Potato planting 2024

At last, after a two-month delay due mainly to wet weather (but also a snapped pin on the tractor steering), we managed to plant our acre of potatoes on the 1st and 3rd of May, only the second time we've ever had to plant as late as May. We ploughed the field back in early February just before the rains began, and couldn't roll or rotovate it until late April due to the wetness!

One acre of the chicken field ploughed in February, and left for the chickens to pick over (we also hand-pulled as many dock roots as we could find).

Jess and Ross planting potatoes last Wednesday.

Planting potatoes last Wednesday - nice view!

Libby and Louie planting potatoes last Monday.

This year we have planted four varieties - 5 sacks of Casablanca first early, 5 sacks of Maris Peer second early, 12 sacks of Cara maincrop (because Ambo was not available), and 16 sacks of Carolus blight-tolerant maincrop.

Veg boxes 3rd May

 

Digging fresh elephant garlic.

Spinach harvested ready for veg boxes.

Spinach beds in the "hungry gap" section of the market garden.

Small £9.50 veg box - dried ring-of-fire chillies, a fresh elephant garlic, mixed herbs, Twister potatoes, salad leaves, spinach, and a swede.

Standard £14.50 veg box - all the above, plus chard, a bunch of icicle radishes, oriental greens, and rhubarb.

Today's veg boxes

 

Today we have delivered (or had collected) 78 veg boxes, thanks to Chris and Richard, our two volunteer delivery drivers. The boxes contained:-

Small box (£9.50) - purple sprouting broccoli (Cargease Organics), carrots (UK organic), a cauliflower (Cargease Organics), potatoes, a bunch of icicle radishes, and mixed salad leaves.

Standard box (£14.50) - carrots (UK organic), a cauliflower (Cargease Organics), chard, oriental greens, mixed herbs, parsnips (UK organic), potatoes, a bunch of icicle radishes, rhubarb, and mixed salad leaves.

To sign up for one of our not-for-profit veg boxes please fill out an online form at www.bosaverncommunityfarm.org.uk/veg-boxes/

Cargease Organics.

 

Our good friend, Franics Sampson, of Cargease Organics near Cockwells and Crowlas, is semi-retiring, and will no longer be growing organic veg to sell. Francis is one of the UK's leading organic field-scale growers, and many box schemes in Cornwall and across the country have relied on his veg to fill their boxes each winter. We have been buying Francis' veg since we opened our first farm shop in 2013, and over the years his cauliflowers in particular have been staples in our veg boxes in the winter (along with his purple sprouting broccoli, swedes, cabbages, leeks, and Brussels sprouts, and there have also been potatoes, carrots, beetroot, and celeriac at times). We have his caulis and PSB in the boxes this week, and that will be the end...

We wish Francis a very happy semi-retirement - after 50 years of picking caulis his back deserves a rest! A huge thanks to him and his team for all the wonderful local organic veg over the past eleven years!

More recent WWOOF volunteers

 

Thibault.

Tom.

Nim.

Jojo.

Amber.

Spring Open Day

Yesterday was our spring open day, with the main theme being "getting yourself ready for the growing season".... Despite the waterlogged fields preventing any car-parking at the farm itself, lots of people made the journey down from St. Just on foot, so the day was well-attended and a great success.

Our pop-up cafe in the farmyard - tea, coffee, cakes, soup, chilli, homity pies, green salad, coleslaw etc...

Cheese and olive stall.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust information stall.

Jam and preserves stall.

Joe with his foot-powered treadle lathe for green woodworking.

Kate on the farm's wildflower plants stall, with Marie on the National Trust information stall behind.

Lunchtime in the farmyard.

Nick's carved wooden spoons.

Andy with his upcycled planters and garden plants.

Plate garden workshop.

Sustrans and their bicycle repair shop.

Terry talking trees as part of the one-hour farm tour (centred on the market garden).

Tom with his scything demonstration (there will be a full day workshop later in the year).

Victor's tool-sharpening station (Oliver had another tool sharpening station in our workshop).

There was plenty of other stuff happening too (raffle, seed swap, farm shop etc..) but this is what I managed to photograph on the day. A HUGE thank you to all our volunteers who made the day such a success!

Recent WWOOFers

Many thanks to our volunteers from World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms who come from all over the world to further their knowledge of regenerative agriculture here at Bosavern Community Farm. The following three WWOOFers have all left recently having come to the ends of their stays with us.

Ana, helping to clean out the chicken sheds last Wednesday afternoon.

Jamie, digging out nettle roots before planting onion sets, on the market garden.

