Adrien

Adrien today left the farm for a second time. He volunteered with us for 9 months up until last summer, then returned in March for a social visit, before being stuck with us for 2 months due to the coronavirus lockdown! We are very very grateful for his help during this difficult time, he has again been invaluable. Adrien is the first of our lockdown team to leave. He should now be on the road in France, and we wish him good health and good luck as he returns home to uncertainty.

Mending the chicken fence with Rex.

Picking salad in the Mothership.

Packing greens with Ilaria.

Stringing tomato vines with Ilaria.

Planting potatoes with Chris.

Chicken sheds move again

As part of our rotation system, every two years the chickens move field, which involves dragging their sheds (with the chickens inside) from one field to another through some very narrow gateways. Kieron Williams helped us for the second time running, and he's getting quite good at it! Our tractor is only strong enough to tow the sheds downhill, but Kieron's can pull them uphill too...

Chickens out and about in their new field, six days after digging the last of our potatoes out of this patch.

Rex and Adrien replacing a section of fence after the chicken sheds had passed through.

Half of the field where the chickens came from is already planted with potatoes (ridged up today for the second time), and the other half is about to be ploughed for our winter brassica patch (plus leeks, beetroot etc..).

Beltane

Last night would have been our annual Beltane celebration and community get-together at the farm. But not this year, cancelled like most other things due to Covid-19. So here are some photos from Beltanes past to cheer us up.

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2019

The two missing years are because I wasn't there, but there was still Beltane on the farm. Hopefully in 2021 we'll all be back!

Peat-free potting compost £8.70

We have had a delivery of Petersfield Peat-Free Supreme potting compost, which is the best peat-free compost we've found, and what all the plants we raise to grow or sell are started off in. Sacks are available in the shop at £8.70 (as well as seeds and plants - herbs, bee-friendly flowers, tomatoes and courgettes).

Seeds in the shop again

We have a big new stock of garderner's seed packets from the Seed Cooperative.

Our farm shop is open Monday to Saturday 10am till 5pm, and Sunday 10am till 2pm.

Ten Year Anniversary

Bosavern Community Farm has now been here, in physical form, for TEN YEARS! In April 2010 a small group of local-food enthusiasts were given an 18-month lease of an empty farm by Cornwall Council. So much has happened since then. We are still here, and even more necessary during these strange times. We have had to postpone all the anniversary celebration events due to the current global pandemic, but we hope to be able to celebrate this amazing achievement properly with our wonderful community once things are more normal.

In the meantime we'd like to thank all the people who have made positive contributions to the farm over the past decade - especially our team of local volunteers who have supported us through thick and thin.

Starting work on the Market Garden in autumn 2010.

Inside the only polytunnel we had at the beginning - the Mothership.

The first egg laid by our first flock of hens.

Herb, tomato and bee-friendly plants for sale

With thanks to Ian we now have plenty of herb, tomato and bee-friendly plants for sale outside the farm shop. All have been grown by us from seed using peat-free compost. Herbs (basil, mint, parsley, chervil, dill, sage, lavender, savoury, hyssop etc) are £1, tomatoes (red alert, sungold, black Russian, subarctic plenty) are £1.50, and strips of alysum are £2.

Last year we bought 150 packets of vegetable seeds from the Seed Cooperative to sell in the farm shop, and we had 13 left at the end of the season. This year we have one left after only a few weeks. So today we have ordered another batch to arrive next week sometime hopefully. We are also trying to buy more sacks of peat-free supreme potting compost.