Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Christmas shop opening times

The farm shop will be closed on Christmas Day, boxing Day, and New Years' Day. Apart from those we will be open daily from 11am till 6pm. Please support your local growers and producers by doing your Christmas shopping at your local community farm!


Farm's festive lunch

On Sunday 17th December we held a festive lunch at the farm, to which all our staff and volunteers were invited, with everybody asked to bring something, anything, to share.
15 people came along, including board members, local volunteers, and wwoofers, and brought with them (amongst other things) cauliflower cheese, chard and feta pie, roast veg, pumpkin soup, hedgerow wine, home-made ginger beer, crisps with dips, mandarins, apple crumble, local ice-cream, chocolates, fizz, cheeses etc...etc... Thank you to everyone who came and joined in, we all had a lovely afternoon! Let's hope that this is the start of a new tradition.

Festive Friday in St. Just

On Friday 15th St Just celebrated a "festive Friday" as part of the run-up to Christmas, with Santa playing a barrel organ in the Square, a farmers and crafts market in the WI Hall, Pendeen Silver Band playing in the Square, the Christmas lights turn-on, a walking nativity with live animals, followed by a winter ceilidh in the Old Town Hall.

Our stall at the evening farmers and craft market.


Veg boxes Friday 15th December

Harvesting Chinese cabbage/leaves from the Sausage polytunnel.
Small veg box (£6) - Chinese cabbage, savoy cabbage, potatoes, leeks, parsnips, Vietnamese coriander, and a pumpkin portion.
Standard veg box (£10) - Chinese cabbage, savoy cabbage, potatoes, leeks, parsnips, a pumpkin portion, black winter radishes, Vietnamese coriander, celeriac, and chard.

Clement and Marcello

Two of our wwoof volunteers have recently returned home for Christmas (three are staying to share the festivities with us) - Marcello, from Italy, after 6 weeks, and Clement, from the French Alps, after one month.
Marcello helping Otta wash-up after our festive lunch.

Clement digging up leeks in the market garden.
Many thanks to both Clement and Marcello for their help this winter, and we wish them both a merry Christmas back home.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Polytunnel snapshots on 3rd December

In the Mothership, just before pulling out the cucmber vines and some of the strawberries, with the Siberian kiwi having shed most of its leaves.

In the Sausage, with a succession of headed lettuces, cut-and-come-again salad leaves, watercress, parsley, and oriental leafy vegetables.

In Valentine, with crops of carrots and daikon (mooli radish) almost ready for harvesting, and some spring greens just gone in (following on from our pepper crop).

In Nigel, full of a succession of winter salads.

In Imogen, following on from our tomato vines, now full of watercress, green sprouting broccoli, lettuces, cabalonero, radishes, pak choi, parsley, coriander, Chinese cabbages, vivid choi, radicchio etc...

Miner's Chapel Christmas Tree Festival 2017

Fran, Alice and Herbie putting some finishing touches to the tree.

The community farm's tree in the festival.

Humpty Dumpty atop the farm's tree.
St. Just's amazing and world-renowned Miner's Chapel (www.facebook.com/StJustMinersChapel) is once more holding it's lovely Christmas Tree Festival, this year with "nursery rhymes" as the theme.  The community farm has chosen Humpty Dumpty for our tree, and thanks to all our volunteers who helped with the decorating, it looks superb. The festival is open every day from 2pm till 7pm until the 2nd January, with free entrance, and refreshments available.

Veg boxes Friday 8th December

This is last Friday's standard £10 veg box, which contained purple sprouting broccoli, a cauliflower, kale, leeks, jerusalem artichokes, rainbow chard, a pumpkin portion, potatoes, and oriental greens.

The small £6 box contained potatoes, kale, a pumpkin portion, beetroot, leeks, and a bag of mixed salad leaves.

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Today's Advent Fair

A selection of home-made cakes in the pop-up Cow Shed Cafe - it's not an open day without cakes!

Rosie's food van serving gorgeous burgers in the farmyard (alongside Sonja's tombola and our newly reclaimed picnic benches).

Crafts in the cob barn - making "all the king's horses and all the king's men" for the Miner's Chapel Christmas Tree Festival.

Crafts and spontaneous festive singing in the cob barn.

Meeting the chickens and collecting eggs.

Eleven members of Pendeen Silver Band playing carols in the farmyard to end the day - wonderful.
Many thanks to everyone who helped make our Advent Fair such a lovely experience - people who baked cakes or made soup, Rosie with her food van (and her sister Catrina who played cello in the cob barn), people who ran the crafts, Sophie who sold her jarred produce in the packing shed, everybody who sang or played an instrument served in the cafe or shop or took people to collect eggs or look round the polytunnels - and everybody who came on the day.