Laura (on the right) with Jojo (who is still here), harvesting nettles in Home Field.

True Foxes

One of our favourite bands filmed the video for their latest song "Higher" here on the community farm last month - please watch it by clicking on the link below.

https://youtu.be/cOtuSpabfdg?list=RDcOtuSpabfdg

You can also reach this video via their own website and scrolling down to Higher.

https://truefoxesmusic.co.uk/

St. Pirran's Day gold award

 

Our lovely shop window display for St. Pirran's Day (see earlier post) won gold award for a small window!!! Well done to the artistic team who created the display.

Tomorrow's veg boxes

Watercress harvest in Valentine polytunnel.

We have almost finished packing tomorrow's 83 veg boxes and 3 restaurant orders. Tomorrow morning we need to pick and pack 10kg of salad leaves and then we can deliver them all. They will contain:-

standard veg box (£13.50) - 1.5kg potatoes, a cauliflower, a white cabbage, watercress, salad leaves, 2 dried chillies, a wet elephant garlic, mixed herbs, and kale;

small veg box (£8.50) - 1kg potatoes, a cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, 2 dried chillies, watercress, and salad leaves.

Please sign up to our not-for-profit veg box scheme by completing the on-line form on our website, many thanks.

St. Pirran's shop window display

As part of St. Pirran's day on 5th March (next Tuesday) a group of farm volunteers have lovingly created a beautiful window display for our farm shop. Many thanks to our wonderful volunteers! Please come to the shop and admire their handiwork.

Stocking the farm shop

This week we took delivery of a big order from Suma, and we have also been stocking up on local supplies, plus of course our own eggs, so our farm shop is looking lovely. We are open Monday to Saturday from 10am till 5pm, closed on Sundays.

Recent WWOOF volunteers

Many many thanks to all the WWOOF volunteers whom we have hosted in February - Baptiste, Freddie, Will, Grace, Ruby, Gina, and Warren - who have already moved on to their next projects and destinations.

Baptiste harvesting coriander in Valentine polytunnel.

Freddie harvesting Brussels sprouts on the market garden in January.

Warren harvesting squash last October.

Veg box 23/2/24

One of our standard veg boxes last week.

Our first purple sprouting broccoli pick of the year last Thursday.

Last week our veg boxes contained:-

Standard box (£13.50) - purple sprouting broccoli (our first pick of the year!), a savoy cabbage, a cauliflower, 3 dried chillies, oriental greens, kale, potatoes, a bunch of radishes, salad leaves, and watercress.

Small box (£8.50) - a cauliflower, 3 dried chillies, kale, potatoes, salad leaves, and watercress.

Veg boxes can now be ordered online via our website:-

www.bosaverncommunityfarm.org.uk/veg-boxes/

Veg boxes 2/2/24

We have just been out in the field digging up our potatoes for this week's veg boxes. This week we are planning to include the following:-

£8.50 box - carrots, a cauliflower, rainbow chard, spring greens, potatoes, and salad leaves.

£13.50 box - golden beetroot, a savoy cabbage, carrots, a portion of celeriac, oriental greens, spring greens, potatoes, salad leaves, and watercress.

The rainbow chard, potatoes, salad leaves, oriental greens, and watercress are grown here on the community farm. The cauliflowers, savoy cabbages, and spring greens are grown at Cargease Organics near Crowlas. The carrots, golden beetroot, and celeriacs have been grown on organic farms in the UK.

vegbox.bcf@bcents.org.uk

Eggs aplenty

After quite a hard winter, our chickens have started to lay well again already, and are now producing about 120 eggs per day between them, so we have plenty of eggs for sale in the farm shop. Our eggs are priced at £2.30 per half dozen. Our chicken flock has a one-hectare field to range in, and we feed them on GM-free soya-free layers pellets. Our farm shop is open Monday to Saturday from 10:00 till 17:00. Our eggs are also available at Sennen Farmers Market (Tuesdays 09:30 till 12:30) and in our weekly veg boxes.

Tamar Organics seeds for sale in our farm shop

Tamar Organics is the seed company from whom we buy most of the seeds that we use here on Bosavern Community Farm. For the past few years we have stocked seed packets in our farm shop from the Seed Cooperative in Lincolnshire, because they were a community owned cooperative, but sadly they are no more. So we have turned to Tamar, a Cornish organic seed company, whose seeds we find to consistently be some of the best, and we now have a wide range of their seeds in our shop instead.

Our farm shop is open from 10am till 5pm six days per week (closed on Sundays). We also stock professional-standard peat-free potting compost at £11.45 per sack, and seed trays made from recycled plastic.