They slave away in all weathers on our behalf, battling against the Cornish elements.  Wind, rain or sun, they ensure Camel CSA’s weekly veg boxes are ready by midday every Friday.

I’m referring of course to our intrepid picking and packing team of volunteers.   

The digging squad has had to endure strong winds, driving rain and ferociously muddy conditions in the last month while harvesting parsnips and carrots at St Kew Highway.

The packing squad has also had to overcome some challenges, as their temporary shelter blew away in a gale.  Sorting and weighing is now being done in the shelter of a borrowed polytunnel generously provided by Jeremy Brown, one of our expert growers.

In spite of these setbacks, the team seems to have remained remarkably cheerful.  And it’s not always noses to the grindstone.

Trish says:

“One week we were finished at 11!   At least an hour earlier than ever before.   And the sun shone…”

We owe a grateful thanks to all of them over the past few weeks –  picking and packing supremo Trish  and to Carla, Cathy, Henrietta, Jennie, Mike H, Mike S, Penny, Robert and Steve.

Hands on

Last Friday we were glad for additional help from Rosa, the latest in a series of WWOOFers “lent” to us by Camel CSA members Dominic and Cathy at South Penquite Farm on Bodmin Moor.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) is an exchange network. It encourages farmers and horticulturalists to offer food, accommodation and opportunities in return for volunteer help from people wanting hands-on experience of organic lifestyles.

Rosa’s come from Sweden. She’s here to learn English and wants to stay in England as long as possible.

She was a nurse for many years and has a bit of a reputation as a horse whisperer. She’s helping out at South Penquite for a couple of weeks and will assist us again this Friday.

In September two WWOOFers from London helped Camel CSA’s volunteer growing team plant onion sets at one of our regular Sunday sessions.

It’s a case of first come, first served.  Admission is free when the Regal Cinema in Wadebridge screens The Age of Stupid this Sunday 29 November at 8.15 pm.  

Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055.  He looks at old footage from 2008 and asks a simple question:  Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? 

Camel Friends of the Earth is bringing the film to Wadebridge as part of the Indie Screenings distribution system which allows anyone anywhere to screen it.

This much talked-about movie was released earlier this year.  It spawned the 10:10 campaign, which aims to cut 10 per cent of our carbon emissions in 2010.

In it, the Archivist (Pete Postlethwaite) says:  “We could have saved ourselves, but we didn’t. It’s amazing. What state of mind were we in, to face extinction and simply shrug it off? 

“We wouldn’t be the first life form to make itself extinct. But what would be unique about us is that we did it knowingly. What does that say about us?”

Members of Camel Community Supported Agriculture will be working with Camel Area Friends of the Earth this Saturday 29 November as they promote thriving, planet-friendly farming.

We’ll be in Molesworth Street, Wadebridge outside Barclays from 9am to 12 noon.  If you’re out and about in the town, please come and speak to us.  You’ll be able to have a look at one of our weekly seasonal veg boxes. 

At the same time we can tell you more about our pioneering community vegetable growing project at St Kew Highway.  This involves building strong, mutual relationships with small-scale farmers and growers in north Cornwall with the aim of reducing supply chains and making local food work.

Friends of the Earth’s Food Chain Campaign aims to change the way factory farm animals are fed.  Factory farming demands massive amounts of soy – a key ingredient in animal feed.  Most of this comes from huge soya bean plantations in Latin America. 

Vast areas of land have to be cleared to grow the soy.  This causes deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and the loss of valuable wildlife habitat.

Our volunteer growers will be pruning apple trees for a change this Sunday.

Landscape gardener Jeremy Simmons, a Camel Community Supported Agriculture member, will lead a training session on how to prune fruit trees in an old orchard at West End, St Mabyn.

The CSA has taken over the task of renovating a small farm orchard at this former smallholding.  In return, members will be able to enjoy all the fruits of their labours when the apples are harvested next year. 

The trees are a mixture of culinary and dessert types – including the familiar Bramley, as well as Lord Burghley(?), Gascoyne’s Scarlet, Tom Putt (cider), Emneth Early, Beauty of Bath and Lord Hindlip.  There are also unidentified trees, which may be cider varieties and are probably native to Cornwall.

If you would like to learn more about the finer art of apple tree pruning, please come along.  Sunday’s session lasts from 10am to 1pm.

A new short film made in Cornwall questions the sustainability of current food production.  It’s the first part of The Price of Cheap Food project.

Kerris Farmers is about four Cornish farmers. It’s been produced by Barry Cooper, lecturer in digital media at University College Falmouth. 

The film’s being premiered at the Cornwall Film Festival in Falmouth this Saturday 14 November. Screening will be part of the Cornish Shorts in the Phoenix Cinema, Falmouth starting at 2pm.

Camel Community Supported Agriculture is pleased to hear that The Price of Cheap Food project will also look at experiments in alternative agriculture, local food and allotments.

Barry says:

“In this film four Cornish farmers and family say how things are in an environment where food often costs more to grow than supermarkets eventually pay for it.

“Jeffery was eventually paid 18p per packaged cauliflower even though each one cost him 34p to grow. In the supermarkets they sold at around 78p.

“Adding to the pressure on farmers is the rising cost of fertilizer, fuel and a shortage of labour; farmers are an ageing community. Alan, the beef farmer runs his farm on his own and is totally reliant on a fleet of machines which he has adapted to do all the work by himself.

“East European and other migrant workers did the work in recent years but now that sector seems to be shrinking. So eventually the film leaves us with a question, who will grow the food in the future?”

