May 19, 2010
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.
May 18, 2010
The number of community supported agriculture projects like ours is increasing all the time, notably in other parts of the far south-west of England.
Members of the newly-formed Trevalon Organic Co-operative at Herodsfoot near Liskeard in east Cornwall are coming to see us during our volunteer growing session next Sunday.
They’re hoping to get a perspective on how we’ve achieved our 50-strong membership and and built up a list of more than 30 weekly veg boxes in just over a year.
St Just Allotment and Growers Association and Lands End Peninsula Community Land Trust have just secured an 18-month land lease from Cornwall Council to set up Bosavern Community Farm at St Just in west Cornwall. They want to set up a CSA to prevent this 36-acre organic farm from going into private ownership and to keep it in perpetuity for the benefit of the local community.
In Devon, Chagford Community Agriculture members have got planning permission from the Dartmoor National Park Authority for three polytunnels and two sheds. This means the project is now eligible for £38,600 of funding from the Lottery Local Food Fund.
The newly-formed Broadclyst Community Farm is based on 32 acres of National Trust land on the Killerton estate near Exeter in east Devon.
Occombe Farm, which is run by Torbay Coast & Countryside Trust, is setting up a 4-acre smallholding as a CSA scheme. It’s been awarded £475,000 from the Lottery Food Fund for its One Planet Food project.
These new CSA schemes in the south-west join the already up-and-running Harrowbarrow and Metherill Agricultural Society (known as Hamas) in east Cornwall, Lowarth Brogh (Badger’s Garden CSA) near Penzance in west Cornwall, and Exeter Community Agriculture in Devon.
And of course us – Camel CSA at St Kew Highway in north Cornwall.
May 15, 2010
We’ve got carrot and parsnip seeds to sow this Sunday in the new growing beds. The broad beans need hoeing and we’ve also got more planting out to do on our plot at St Kew Highway.
Last weekend we managed to get the remaining growing beds spread with compost. We planted out some celeriac and weeded the rest of the onions.
Expert grower Jeremy B has now put the rotovator over the new beds to get them ready for sowing.
Thanks to last week’s team of volunteers led by expert growers Jeremy B and Mark N. It included Charlotte, Danny, Mark M, Mike S and Rebecca. Our younger helpers, Keira and Finn, especially enjoyed the homemade Great Ormond Street carrot cake.
May 8, 2010
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.
May 7, 2010
Our Twitter feed – GrowingOwnFood – has led me to some interesting discoveries in the world of food.
Three Cornish foodies have come to my particular notice. They all have food-related blogs. They all tweet about food. They are all based here in Cornwall. They are all female. And they are all young.
Jam and Clotted Cream is Beth Sachs’ Cornish food blog. It’s full of interesting food tips and recipes. Beth calls herself “The Cornish Foodie”. She lives near the coast in north Cornwall and tweets as jamandcream.
Clotted Cream Diaries is Issy Taylor’s blog. She also likes to share her experience of cooking and eating Cornish food. Issy’s based near Falmouth but comes from the Isles of Scilly. Follow her on Twitter @clottedcreamd
The pasties + cream cornwall blog comes from Ismay Atkins. It’s all about Cornish food, drink, pubs and “a little of whatever takes my fancy”. Ismay’s home is on the western tip of Cornwall. Her Twitter feed is pastiesandcream.
April 30, 2010
There’s plenty to do on our community veg growing plot at St Kew Highway this Mayday weekend.
We’ll be on the site on Sunday morning between 10am and 1pm as usual. Do come and join us.
We must sow more salad spinach leaves, weed the onions, garlic and beetroot, and prick out the celery seedlings. The boysenberry plants also need tidying.
Please bring hoes, rakes and small forks. Don’t forget waterproof jackets and boots as rain is forecast.
See you there!
April 26, 2010
Our pioneering work as a community supported agriculture project in north Cornwall makes a feature in the Western Morning News today.
There haven’t been many opportunities to post to the blog recently. Events in Iceland meant my visit to southern Spain was longer than planned.
Bliss – lots of fresh local vegetables on the stalls in Cadiz market and not much sign of a hungry gap!
April 25, 2010
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.
April 10, 2010
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.
