April 7, 2011
Everyone will be having:
onions (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
cauliflower (Jeremy Brown, St Kew, and Growfair, Cornwall)
* purple sprouting broccoli (Jeremy)
* leeks (Jeremy)
* salad bags (Jeremy)
kale (Growfair)
potatoes (Growfair)
Standard boxes will have extra potatoes and onions plus:
swede (Growfair)
cabbage ‘Tundra’ (Growfair)
* jerusalem artichokes (Jeremy)
* = grown to organic principles
April 6, 2011
UPDATE: This vacancy has now been filled
Camel CSA is seeking to employ a committed and enthusiastic person who can help us build strong links within our local community in north Cornwall.
We’re looking for someone who can initiate and develop partnership agreements with schools, charities and special interest groups to increase practical awareness of the main aims of our community vegetable-growing project.
The partnership development coordinator will arrange and host group training visits to our two-acre plot at St Kew Highway near Wadebridge, where we cultivate our own vegetables to organic principles and operate a weekly veg box scheme.
The position is initially for a six-month fixed term, 12 hours a week.
“This post will suit someone who’s an excellent communicator and committed to the objectives of the Making Local Food Work programme,” said Camel CSA secretary Mike Sadler.
“S/he will need to have an understanding of basic horticultural principles as well as environmental and sustainability issues. In addition they must have a flexible approach to working, be able to operate on their own initiative and to deal with people of all ages and backgrounds.”
The closing date for applications is Tuesday 26 April 2011. Interviews will be held on Wednesday 4 May.
This position has been part-funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food Programme.
View the detailed job description (pdf)
Download an application form (pdf)
See the job advert at environmentjob.co.uk
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Food co-op looks for a co-ordinator – Cornish Guardian
April 5, 2011
Members of Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s volunteer
grow-our-own team are busy sowing, planting and watering as the season gets into full swing.
Expert grower Mark Norman is now employed on our St Kew Highway site two days a week to ensure everything goes to plan.
We’ve composted allium beds and planted onion sets – row after row of them. Broad bean and brassica beds have also been prepared and spring cabbages planted out. Additional lettuce varieties have been sown in modules, as well as turnips.
The potting shed is about to be erected and the cover put on the seeding tunnel. The mixed salad leaves planted in the polytunnel will be ready to pick for the veg boxes in a couple of weeks.
Many thanks to expert grower Mark N and current team members Bob, Bridget, Charlotte, Danny, Jenny, Kitty, Mark M, Mary, Mike S, Penny, Rebecca H and Robert plus five-year-olds Keira and Max.
April 1, 2011
From Annie Bell’s Evergreen. She recommends ‘any squat and tubular pasta’ and says that both the cauliflower and the pasta should be ‘on the firm side. The sauce is richly flavoured and hot, and just coats the pasta and cauliflower. Parmesan would be out of place.’
Serves 4
Preparation and cooking: 15-20 minutes
Ingredients
400g cauliflower florets (1 large cauliflower)
3 garlic cloves, peeled
2 level tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp harissa
3 tbsp olive oil
450g tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (or a tin of chopped tomatoes)
salt, pepper
225g penne
Method
Cut the cauliflower into 1cm florets. Finely chop the garlic cloves. Dilute the tomato puree with 3 tbsp of water and stir in the harissa. Take a deep frying pan and heat the olive oil. Cook the garlic until it gives off an aroma, then add the tomato solution, the chopped tomatoes and seasoning. Simmer the sauce for a couple of minutes. Add the cauliflower and cook, covered, for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. It should remain on the firm side.
While the cauliflower is cooking, boil the pasta, leaving it firm to the bite. Drain it, though not too dry, and toss it with the cauliflower. Adjust the seasoning and serve.
All the veg boxes will have:
onions (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
red cabbage (Restharrow Farm)
cauliflower (Restharrow Farm)
potatoes (Benbole Farm, St Kew)
* leeks (Jeremy Brown, St Kew Harvest)
round lettuce (Growfair, Cornwall)
purple sprouting broccoli (Growfair)
Standard boxes will have extra potatoes and onions plus:
savoy cabbage (Growfair)
swede (Growfair)
* jerusalem artichokes (Jeremy)
* = grown to organic principles
March 31, 2011
The spring planting rush is on. So we’re setting up some additional volunteering sessions on weekdays.
