Grapes

Our first ever grapes are now available in the farm shop, priced at £5 per kilo. They are green seedless "Nimrod" produced by two vines generously donated to the farm by Joan Fisher three years ago.

Grapes on our vines in the Mothership.

Grapes for sale at St. Just farmers' and craft market on Saturday.

Rain!

After two months of drought the rain finally came on Friday evening, to our great relief. We'd sown beetroot, chard, carrots, salads and turnips, as well as planting out pumpkins, courgettes, leeks, and dwarf French beans in the hope that it would, having already delayed for longer than we'd like.... We've never known a dry spell like it in eight years of community farming.

Planting pumpkins out a month late.

Planting leeks at the right time but in the wrong conditions.

Stormclouds gathering over the farm on Saturday morning.

Rain hitting our propagation area on Saturday afternoon.

Golden-ringed dragonfly

At the end of June we spotted a golden-ringed dragonfly in one of the herb gardens planted by school groups last year. The female golden-ringed dragonfly is the UK's longest dragonfly.
https://www.british-dragonflies.org.uk/species/golden-ringed-dragonfly

Veg boxes 27th July

Last Friday's standard £10 veg box contained - tomatoes, new potatoes (Colleen), onions, courgettes, 3 peppers, a bunch of beetroot, blackcurrants (or redcurrants or grapes), a cucumber, 4 green chillies, curly kale and rainbow chard (all grown on the community farm).

The small £6 veg box contained - tomatoes, onions, new potatoes, rainbow chard, a cucumber, a pepper, and a courgette.

We deliver all over West Penwith, even St. Ives and Penzance - please call us on 788454 for more details.

Lucia

Lucia, from Bristol, left on Saturday morning having volunteered with us as a wwoofer for one week - she will be back in October for another 2 weeks, as part of her research into sustainable food systems. Many thanks to Lucia for her help and enthusiasm during her time with us.

Lafrowda 2018

Lafrowda is one of the biggest events in St. Just's busy social calender. The culmination of two weeks of community arts and crafts events and workshops is Lafrowda Day itself, which was Saturday 21st July.

Alice on the farm's stall on Fore Street - also helped through the day by Fran in her amazing Andalusian dress.

The farmers' market and buskers corner in full swing on Fore Street.

The farm's incredible willow sculpture of a Seville orange seller, created for us by the wonderful Jo and her mum.

This is a video of the 10pm torchlit procession, where you can see our sculpture in action on the streets of St. Just.

Thank you to everybody who harvested and packed veg and eggs on the Friday, and helped on our stall and in the processions on Saturday, and many many thanks to Jo for her amazing willow sculpture. And thank you Lafrowda!

Planting leeks

We were waiting for some wet weather to transplant our leeks, but after weeks of dry sunshine and no rain on the horizon, we had to go for it before it was too late. This year we have nine varieties of leek, maturing at different times, to hopefully give us a long harvest of up to eight months.

Digging leek seedlings out of the polytunnel, where we sowed them in early March.

Planting leeks into dibbed and watered holes in long lines of green-waste compost.

We transplanted exactly one mile of leeks, at 20cm spacings, so that's just over 8000 plants.

We spent all our spare time for ten days transplanting leeks, and have watered them on most days since, which also takes hours. Fingers crossed for some rain soon and a good crop later! Many thanks to all the people who volunteered to help.

More recent wwoof volunteers

Three other wwoofers have left the farm recently - Gregoire from France, Jackie from England, and Octave also from France.

Planting squash - Octave on the left, Jackie central, with John on the right.

Special thanks must go to Jackie for stepping in at the last minute (and only her second day on the farm) to run the bee-friendly garden building with the Latymer School students.

Latymer School visit

It was a great pleasure to welcome a group of students from London's Latymer School back to the farm for the second year running. This year they brought 25 pupils for a full day of educational activities, including:-
- Learning about our black bees, and why pollinators are so important in the food chain and nature.
- Building and planting square-metre wildflower gardens.
- Growing fruit and vegetables in polytunnels and outdoors.
- Harvesting vegetables and preparing them for sale.
- Sowing seeds and potting-on seedlings.
- The importance of community, wildlife, and organics in agriculture.
- How to care for free-range laying hens.

There was also time to eat Cornish pasties and cake, and to play frisbee in our camping field.

Many thanks to the school (pupils and teachers) for revisiting the farm, and also to our local and international volunteers who ensured the day went well. We hope to see you again in 2019!

Tomatoes

Our tomato vines are now in full production, with even the first few fruit ready on our third successional sowing. This year we have a wide selection of mainly heritage varieties of all shapes, sizes, and colours, including; sungold F1, ruby, costoluto di Fiorentina, gardeners' delight, zuckertraub, yellow submarine, golden queen, chocolate cherry, orange banana, stupice, oxheart, tigerella, quadro, and probably some others that I can't remember. They are now available in our shop at £4 per kilo, pick and mix (as well as in veg boxes and at farmers' markets).

Pick and mix tomatoes for sale in the farm shop.

Picking tomatoes and climbing French beans.

Nigel polytunnel full of tomato vines (350 vines, with another 170 in other tunnels).

Recent wwoofers

As usual we have had invaluable help from a changing team of WWOOF volunteers over recent weeks:-

Quentin, from France, helping to clean out the chicken sheds.

Sara, from Western Australia, looking after our chickens. Sara came with her daughter Jona for ten days, and both were a great help.

Recent veg boxes

Farming has kept us too occupied to manage our social media recently, so here's a little catch-up...

Small box 29th June - climbing beans, courgette, cucumber, new potatoes, rainbow chard, black Tuscan kale.

Standard box 6th July - redcurrants, cucumbers, basil, new potatoes, black Tuscan kale, chard, broad beans, and climbing beans.