Peziza repanda

 

We've found this fungus growing in our newly mulched rhubarb patch, possible on wood chip, or possible on cardboard. We think it's Peziza redanda, or palomino fungus, can anyone confirm this or correct us? The fungus is very brittle.

Today's veg boxes

 

Today's 105 veg boxes (making more than 6000 veg boxes produce this financial year) contained a selection from - oriental greens (pak choi, vivid choi, komatsuna, green-in-snow, Chinese cabbage), chard, kohl rabi, radishes, potatoes, parsnips, mixed herbs (coriander, parsley, fennel), cauliflower, dried chilllies, salad leaves.

Plus extras of eggs, bread, milk and honey....

Klara

Klara arrived at the beginning of February (from another WWOOF host in Devon) and stayed with us for almost two months, becoming an integral part of our team for Lockdown 3, and left today to head home to Germany. Many thanks Klara!

Farmhouse bubble for lockdown 3 - Polly, Klara, Nick, Jenny, Wanchi, Hector.

Spring

Spring is now officially upon us, and the ground is warming up enough for us to plant and sow outdoor crops; the polytunnels are also warming up causing our winter crops to bolt, but also allowing us to plant early summer crops. We are now heading into the Hungry Gap, my least favourite time of year, but there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful:-

Planting outdoor salad to replace the polytunnel salad, a lot of which is now bolting.

Celendines on top of a Cornish hedge in the farmyard.

Seedlings germinating in the hot bed (cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, chillies, basil, French beans etc..).

Primroses in the pollinator garden

Bumble bee on willow blossom in the market garden.

Rhubarb

We have been working on our rhubarb patch for a number of years, by digging up and splitting the crowns then replanting them, and buying new pieces of crown, and growing rhubarb from bought seeds. Last year we sowed 100 seeds and ended up with over 90 new plants, far more than expected, so we planted them in the autumn and that has more than doubled the size of our patch, though they will not be productive until next season. We have sown more this year and hope for similar success.

We have also spent a lot of time this winter on weeding and mulching the patch, as it suffers from both perennial and annual weeds - we dug out what we could, then laid cardboard and paper sacks, with a top layer of woven plastic mulch to hold it all in place. This year we hope to be able to harvest more rhubarb and with less nettle rash!

Potato planting 2021

We started planting potatoes on Saturday afternoon 20th March, and put in 4 sacks Casablanca first-earlies, 6 sacks Maris Peer second-earlies, and 10 sacks Ambo maincrop, then finished off this morning with 10 sacks of Carolus blight-resistant maincrop, making 750kg of seed potatoes planted in total (all supplied by Skea Organics in Scotland). This year they have gone into the bottom half of the old chicken field, the top half having been used for last year's potatoes (and this year it will be other field scale crops such as swede and beetroot). We finished digging them out in February, having begun last June, and since then we have been buying organic potatoes from the Lizard, farmed by John Bosustow.

Hector and Nick on the planter.

Polly and Jenny....

and Harry and Klara.

View from the tractor cab.

Wanchi

 

Wanchi returning from the chicken sheds back in January.

Last Friday we sadly had to say goodbye to Wanchi, who is now in a quarantine hotel in Taiwan, having re-entered her home country for the first time since 2019. Wanchi was writing her dissertation in York when the Covid pandemic hit, and came to us as a wwoofer for one month (January 2021) having isolated for two weeks beforehand - she then stayed with us for ten weeks. We'd like to send Wanchi many thanks for all her help during her time with us, and we wish her all the best back home.

Bosavern Training and Work Experience week 3

This week our Trainees harvested the radishes following a briefing from Hugh; learned about pollinator plants from Ian; how to sow with Ross; set some personal goals with Katie and provided the lunchtime meals for all the farm workers with Ali, our Cookery Tutor. Thankyou to Molly for the photographs.

To find out more about our trainee placements for unemployed adults, contact Katie on training@bosaverncommunityfarm.org.uk or call 01736 272367

This project supports unemployed adults, funded by the European Social Fund with support from Cornwall Council.

Bosavern Training and Work Experience week 4

This week our trainees have continued to practice their construction skills by making the wooden door and adding extra supports to the polytunnel metalwork with Dom. They have built raised beds and assembled two new wheelbarrows as well as undertaking some potting-on with Ross and their 1:1 support, goal-setting and harvesting work experience continues with Katie. Hugh gave a briefing on the farm’s four year rotation while our shop volunteer John ably supervised some till practice. On Tuesday and Thursday the trainees catered for all the key-workers with tuition from Ali; vegetarian bangers and mash, and a hearty veg box pie!

To find out more about our Spring and Summer Training and Work Experience placements, contact Katie on training@bosaverncommunityfarm.org.uk or call 01736 272367. Bosavern Training & Work Experience supports unemployed adults, funded by the European Social Fund with support from Cornwall Council.

 

 

Bosavern Training and Work Experience week 2

This week our trainees harvested Rainbow Chard and Spring Greens; cooked a tasty vegan tajine for the farm workers and made a great start on the metalwork phase of the new polytunnel, ably supervised by our volunteer construction tutor, Dom Goetz. To find out more about our Spring and Summer trainee placements, contact Katie on training@bosaverncommunityfarm.org.uk or call 01736 272367.

#BosavernTraining & Work Experience supports unemployed adults, funded by the #EU European Social Fund with support from #CornwallCouncil.

 

Bosavern Training and Work Experience week 1

This week the team at #BosavernTraining & Work Experience have been using trigonometry to peg out string lines accurately; digging the polytunnel foundations; harvesting red Russian kale for the veg boxes and catering for all the key farm workers. This project for unemployed adults is funded by the European Social Fund with support from Cornwall Council.

 

Today's veg boxes

 

59 small veg boxes - salad leaves, oriental greens, potatoes, swede, beetroot and parsley/coriander.

42 standard veg boxes - salad leaves, kale, spring greens, swede, potatoes, dried chillies, kohl rabi, watercress and beetroot.

26 veg bags for Pendeen School - carrots, potatoes, swede, beetroot, salad leaves and chard.