October 7, 2011
The apples are harvested and the apple press is on its way.
We’re all looking forward to our third annual Cornish Apple Day on Sunday when we’ll be producing masses of delicious fresh apple juice to share.
Come and take part in the apple pressing on our community veg-growing plot between 10am and 1pm this Sunday 9 October. Find us here at St Kew Highway near Wadebridge in north Cornwall.
If you can bring any apples and a plastic juice container with you, all the better!
October 6, 2011
All our own produce again, apart from the potatoes. Everyone will have:
1kg potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* runner/french beans (Camel CSA)
* beetroot (Camel CSA)
* leeks (Camel CSA)
* broccoli (Camel CSA)
* salad leaves (Camel CSA)
* tomatoes (Camel CSA)
* red onions (Camel CSA)
* garlic (Camel CSA)
* chillies (Camel CSA)
Standard boxes will also have:
* sweet peppers (Camel CSA)
* aubergines (Camel CSA)
* tuscan/curly kale (Camel CSA)
* turnips (Camel CSA)
* = grown to organic principles
October 5, 2011
The apples are picked. We’re all set for Camel CSA’s annual apple juicing day this Sunday 9 October at our veg-growing site site in north Cornwall.
Now the fun part – everyone is welcome to come along and share our bountiful harvest. Juicing will go ahead on Sunday morning between 10am and 1pm on our community plot at St Kew Highway near Wadebridge.
This year we’re hiring an electric-powered crusher, lots of buckets and a large, Vigo hand press from Chyan Community Field near Penryn.
It means we’re no longer having to beg and borrow small, hand-operated presses and should make the whole operation much quicker and easier.
But it does mean we’ll need a lot of apples!
SO… we could aways use more. If you have any apples to share, or know anyone else with some to spare, please do let us know and arrange to get the fruit to us on the day.
AND…please can you all start putting aside containers for the juice. Most effective are 1-litre plastic milk containers, so the juice can be stored at home in the fridge for 48 hours or frozen. But please ensure they’re thoroughly cleaned out first!
A very enthusiastic bunch of families with young children harvested a vast number of apples in our adopted old farm orchard at St Mabyn. We managed to get the task done last Sunday – the final day of our short Indian summer.
Thanks a bunch to our apple picking and tree climbing team – Bob, Bridget, Cath, Charlotte, Dan, Danny, Gav, Geraint, Jane, Jenny, Kate, Kim, Mike S and junior members Arwen, Daisy, Finn, Hollie, Max and Seren.
October 2, 2011
I’ve not long returned from a Soil Association conference where we looked at the future of community supported agriculture schemes in the UK, like ours in north Cornwall.
One of the recurring themes of any CSA get-together is: How do we attract volunteers? And, once they’ve started, how do we keep them on board?
Camel CSA is like any other voluntary group. We have a dedicated core membership who can be relied on a week-by-week basis to administer the project, grow the food and pick and pack the veg.
But what’s proved interesting is the total number of hours worked by volunteers – not just the regulars. And this total is always far more than we think.
We keep a tally to pass on to our funding bodies – Local Food and East Cornwall Local Action Group.
Over the last year half our members have actively volunteered at some point. They’ve contributed a total of 1,500 hours’ hard graft – the equivalent of nearly 200 working days. The highest point – equivalent to 25 working days – was in May . The lowest, not surprisingly, was in January (eight working days).
All this ties in with the work that Exeter University / Volunteer Cornwall researcher Becky Harrison is doing with us and other social enterprises in Cornwall. Her research into environmental volunteering and well-being involves looking into why people are motivated to volunteer and how they can make the most it.
All I know is that it’s important to remind volunteers how valued they are, to keep them informed, to include them in decision-making and to remind them that we’re all in it together.
Most of all, we need to remember that belonging to a CSA has all kinds of benefits. Which means making sure the dull and difficult jobs are not always done by the same people.
So a special mention for all the dock weed diggers, bean pickers and leek trimmers out there!
And grateful thanks to this week’s picking and packing team – Anne, Bob, Charlotte, Jax, Mike H, Mike S, Sophie, Steve, Sue, Trish F, Trish G and our expert growers Bridget and Mark N.
September 20, 2011
Thousands of people in England are improving their overall quality of life by getting involved in community supported agriculture.
But a lack of public awareness means that many more are missing out, according to new research from the Soil Association.
“Community supported agriculture is an exciting, dynamic, growing movement. It’s all about sharing and giving people proper access to local produce. It’s making a real difference to people’s lives,” Josiah Meldrum of Provenance told the Soil Association’s CSA conference in Bristol.
Indeed, the pace of expansion is impressive. Of the 76 fully-fledged CSA schemes in England, 66 of these got going in the last three years. Another 120 are in the process of setting up.
Public understanding is lacking, however. Two thirds of 1,000 shoppers who took part in a survey had never heard of community supported agriculture schemes like ours in Cornwall.
