Faheem

 

Faheem preparing to visit the hens on his final day with us.

Faheem, from Blackburn, volunteered with us as a WWOOFer for 4 weeks, and left this morning. We wish him a safe journey through the current storm, and all the very best with his future endeavours.

Veg boxes Friday 11/3/22

 

Andy and Polly picking salad leaves on Friday morning fresh for delivery.

Ben picking oriental greens (in this case Chinese cabbage).

Yesterday's veg boxes contained a selection from the following:-

• Grown here on the community farm - salad leaves, watercress, rainbow chard, oriental greens;
• Grown on a local organic farm - potatoes, spring greens, white cabbages;
• Grown on a UK organic farm - carrots and parsnips.

We deliver our veg boxes every Friday throughout West Cornwall (please check with us) for £1.50 delivery fee (increasing to £2 from April onwards), or you can collect from the farm, Redwing Gallery in Penzance, or our St. Ives hub.

Storm Eunice damage

The only real damage that we suffered from the onslaught of Storm Eunice last Friday was a large tear in the roof of Valentine polytunnel (named after the Valentine's Day storm of 2014), which was flapping wildly, but we have now innovatively patched up using battens, screws and baler twine. We hope this repair will last until the autumn, when we will need to re-skin the tunnel ready for winter. The skin has lasted into its eighth year, so quite good for such an exposed farm.

Veg boxes 18/2/22

Jos and Faheem picking coriander in the Mothership.

Ben picking Chinese cabbage in Nigel.

Ali and Joe cooking Thursday lunch in the cabin.

Despite Storm Eunice we still managed to pick and deliver over 80 veg boxes last Friday (although slightly delayed), with much gratitude to all the pickers and deliverers involved (all performed as safely as possible given the circumstances - most of the storm had passed over by late morning). The boxes contained a selection from:-

• our own mixed salad leaves,
• our own watercress,
• our own Chinese cabbage leaves,
• our own dried ring-of-fire chillies,
• our own rainbow chard,
• our own red Russian kale,
• our own coriander,
  
• local organic Carolus potatoes,
• local organic leeks,
• local organic celeriac, 
• and local organic cauliflowers.
  

Farm shop sign

Thanks to Warren, one of our resident artists, we have a gorgeous new sign for the farm shop. Many thanks Warren! We have also spent a day organising the shop to make it more accessible and appealing, so please come down and see what you think, thank you.

Diana, Coral and Charlie

Three of our winter volunteers have recently completed their time with us and moved on with their lives, and we would like to thank them for their help this winter, and wish them well for their futures. Diana was a local volunteer who has now left the area, while Coral and Charlie were live-in WWOOFers for one month. Many thanks to all!

Cob barn deconstruction

In 2014/15 we hosted a series of workshops on sustainable building here on the farm, over the course of which a new cob barn was built in the northwest corner of Home Field, primarily as an agricultural building. Unfortunately, the roof had issues from the start, which lead to it sagging and becoming unstable, so we had to stop using the building. The damp from the roof then got into the walls. Periodically we tried to resolve these issues, and in 2019/20 we even shored up the collapsing walls with reinforced concrete (as part of a Rebuild Southwest training programme) in a last desperate attempt to prevent total collapse, but none of this was enough. So we took the very painful decision to deconstruct the building, which happened over the course of last week, and sort the materials into piles for further use or disposal. 

The best part of the cob barn prior to deconstruction, showing the patched-up roof.

Inside the cob barn prior to deconstruction.

The north side of the cob barn prior to deconstruction.

Half down.

The last wall standing.

Showing the huge lumps of reinforced concrete in the walls, which didn't stop further deterioration, and caused problems during deconstruction/disposal.

Almost there on day 4.

The site afterwards.

Part of the cob barn deconstruction team - Joe, Paul, Jo and David.

Many thanks to all the volunteers who assisted during this unfortunate but essential exercise.

We are now in the first stages of discussion and exploration about if/how/why to replace the barn with a longer-lasting "community structure" of some description.