June 11, 2011
What a difference the new polytunnels are making!
The contents of this week’s seasonal veg boxes came almost exclusively from Camel CSA’s own plot.
Expert grower Mark Norman supplied us with broad beans and green onions from his smallholding in Bodmin. Richard Hore provided Cornish new potatoes grown in his fields above the Camel estuary.
When it comes to making local food work, you can’t get much more local than that.
The volunteer growing team have a variety of jobs to get through this Sunday morning. We need to: –
- Mark out and form the third lasagne bed in the new polytunnel and plant two rows of tomatoes
- Weed the second brassica bed
- Prepare the second sweetcorn bed and move the sweetcorn seedlings to the cold frame
- Dig the remaining holes in the squash beds and fill each one with two shovelfuls of compost (the rest of the pumpkins and squashes will get planted later in the week)
- Plant the dahlias beside the squashes
- Sow a tray of cabbage, half a tray each of calabrese and turnips (six turnip seeds per module)
June 8, 2011
The ground inside our new polytunnel is rock hard as a result of the prolonged dry spell in Cornwall. So it’s proved too difficult to dig deeply by hand to prepare for planting the tomatoes and peppers.
That’s why we’re experimenting with a no-dig method known in the United States as lasagne gardening.
This permaculture approach involves placing cardboard on the ground to suppress the weeds, watering it thoroughly and then covering it with newspaper and thick layers of compost or other organic material.
We’re planting the tomatoes and peppers directly into the compost and a hole is being pierced through the cardboard so the plants’ roots get access to the earth underneath.
All being well, there will be lovely friable soil once the cardboard has rotted down at the end of the season.
So watch this space!
- Special thanks to Joe and Laura Brown at St Mabyn PO & Stores for all their recycled cardboard
June 4, 2011
Our growing team are going to be busy this weekend on our community veg plot at St Kew Highway.
Expert growers Mark N and Bridget, along with Bob and five-year-old Max, planted out hundreds of pumpkins and squashes in hot Cornish sunshine on Friday.
The high temperatures in Cornwall mean we have to keep a close eye on the polytunnel and cold frames. We must keep watering the baby beetroot, carrots, leek seedlings, french beans, cucumbers and basil in the tunnel, along with the seedlings in the cold frames, and the brussel sprouts and kale outside.
Our Sunday volunteers also need to: –
- Plant out spring onions, purple sprouting broccoli (Rudolph) and dahlias
- Feed the calabrese and stonehead cabbage seedlings and move them into the cold frames
- Weed the broad beans, parsley and celeriac
- Compost the next root bed
- Cut the grass
Phew!
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.
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.
January 11, 2011
Our volunteer growers have completed the first task of the year. They’ve laid weed-suppressing plastic and compost around the newly-planted native hedge that’ll shelter our crops from the worst of the Cornish weather.
Many thanks to expert grower Jane Mellowship and her team – Cath, Charlotte, Danny, Finn (7), Keira (5), Mark M, Mike S.
December 10, 2010
Who we are, what we do and why we’re doing it. That’s the subject of a short film being made by Making Local Food Work about Camel Community Supported Agriculture.
Making Local Food Work is the umbrella organisation that gives advice and support to community food enterprises like ours.
The aim of the video is to raise the profile of community supported agriculture projects. The idea is to interview people involved and to film us in action.
The film-makers have been recording the picking and packing team’s activities – digging up leeks and Jerusalem artichokes, weighing out the potatoes and onions and preparing the rest of this week’s Cornish veg boxes.
They’ve also been filming our growing team who have lots of winter chores to complete. These include finishing construction of the all-important rabbit-proof fence and putting down a weed-suppressing mulch to protect the native windbreak hedge.
May 15, 2010
We’ve got carrot and parsnip seeds to sow this Sunday in the new growing beds. The broad beans need hoeing and we’ve also got more planting out to do on our plot at St Kew Highway.
Last weekend we managed to get the remaining growing beds spread with compost. We planted out some celeriac and weeded the rest of the onions.
Expert grower Jeremy B has now put the rotovator over the new beds to get them ready for sowing.
Thanks to last week’s team of volunteers led by expert growers Jeremy B and Mark N. It included Charlotte, Danny, Mark M, Mike S and Rebecca. Our younger helpers, Keira and Finn, especially enjoyed the homemade Great Ormond Street carrot cake.
May 8, 2010
Feeling energetic in the spring weather? The growing team has lots of jobs on the veg plot this Sunday.
We need to spread barrowloads of compost on some newly-formed beds and dig out a base for our new shed. We’ve also more sowing, weeding and planting out to get done.
We’ll be on the site between 10am and 1pm on Sunday. If you’re able to come, please bring an assortment of spades, rakes, hoes, hand tools and, if possible, a wheelbarrow for the compost shifting. And don’t forget to include gloves and a snack!
Last weekend expert grower Jeremy got the tractor out and formed several new growing beds for us to spread with the compost. We have carrot, parsnip and spinach seed to sow.
Kitty, Mark M, Penny, Rebecca, Robert and Charlotte performed some painstaking tasks. We dug out thistles from the garlic and onion beds, weeded beetroot and pricked out celery seedlings.
