Harvest Celebration

Our next open day will be a Harvest Celebration on Sunday 29th September, from midday till 15:30, and will feature farm tours, a singing workshop, other live music (please bring an instrument to join in), a pop-up cafe, crafts and stalls, plus other activities/attractions yet to be finalised. Please some along and join in with the farm community on this afternoon of celebration - free and open to all.

Veronica

Veronica wwoofed with us for 3 weeks, and left today to head to Exeter to start her masters degree - many thanks Veronica for all your help and singing during your stay, and we hope all goes well for you at university.

Picking and packing for this week's veg boxes and wholesale orders

Calum picking runner beans.

Ann packing runner beans and spring greens.

Ian picking edible flowers for the Field House in Trewellard.

Picking a peck of peppers.

Margaret picking kale.

Picking a barrow of spring greens.

Virginia, Veronica, and Ann weighing veg into boxes.

This week we supplied Cafe Dog And Rabbit, the Field House, The Shore, Mousehole Deli, Sennen Costcutter, the Gurnard's Head, Mermaid Alley, and Picarico with fresh veg, salad and herbs, and also put together 45 veg boxes for local people and families. This week's veg boxes contained Maris Peer new potatoes, onions, spring greens, red curly kale, rocoto chillies, runner beans, peppers, cherry tomatoes, rocket, and courgettes.

Iris

Iris, from the Netherlands, volunteered with us for two weeks, and left this afternoon for the Eden Project then her next farm in Shropshire. Many thanks Iris for your help, and good luck further down your road.

Iris, in purple, helping to bring in the hay last week.

Camelot cyclists visit

A small group of cyclists from Camelot set off from Lands End last Saturday morning on a 9-day charity ride to John O'Groats, and they were planning on visiting National Lottery funded projects along the way. The National Lottery helped Bosavern Community Enterprises to purchase the community farm back in 2014, so we were a first visit on Friday evening for the Camelot team.

Just outside the pollinator garden and bee education shed.

Crossing Home Field on the way to the chickens.

Inside the Mothership polytunnel.

Looking at the allotments.

Thanks for the visit and good luck on the ride!

Hay

As soon as this year's hay was cut on 23rd August, the weather forecast changed from the predicted heatwave to some wetter milder weather. So it was a rush to get it dried and baled before the rain, and it was baled on 27th August just before the rain. With 710 bales out in the fields we had no chance to bring it in before it rained, so it was a case of standing the bales up and leaning them against each other to get them dry again before bringing them in.

After the bales had had a few good sunny days to dry out, we brought them in on the 2nd and 3rd September, and stacked them all in the open barn, just before it rained again. We always cut our hay in August, a late summer cut, to give the wildflowers time to set seed (except ragwort which we weed out before cutting), and to provide good forage for bees and butterflies and other wildlife.

Enjoying our tradition of drinking cider on top of the hay stack at the end of the final day, for all those people remaining!

710 bales stacked in the barn....

Our small-bale hay from traditional hay meadows is now for sale at the farm for £3.50 per bale.

Many many thanks to all our volunteers who helped with the hay this year - Andy, Shelley, Cameron, Ben, Ted, Callum, Kevin, Andre, Alex, Ilaria, Iris, Veronica, Virginia, and Alice and her two children. Great work!

Recent veg boxes

Aubergine and pepper plants in the Sausage polytunnel.

Picking courgettes of all colours, shapes and sizes, in the market garden.

Produce ready for distribution in the packing shed.

Our recent veg boxes have contained a selection from the following - cherry tomatoes, big tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, rocoto and ring-of-fire chillies, runner beans, French beans, kale, rainbow chard, onions, potatoes, spring greens, courgettes, cucumbers, basil and parsley.

Found a few more flowers...

Blackberries and honeysuckle in one of the camping fields.

Dogwood in one of the chicken field windbreaks (planted by us in 2011).

Fat hen.

Greater willow-herb in the market garden.

Broad-leaved willow-herb.

A new area of wildlfowers planted in the camping field by Monday's wildlife gardening group.

Marsh cudweed.

Fungi on one of the far fields (cut in the first half of July).

Sheep's bit in one of the far hedgerows.

Nasturtiums in the open barn.

One of the four thorn-apples that sprang up the area cleared for our new entrance.

More camping photos

New compost toilet on the car-free camping field.

Sunrise over the camping field.

View of hills from the car-free camping field - Bartinney Beacon on the left and Chapel Carn Brea on the right.

A table of recent wwoof volunteers

From the left - Francesca from Italy, Nymphea from France, Nick from the USA, Hana from London, Marc from Spain, Martin from France, and Ieva from Latvia - a big thank you to all!