The Soil Association commissioned Provenance researchers Nick Saltmarsh and Josiah Meldrum to judge the impact of CSAs in England. They concluded there are enormous social, environmental and economic benefits for members and the wider community.
More than 70 per cent of of CSA members feel their overall quality of life has improved. Almost half believe they’re having a significant impact on the community by bringing people together.
At least three quarters are involved because they want access to healthy, high-quality, sustainably-produced food. Two thirds of them find that the vegetables provided supply nearly all their needs.
Remarks included:
Food has become interesting again…
I feel involved in the production of the food I eat and have become more connected to the land…
I feel part of something that is truly pioneering, that I am contributing in some way to different more sustainable way of living…
It makes me feel happy – at quite a deep level – that I’m playing a small part in helping such an excellent scheme to thrive…
You can have a more detailed look at the main findings on the Soil Association’s resources pages: –
The full report will be published in October.
September 15, 2011
This illustration of Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s grow-our-own veg plot in Cornwall is by the very talented artist Antonina Szram Brown.
Antonina and her husband Jeremy run St Kew Harvest Farm Shop, specialising in good food and fresh produce that includes their own homemade artisan bread. They’re both deeply committed to making local food work in our part of north Cornwall.
Camel CSA rent two acres of land from the Brown family at St Kew Highway near Wadebridge. Jeremy is one of the local growers who supplies top-quality produce for our weekly veg box scheme.
September 10, 2011
Members of Egloshayle Women’s Institute in north Cornwall now know all about our grow-your-own local food project at St Kew Highway.
Camel CSA had the guest slot at the WI’s September meeting in the Egloshayle pavilion, Wadebridge. Afterwards, a small but orderly queue lined up to get membership forms and more details of our weekly veg box scheme. We hope very much they’ll join us.
WI secretary Christine Pearn was the lucky lady who won the raffle to take home our veg box.
August 20, 2011
Cornwall’s mild, humid climate is proving excessively challenging for Camel CSA’s expert growers and volunteers right now.
Our large crop of onions had to be raised in a hurry as they faced a sudden threat of downy mildew. The same mildew also attacked our salad onions.
Hundreds of onions were lifted over the space of a few days and laid out to dry in our polytunnel next to the basil, coriander, cucumber and rocket beds.
Much of the back-breaking work was done by our amazing secretary Mike Sadler, who’s since been felled by a nasty bout of shingles. We wish him a hasty recovery.
Onion lifting and storing is much more time-consuming than you might think. Luckily we were ably assisted by our bunch of regular volunteers from Hft (the Home Farm Trust) in Wadebridge, which provides support for people with learning disabilities.
At the same time our expert grower Mark Norman had to contend with an attack of blight on the tomatoes in our other polytunnel. Within minutes of spotting the first signs, he’d stripped off all the blight-stricken leaves and saved the crop from disaster.
We’re already reaping the benefits of his quick work in our weekly veg boxes – along with the glut of French beans, cucumbers, basil and podding peas.
Only lots more harvesting and the weeds to tackle from now on, we hope. The weeds are running rife in the carrot, beetroot, squash and pumpkin beds…
August 14, 2011
Allison Livingstone, Camel CSA’s partnership development co-ordinator says:
There’s a new face around our veg site asking questions and getting stuck in to some volunteering!
Becky Harrison is an action researcher for the University of Exeter and Volunteer Cornwall. She’s started working with us at Camel CSA to develop an understanding of how community groups work and the effect that they have on volunteers and the wider community.
Becky has an MSc in sustainable development and is now studying for a PhD. Previously she worked with the Turtle Foundation and CRISIS, the charity for single homeless people.
Becky’s particularly interested in how people feel about recording their experiences on camera and film as well as talking informally to her. She’s very friendly and is very happy to talk and work at the same time!
You can contact her directly at beckyh@volunteercornwall.org.uk with any questions or for more information.
August 8, 2011
Camel CSA’s weekly veg boxes are overflowing with a bumper harvest from our community vegetable plot in north Cornwall.
We can hardly keep up with the pace of growth. The cucumbers, basil, coriander and rocket in our first new polytunnel are racing ahead.
The tomatoes in the second polytunnel, grown by the lasagne gardening method, are almost ready to harvest.
There are over 100 tomato plants in there, flanked by aubergines, sweet peppers and about 40 chilli plants.
On the field the peas are swelling by the minute, while the first of the outdoor french beans and mange tout peas will be available in the boxes this Friday.
We’ve at long last picked all the broad beans.
The brassicas are also doing brilliantly – calabrese, summer sprouting broccoli and purple kale. We’ve even managed to grow some mouth-watering kohlrabi!
Unfortunately the alternate sunshine and showery weather means it’s a good year for weeds as well –
and it’s proving difficult to keep up wth the weeding as so many of our regular volunteers are away on holiday.
Next year we’re determined instigate a strict mulching regime to enable us to manage the growth and keep them at bay.
But at least we’ve been able to start drying out our vast crop of onions.
Watch the video: How Camel CSA is helping make local food work
