We’ve lots of activity to report from our community veg plot at St Kew Highway in north Cornwall.

• BBC Inside Out South West has been to film us about initiatives to keep rural communities alive.
• We’ve begun digging up the ground inside the newly-covered polytunnel so we can sow early carrots,
  French beans, beetroot and salad crops. Cold frames are also under construction.
• We’ve planted two rows of Jerusalem artichokes, sown additional salad leaves in modules and pricked
  out the parsley seedlings.
• We’re continuing our onslaught on the dock weeds in the brassica beds.

Not bad for a mixed bunch of volunteers! Thanks to Bob, Bridget, Charlotte, Gav, Jane, Kitty, Mark M, Mark N, Mike S, Sophie. Also veg box packers Anne, Jenny, Penny, Robert, Trish, and Max (aged 5).

Camel CSA’s growing team has got the cover on the first of our three polytunnels. At long last we can start planting the early carrots, beetroot and salad crops.

A HUGE thank you to the volunteers who braved grey skies and a biting easterly wind to get the job done.

Expert growers Jane, Jeremy B and Mark N led team members Bob, Bridget, Cath, Charlotte, Danny and Mark M plus Finn (7), Keira (5) and Max (5).

Jerusalem artichokes are a staple item in Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s weekly veg boxes at this time of year.

Unlike late winter brassicas, which are in short supply all over the UK, these knobbly roots seem to thrive in hard, frosty conditions. Our growing team are about to plant a new permanent bed of them to sustain us in future seasons.

Jerusalem artichokes are hardy perennials, related to sunflowers. They have attractive purple flowers and tall summer growth, so we’ll be using them as a windbreak (!) for our soft fruit area.

Camel CSA’s valiant volunteer picking and packing team dig up quantities of them and scrub them clean each week for the boxes – to accompanying groans from some of our members.

So what can you do with these often-neglected vegetables?

My perennial favourite is Jane Grigson’s Palestine Soup, though this is a bit of a misnomer. Veggies should  leave the bacon out.

My family also like Nigel Slater’s casserole of artichokes and pork for deepest winter, which uses sausages. It sounds a bit odd but is a surprisingly good heartwarmer on a cold frosty evening.

The vegetarians among you could try Yotam Ottolenghi’s artichoke and goat’s cheese souffle or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Roast Jerusalem artichoke, hazelnut and goat’s cheese salad.

So give Jerusalem artichokes a try. They’re flavoursome, versatile, easy to grow, should be local (if you’re living in the UK) and inexpensive.  But be warned – a little goes a long way.

Oggy! Oggy! Oggy!  So traditional Cornish pasties made here in Cornwall are now safeguarded by European Protected Geographical Indication status. What a mouthful.

But the delicious taste of victory could be spoilt by an undignified row about exactly how the pastry case should be crimped and precisely what should go inside it.

Personally I feel sorry for the Australians, who might now have to think what to call their so-called “Cornish” pasties. It’s a good thing they don’t export them to Europe. They’ve already had to give up marketing Australian sparkling wine as “champagne”.

Pasties are particularly popular in the Cornish Triangle or Copper Coast on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia where Cornish miners, known as Cousin Jack, emigrated in the 19th century.

My own experience is that “Cornish” pasties made in Australia, even in the friendly and delightful South Australian town of Moonta (pictured), are a poor relation of the genuine article.

Soggy rather than oggy, unfortunately.

Update: It turns out the Australians are a little upset about this – see Cornish ruling worries Aussie pasty makers – ABC

Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s volunteers have harvested the last of the parsnips for the weekly vegetable boxes.

Now we’ve dug up all the Jerusalem artichokes as well, there’s only some frost-bitten Swiss chard remaining out of what we grew last year.

At the same time we’ve planted the first of this season’s seeds in growing modules – spring onions, lettuce, onions and parsley.

The growing team have begun digging out the dock weeds that are springing up all over our brassica plot. 

Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s commitment to growing vegetables organically means no chemical sprays! So every broad-leaved dock must be painstakingly dug out by hand. We need to avoid breaking the roots, as any remaining fragments will re-sprout.

We’ve planted rhubarb in the perennial area, where we’re preparing to grow gooseberries, raspberries, globe artichokes and Jerusalem artichokes. Work also continues on the interior of the toolshed.

Thanks to expert growers Jane, Jeremy B, Mark N plus volunteers Antonina, Bob, Bridget, Cath, Charlotte, Dan, Danny, Evie, Gav, Gillian, Mark M, Mike S, Paul, Sophie, Trish F, and children Aimee, Carla, Christian, Finn, Freddie, Keira, Max, Sammy, Seth, Sophie.

Our growing team is preparing for the busiest year we’ve had so far.

Now we’ve got support from the Lottery Food Fund and ECLAG we’re forging ahead and constructing two large polytunnels, a small seeding tunnel, a large tool shed and a potting shed.

Over the next two weeks we’re hoping to plant rhubarb and Jerusalem artichokes in new permanent beds. And we need to get rid of the dock weeds that are springing up everywhere.

The plastic covers will go on the polytunnels by early March, provided we get a calm, warm weather window. Then we’ll sow broad beans, carrots, radish and assorted salad leaves directly inside the tunnels.

We’ll also plant seeds in modules, starting with spring onions, salad, spinach, chard, beetroot, parsley, celeriac and spring cabbage.

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.

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

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.

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