From now until September volunteer growers can help out on our site at St Kew Highway on Mondays from 2-4 pm and on Fridays from 10-12 noon.
The Friday morning growing slot is at the same time the picking and packing team prepares the weekly veg boxes. This in addition to our all-year-round Sunday morning team sessions.
Expert grower Mark Norman will be on hand to advise and guide us on the finer art of vegetable growing.
There’s lots to get done over the next few days both inside and out. Onion sets and broad beans need sowing and there’s spring cabbage to plant out in the newly-prepared growing beds.
And of course there’s still plenty more dock weeds to dig up.
March 30, 2011
Western Morning News columnist Gillian Molesworth has got it in for the humble Jerusalem artichoke.
They leer at me from their growing colony in the refrigerator. I’ve roast them, I’ve souped them, I’ve shredded them. My family has suffered digestive consequences. No one will touch them now, no matter what I do.
Gillian is one of Camel CSA’s loyal weekly veg box customers. It’s not as if she’s stuck for a recipe for artichokes. It’s just that she’s had enough.
Well, I’ve got bad news for her: we’ve just planted a large bed of them as a windbreak (!) for our soft fruit area.
In the meantime I suggest she puts her unwanted artichokes on the compost heap along with the swedes that are piling up in her veg rack. Unless she wants to try them raw?
But I hope she resists the temptation to buy out-of-season vegetables that have been flown halfway around the world. As Gillian concludes, what we eat is a question of moral and not just digestive fibre.
March 29, 2011
Camel CSA enjoyed an energetic day out at the WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) south-west regional gathering at Bosavern Community Farm just outside St Just-in-Penwith.
Bosavern Farm is rented from Cornwall Council by the Lands End Pensinsula Community Land Trust.
Volunteers are growing vegetables and keeping hens, led by community farm trainer Hugh Taylor. Their produce is sold at the farm gate, in shops in St Just and at Pendeen Farmers’ Market.
The 38-acre organic farm is situated just inland from Cape Cornwall on the toe of Britain, only a few miles from Land’s End. It’s able to produce quite a lot of over-wintered, early crops in the mild climate but also suffers from the wild Atlantic weather.
The event provided an opportunity for Camel CSA and Bosavern to share their growing experiences.
Highlights of the day included testing the tree bogs (compost toilets), joining the farm tour, exploring the polytunnel and participating in some group work led by Bosavern’s volunteer growers. Around 15 of us dug out two onion beds in hazy spring sunshine.
A big thank you to everyone at Bosavern for extending such a warm and friendly welcome to us.
You can follow Bosavern Community Farm’s seasonal progress on Hugh Taylor’s blog.
March 25, 2011
The onslaught on the dock weeds continues. Picking and packing team members helped out expert grower Mark Norman after he spent four solitary hours digging up the worst of them.
or ‘Poireaux au vin rouge’ – a recipe from Elizabeth David’s classic French Provincial Cooking. She explains that, ‘Unexpectedly, perhaps, when wine is to be used in the cooking of leeks, the French always use red rather than white wine … It is a dish of particularly beautiful appearance, with the green of the leeks and the dark purple of the wine sauce.’
Preparation and cooking: 20 minutes
Ingredients
500g leeks
3-4 tbsp olive oil
1 wineglass of red wine
2 tbsp meat or vegetable stock (or water)
salt
Method
Choose smallish leeks if possible, all of a size. Having cut them down almost to the white part and cleaned them thoroughly, put them side by side in a frying pan in which you have heated the olive oil. As soon as they have taken colour on one side, turn them over. Season with very little salt. Pour over the wine (look out for the spluttering), let it bubble, add the stock or water, cover the pan and cook at a moderate pace for 7 to 10 minutes, turning the leeks over once during the process. They are done when a skewer pierces the root end quite easily. Put the leeks in a shallow dish, cook the sauce another few seconds until reduced and pour it over the leeks.
