage. Heat the oil in a pan, add the cabbage and onion and cook over a moderate heat for a couple of minutes before adding the chillies, garlic, ginger and coriander seeds. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until the onion and cabbage are tender but still have a bite to them.
Bring the stock to the boil in a separate pan and add it to the vegetables. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the coconut milk, half of the fresh coriander (if using), the lime juice and finally salt and pepper.
Serve the soup with extra coriander to taste.
NOTE: chopped parsley could be substituted for the coriander.
January 13, 2011
Small boxes will have:
* jerusalem artichokes (Camel CSA)
* leeks (Jeremy Brown, St Kew Harvest)
* savoy cabbage (Jeremy)
1.5kg potatoes (Benbole Farm)
onions (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
carrots (Restharrow Farm)
parsnips (Restharrow Farm)
Standard boxes will have the same plus:
extra potatoes
extra jerusalem artichokes
swede (Restharrow Farm)
sprout stalk (Restharrow Farm)
* = grown to organic principles