Further parts of The Price of Cheap Food project seek to explore experiments in alternative agriculture, local food and allotments, along with surviving Chinese and Bulgarian pre-industrial farming cultures and the strategies of the supermarkets to globalize production.

* Find out more here about the LoveWadebridge initiative in Cornwall.  It’s arisen out of concerns about the impact of another supermarket on Wadebridge in the north of the county.

It’s doing the trick.  The new protective mesh is keeping the voracious rabbits off our spring greens.

They’ve been hopping all over it and have left droppings everywhere, but they haven’t been able to find a way underneath.

This expensive mesh is proving to be a worthwhile investment. The rabbits can’t chew holes in it, it doesn’t disintegrate and it lasts for years – unlike fleece.

The growing team has managed at long last to plant several rows of garlic sets and sow some broad beans for overwintering. We’re hoping these will give us an early crop next year.

All being well, the rabbits won’t touch the garlic (although earlier in the year they did have a gnaw at some of the onions).

Thanks to expert growers Jane, Jeremy and Mark plus regular Sunday team members Kitty, Mark, Mike H and Mike S.

The extra potatoes in our shares are put there in direct response to a plea from Camel CSA members.  Standard boxes contain 2.5 kg of Wilja spuds this week and there are 1.5 kg in the small boxes.

Our picking and packing volunteers had to dodge some sharp, heavy showers as they picked, dug, sorted and weighed the veg on Friday.  The team’s now rigged up some rudimentary shelter to help them escape the worst of Cornwall’s wild autumn equinoxal weather.

Picking and packing supremo Trish explains:

“We’ve been loaned a gazebo which we put up over the sorting area.  We’re hoping it’ll stay put and not take off once we put a couple of ties into the wall.

“It was good to stay reasonably dry while doing the packing and it meant we could leave the boxes under cover at the end.”

Friday’s band of helpers alongside Trish were Penny and Robert, Mike H, Henrietta and Jennie M.

The growing team still have broad beans to sow and garlic sets to plant which we hope (weather permitting!) to get finished this Sunday.  See you then.

We’ve had another mention in the Western Morning News – this time in its Woman section.

WMN Woman’s editor Gillian Molesworth, herself an active Camel CSA member, reveals how she tried to grow vegetables on her own and lost heart.  So she fully appreciates what we do:

“I highly recommend it.  You get the gardener’s satisfaction of digging and weeding and picking … and you get to take home a weekly vegetable box that you didn’t have to grow all yourself.

You get to eat seasonally and locally, and even if there’s a permanent cloud sitting overhead waiting to rain on you when you start digging up carrots, at least you can complain about it to some fellow volunteers, instead of suffering in lonesome silence.

Finding the fun in vegetables – Western Morning News – WMN2 – Woman 30-10-09

The temperatures may be falling and the nights drawing in, but Camel Community Supported Agriculture is already looking forward to next year’s seasonal vegetable boxes.

Expert grower Jane Mellowship says:

“On Sunday we were very happy to get our spring greens finally in the ground and covered with a special new protective mesh, safe from any would-be nibblers! 

“Conditions were far from perfect, very muddy and windy, so we were content to weed creeping thistle from the onion bed and leave it at that.”

Thanks to expert growers Jeremy Brown and Jane Mellowship. aided by Kitty, Mike H and Mike S.

The heavy overnight rain and galeforce winds made the ground too wet to plant the garlic sets and broad bean seeds that we intend to overwinter for an early crop next year.  That’ll be done this coming Sunday, weather permitting.

Supplies

Our packing team continue to do wonders on Friday mornings digging and picking and weighing produce. They fill more than 20 veg boxes each week in the short space of two hours.

Grateful thanks to stalwarts Trish, Caroline, Penny, Robert, and Gillian and her two children Sophie and Freddie. 

Camel CSA’s own supplies continue to be supplemented by a wide variety of  organic veg from our expert growers Jeremy Brown, Jane Mellowship and Mark Norman. 

Some high-quality, non-organically grown vegetables are coming from local suppliers.  James Mutton at Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn is providing potatoes.  We’re also buying in regular supplies of freshly-harvested brassicas and leeks from Richard Hore at Rest Harrow Farm, Trebetherick.
.

Hope you’re going to the Lovewadebridge public meeting this Friday 30 October.  Wadebridge: Options for the Future, chaired by Dan Rogerson MP for North Cornwall, is at 7pm in Wadebridge Town Hall.

The initiative arises out of concerns about the impact of another supermarket on the town.  Sainsbury’s wants to develop the former North Cornwall District Council offices at the eastern edge of Wadebridge into a superstore.  

From our perspective as a community vegetable growing enterprise, Camel Community Supported Agriculture wants to make local food work. 

We support the retention of a range of independent retail outlets that sell seasonal, locally-produced food.

Supermarkets have a stranglehold on food supply chains in this country. They also rely on international markets to import out-of-season produce.  (Like rhubarb from New Zealand!)

This is detrimental to local food producers and the environment and is definitely not sustainable.

Needs

The timely Lovewadebridge campaign is encouraging people to really think about what our town needs, rather than what corporate business and big supermarkets want.

As Jeremy Rowe, Cornwall councillor for Egloshayle, St Breock, St Ervan, St Eval, St Issey, St Mabyn & St Tudy, points out on his blog (and on Twitter):

“If a new supermarket was to be built…Would Wadebridge still be able to support two butchers, a greengrocers, two bakeries, two newsagents and all the other ‘niche’ businesses in town?”

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