The next volunteer growing session is on Sunday 11 April.  We’ve decided to give everyone a rest this Easter Sunday.

We do need all the help we can get to plant veg at this time of year so please consider coming along for a couple of hours next Sunday between 10am and 12 noon.

You’ll be made very welcome.  We can guarantee you unlimited fresh air, plenty of exercise and some friendly company… PLUS you’ll come away feeling you’ve achieved something worthwhile.

Expert grower Mark Norman says:

“A small gang of us created a new growing bed, spread compost, and sowed lettuce and beetroot Detroit last week.  But we really could have done with some extra assistance. 

On Sunday 11 April there’ll be broad beans and celery to plant out, and more beetroot plus parsnip to sow.  Also compost to spread and additional growing beds to prepare.  Please bring tools – hoes, spades, forks, trowels, rakes, wheelbarrows…”

Our picking and packing volunteers urgently need shelter from the Cornish wind and rain.

Each week they prepare around 30 vegetable boxes for Camel CSA members on Friday mornings.  Last summer we were blessed with blue skies and warm sunshine nearly every Friday, but come the autumn it was a different story. 

Over the winter we’ve been borrowing one end of a polytunnel from Jeremy Brown, one of our expert growers.  But now the growing season has begun he needs it to cultivate vegetables for his business at St Kew Harvest Farm Shop.

We’re looking for a second-hand shed that’s at least 4m x5m in size.  Ideally it would have a roof overhang or a verandah.  We’re also on the look-out for an unwanted polytunnel that’s a minimum of 7m long and 4m wide.  Just a frame for a tunnel would be a great help.  We’ll pay, of course.

If you know anyone who might be able to help, please get in touch with us.

Members of the volunteer growing team will be flexing their muscles this Sunday morning digging up dockleaves, spreading compost and preparing more vegetable beds.  Beetroot and lettuce seeds also need sowing.

It’s all a bit nerve-racking.  We’ll hear soon whether we’re going to get funding to help widen our activities.

A Lottery Food Fund assessor came for a site visit on Sunday.  Kate Harris needed to see for herself exactly who we are and what we get up to.  She asked our core group members lots of leading questions and met the volunteer growing team. 

Kate watched the volunteers prepare vegetable beds, spread compost, plant Jerusalem artichokes, sow parsley seed for germination in the polytunnel and renew their attack on the dockleaves which are sprouting everywhere in the mild weather.

It’s her job to report back and make a recommendation on our funding bid.  The all-important decision will be made in April.  It’s a highly competitive scheme, so we reckon we’ve got about a 50% chance – at best.

In May we’ll hear whether we’ve been successful in our application for funding from the East Cornwall Local Action Group.

Whatever the result, we’ll keep going as a CSA – growing vegetables, working with the seasons and providing our members with a share of the harvest.  It’s just that if our bids are unsuccessful, we’ll have to wait before we can invest in much-needed equipment, set up an education and training programme and provide secure employment. 

For the first time on Sunday everyone had the chance to meet Daisy, expert grower Jane Mellowship’s five-week-old daughter.  She arrived in a waterproof  “baby trug” – ideal in the circumstances!

Many thanks to expert grower Mark Norman and volunteers Cath, Charlotte, Danny, Frank, Kitty, Mark M, Mike H, Mike S and Robert.

Community supported agriculture… It’s quite a mouthful isn’t it?  And even more to get your head round.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked the question: “How are your allotments going?”  Or: “What’s the latest on your veg box scheme?”

This sort of remark is kindly meant, of course.  But sometimes it makes me want to scream: “That’s not what we’re about.  We’re a community supported agriculture project.”

Which means little to 99.9% of the people I come across.

A community supported agriculture (CSA) project has very specific characteristics.  It aims to reconnect people with the land where their food is grown.  It’s a partnership between farmers and members of the local community.  The economic risks and benefits are shared between those who grow the food and those who consume it.

Local food

It’s all part of an expanding grassroots movement found across Europe, Japan, the US and Australia.  It comes in many different shapes and sizes – from large farms supplying produce to hundreds of regular subscribers to small community food-growing projects like ours at St Kew Highway in north Cornwall.

It can be hard work, as it nearly always requires some voluntary input.  But the common thread running through every single initiative is a willingness to co-operate over food production, to connect with the land and to commit to working with the seasons to produce a steady supply of local food.

And that’s why those of us who belong to Camel Community Supported Agriculture are proud to be part of this growing movement.

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 Restharrow 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.

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.

The local food movement is too fragmented and can only work if the government puts its full weight behind it.  So Professor Kevin Morgan of Cardiff University, told guests at the Growing Collaboration event at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

The “quiet revolution” against our industrialised food system is helping more people to understand where their food comes from and how it’s produced.  

