Christmas shop opening times

The farm shop will be open 11am to 6pm every day over the festive period, except for Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, and January 2nd. We have a great range of fresh vegetables, plus plenty of gift ideas - Christmas cards, honey, honeycomb, beeswax candles, leather dog collars, herbal tonics, lip balms, jams, preserves, chutneys, dried chillies, sauces, relishes, soaps, seaweed, gingerbread etc..etc...

There will be no bread in the shop from December 25th to January 3rd (Vicky's are having a holiday), but we will have fresh bread again from Monday 4th January. Local organic milk will be available throughout.

Veg boxes 11th December

Small £6 veg box - cabbage, cauliflower (organic, grown near Penzance), potatoes, pumpkin portion, carrots, and jerusalem artichokes.

Standard £10 veg box - cabbage, onions, potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, carrots, pumpkin portion, cauliflower (organic, grown near Penzance), jalapeno peppers, and mixed salad leaves.

Elise

Elise, from France, spent 6 weeks wwoofing on the community farm, and was an invaluable help, but left last Friday to head home for Christmas. Many thanks Elise!

Veg boxes over the festive period

This season both Christmas Day and New Year's Day fall on Fridays, so we have moved our veg box day to Wednesdays 23rd and 30th December instead. Can all our veg box customers please let us know if they want a veg box on those days or not, and if there is any change in their order.
Many thanks!
And a very happy festive period to you all.

Cornwall Sustainability Awards

On the evening of Friday 4^th December representatives from the farm attended the ‘Cornwall Sustainability Awards’ ceremony.

The wonderful ceremony, whose keynote speaker was Jonathon Porritt CBE, is held every year to celebrate and acknowledge those in Cornwall who are aiming to conduct their business in the most sustainable way they can.

Bosavern Community farm was announced joint winners of the category ‘Best contribution to a sustainable food economy – From nature to plate’. This was the most hotly contested of all the categories, with the most applicants and longest shortlist. The judges could not separate us from the ‘Devon & Cornwall food association’ who do fantastic work collecting food bound for landfill and redistributing it to housing shelters and the homeless. So we both were victorious in our category, overcoming very stiff competition.

Upon winning the award, the judges told the assembled attendees that Bosavern Community Farm is

‘A shining light; and an example of how we should all aim to adopt a more sustainable and community led approach to food production. Their tireless work should be a lesson to us all.’

We would like to say a huge thank you to YOU the community, our volunteers, staff, friends and customers for your continued support, and to also congratulate you on this award as it belongs to all involved (both past & present) with Bosavern Community Farm.

Georg

Georg, from Germany/Tajikistan, left the community farm yesterday after one week wwoofing with us. Thank you Georg for your help during your stay, and we wish you the best with your next wwoofing assignment.

Advent Fair

Our final event of a very busy weekend was our own Advent Fair down on the farm. The weather forecast had waxed and waned all week, and on the day the weather turned out to be grey and damp, so thanks to everyone who braved it and came along, we hope you enjoyed it!

We had Christmas decoration and beeswax candle-rolling workshops in the Hive, where you could also pin festive messages on the wish-globe; in the packing shed we ran our ever popular cafe, with hot soup and mince pies and other treats; the farm shop looked very festive, and we were taking orders for our Christmas hampers; there was a campfire in the farmyard for those wishing to brave the damp; and entertainment in the packing shed began with the Land And Sea singers, followed by Pendeen Silver Band in their first ever performance at the farm.

Christmas decorations created in the craft workshops.

Craft workshops under way in the Hive.

Doves of peace on our wish-globe.

Mince pies in the Cow Shed Cafe.

Our farm shop, full of farm produce and gift ideas (mostly edible!).

Gathering around the foggy campfire.

Land And Sea treating us to a sing-along performance in the packing shed.

Pendeen Silver Band playing carols to round off the afternoon.

We'd like to thank the singers and musicians for providing entertainment, our volunteers for setting up / packing away / running the craft workshops / cooking and baking for the cafe / running the shop and cafe / building the campfire / helping to organise another successful event - and big thanks to everyone who came!

St Just Christmas Fair

On Saturday 5th December we had a stall at the Christmas Fair in the Old Town Hall, which Steve, one of our wwoofers, ran for us.

Veg box 4th December

This is the small £6 veg box from last Friday - a portion of pumpkin, a bunch of carrots, potatoes, onions, parsnips, and a celeriac (local and organic, grown near Penzance). Also shown are optional extras - half a dozen of our own eggs (£1.50), a large organic sourdough loaf (£2.90), and a litre of local organic milk (£1.20).

The standard £10 box also included a head of celery, some fresh sage, and a red cabbage (local and organic, grown near Penzance).

Well appeal

At the start of the year we fitted a water meter to the tap next to our polytunnels, which has shown us that 52% of the farm's total water use (including the farmhouse) is used for irrigating our polytunnels. In one of our fields we have an historic well, now sealed with a manhole cover, which we have the potential to bring back into use. We have had the water professionally tested and it has proved to be of good enough quality to be used for both irrigation and watering livestock (all our chicken sheds now have guttering and water-butts, so we rarely need to use mains water for our poultry anyway). To re-open the well and install the equipment necessary to allow us to irrigate our polytunnels will cost in the region of £5000. This would cut our water bills by half, and significantly improve the overall sustainability of the farm. On the right hand side of this blog we have installed a button where you can donate money to our Well Appeal, to help us with this latest step towards becoming a sustainable community farm. Many thanks!

Evelin, Daniel, and Elise

Evelin (from Germany), Daniel (from Spain), and Elise (from Canada) have all come to the end of their wwoofing stays with us over the past few days.

Evelin on the left, Daniel centre left, French Elise centre right (who is still at the farm), and Canadian Elise on the right; sorting and packing potatoes in the packing shed.

As always we would like to thank them for their hard work on the farm, and wish them well in their onward travels.