Beltane

We will not be hosting a Beltane celebration at the farm this year, as the event has returned to its traditional venue of the summit of Carn Bosavern. There will even be a new Maypole created by a local artist. Everybody is welcome to attend, on Monday 30th April from 6:30pm.

Sowing swedes

Swedes (short for "Swedish turnips") are not everyone's favourite veg, but they are a staple ingredient in traditional Cornish pasties, and are a good winter root crop. Yesterday we sowed 16 lines of them in one of our fields, in between the downpours.

Last season was the first time we'd ever had total swede failure, so we've tried harder this year....fingers crossed.

Outdoor salad

Our first new season crop this year has been a bed of outdoor salad, which we uncovered and began harvesting from last Friday morning. The salad is amazing, young and fresh and tender, and has been sold to several restaurants already, as well as going into veg boxes and being available in our farm shop and at all 3 of our farmer's markets.

Andy and Hitomi preparing to pick the first salad leaves from this season's first outdoor bed.

Jana

Jana, from Germany, left this morning after volunteering with us for 4 weeks. Many thanks to Jana for all her help and tidying up!

Jana planting globe artichokes in the perennial area of the market garden.

Emma and Eloise

Emma and Eloise, from Cambridge, volunteered on the farm for 2 weeks, and left on Saturday for their next adventures. Many thanks for your help!

Eloise (centre) and Emma (right) planting cabalonero kale in our fifth permanent raised bed, with Andy and Andy, in the market garden.

Veg boxes 13th April

French breakfast radishes picked for veg boxes.

 Small £6 veg box - cauliflower, potatoes, Chinese leaves, coriander, parsley, and mixed salad leaves.

Frisee endives ready for picking.

Standard £10 veg box - cauliflower, potatoes, Chinese leaves, coriander, parlsey, frisee endive, purple kohl rabi, vivid choi greens, and French breakfast radishes.

Please email the farm on vegbox.bcf@bcents.org.uk to order your veg box, or to ask us about it.

Planting cucumbers and the first tomatoes

We've hopefully seen the last of the cold winter weather (Cornwall had double the average precipitation in March, some of which fell as snow), so we've planted this years cucumber crop in the polytunnel, being 120 plants of Passandra, plus our first 90 tomato plants. The second batch of tomatoes will be ready to plant in two weeks time, and the third batch is just germinating now.

Cucumber plants in the Sausage polytunnel.

Tomato plants gradually replacing winter salads in Nigel polytunnel.

And a photo of the mange-tout plants in Imogen polytunnel, just because they look amazing.

Mural completed

Bethany adding the final touches on Wednesday afternoon.

The completed artwork.

Many thanks to Bethany for her 5 days of painting!

Living room mural

Bethany, an art student at Falmouth University, has come to stay at the farm for her fourth time, with the main intention to create a Bosavern Community Farm themed mural in the farmhouse living room (and hopefully do some weeding once it's finished?).

Friday, the wall is prepared and surrounding area cleared ready for action.

Saturday, with the pink background ready and the first few designs begun.

Tuesday, and the mural is really taking shape.

Watch this blog to see how our latest farm artwork develops over the coming few days....

Ploughing the market garden

As previously reported on this blog, we have this winter split the market garden into two by planting three lines of willow windbreak down the middle of it. The further half will be worked as much as possible by tractor, starting last week when the ground drained just enough for us to be able to plough it, one acre taking about three hours on Friday then Saturday afternoons.

The market garden before ploughing - the first time it has been ploughed for several years.

Getting started.

Three hours later - ready for rolling and rotovating into strips.

Three lines of overwintering onions undisturbed along the southern edge.

Lillie, Sam, Rahma, Kristin and Manon

A whole team of wwoofers has left over the past few days (to be replaced by a new team), so we'd like to send our thanks to Lillie (especially for running our stall at the Penwith Green Fair) (from Shropshire), Sam (also from Shropshire), Rahma (from Indonesia), Kristin (from Germany, who enjoyed it so much that she's booked to come back in August), and Manon (from France).

Kristin, Lillie and Sam, digging dock roots out of the market garden to prepare it for ploughing.

Manon likewise.

Rachma preparing a bed in the Sausage ready for planting cucumbers.