But action is needed at the centre to counteract the hidden health, environmental and economic costs of our cheap food culture, said Professor Morgan, a member of the Food Ethics Council: 

“Nothing helps people to reconnect more than food.  Locally, sustainably-produced food is absolutely essential.  

The biggest weakness of our local food movement is fragmentation and localisation.  It can’t do anything until central government acts in a more strategic way.  The government has to get its act together to be more supportive.”

The Growing Collaboration conference was organised by Eatsome, an NHS-funded project which aims to improve healthy eating in Cornwall.  The event enabled people who grow, prepare and eat food in a sustainable way to get together, share their experience and strengthen contact.

The fragmented nature of Cornwall’s own local food projects became evident during the three-minute “soap box” slot at the conference, when we all had a chance to explain what we’re doing. 

Here’s a selection: – 

• Camel Community Supported Agriculture – that’s us, of course
• Bugle Greenspace  –  its Growing Together project aims to link owners of unused gardens and greenhouses with other local people who would like to grow their own but don’t have a growing space
• Trevalon Organic Vegetables – established organic veg box scheme and online shop near Liskeard supplying local businesses.  In the process of setting up a Community Supported Agriculture Scheme
• Chyan Community Field – volunteers around Penryn are developing allotments, pond, strawbale tea-shed and toolstore, sensory garden, composting area, covered cob seat, playground and community orchard
• Seeds, Soup and Sarnies – providing families in St Blazey and Treverbyn parishes and parts of St Austell with the chance to share gardening skills and favourite recipes
• Cornish Guild of Smallholders – Lostwithiel Local Produce Market, Taste Cornwall community shop in Liskeard, annual show
• Transition Cornwall Network – supporting Transition groups throughout Cornwall move towards a positive, resilient, low carbon future
• Soil Association – helping to develop community supported agriculture projects in partnership with Making Local Food Work
• Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change (CN4C) – its Growing Food at Home programme aims to make home-grown food more accessible.  Works with Cornwall Waste Action‘s compost project
• Healthy Early Years (HEY) – “nipper nutrition” project aimed at nurseries
• The Big Lunch – annual Eden Project initiative to get people out on their street, raise a glass and share food with their neighbours
• Penair School chef – unorthodox and award-winning approach to school dinners in Cornwall
• Cornwall Food Programme – addressing the local food supply needs of the NHS in Cornwall
• Cornwall Healthier Eating and Food Safety Awards (CHEFS) – award scheme for restaurants and cafes 
• Cornwall Agri-food Council – aims to “transform Cornwall into the UK’s exemplar agri-food centre of excellence”
• Somerset Land & Food – developing a digital tool to map food projects in the south west

It should now be clear why we all need to be working together in a much more organised way!

The days of food rationing may be long over but the need to alter our eating habits is as important as ever.  This became clear on my recent visit to – of all places – the Imperial War Museum in London. 

Its Ministry of Food exhibition reveals some fascinating parallels between the dig for victory campaign in the Second World War and the enthusiasm that we all now share for growing our own food.

It shows that eating seasonal fruit and vegetables, healthy nutrition, recycling and reducing imports were just as important in 1940 as they are today.

But for very different reasons 70 years ago, of course. 

Back then as now, people queued up for allotments and pledged to grow fruit and vegetables at work and in their gardens.  They learned all about crop rotation, the value of nutritious green manure and how to create rich, sweet-smelling compost.  They clubbed together to raise pigs, poultry and rabbits.

By 1943, more than six million British families were growing their own veg.  The number of allotments had doubled to 1.75 million compared to 850,000 in 1939.  Potatoes – led by cheery icon Potato Pete – replaced imported wheat as a staple of the wartime diet because they were full of vitamin C, easy to grow, cheap, filling and energy-rich.

A vegetable list to provide “winter meals from a well-planned plot” itemised potatoes, cabbage, sprouting broccoli, carrots, onions, shallots, beetroot, swede, brussels sprouts, parsnips, leeks, kale, savoy cabbage, spinach beet and turnip.

Unsurprisingly, it mirrors the contents of Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s own seasonal weekly veg boxes being handed out to our members during the winter months.

The only difference is, thanks largely to multicultural influences, that our seasonal recipes are much more tasty and adventurous! 

The Ministry of Food exhibition runs at the Imperial War Museum in London until 3 January 2011.  It’s sponsored by Company of Cooks.

Congratulations to Jane and Gav Mellowship who are the proud parents of Daisy, their new baby daughter.

Jane is one of Camel Camel Supported Agriculture’s three expert growers. Both she and Gav work in farming and horticulture.
Jane says:

“We’re loving having Daisy with us and getting used to being three instead of two.

“It took long enough to get her out and now we’re just enjoying her finally being here!

 “She’s brilliant and we’ve already forgotten what life was like without her.”

Daisy is the second baby born to members since Camel CSA was set up.  Hollie Goodwin, Dan and Kate’s daughter, is now six months old.  And starting to eat lots of vegetables, we hope!

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.

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