Our Students Are Legends

You'll hear this as a constant refrain at our CSA. The people make the farm.  This week a shout out goes to the Level 1 students for planting out garlic, and our Level 3 students for essential information gathering, sparking a new way of thinking (in me) and playing the match-up game with a donated polytunnel.  Thanks all!

Patience is Not My Virtue

Waiting today to hear back about a decision on whether the farm has succeeded in a bid for funding (it feels like waiting to hear back about a job interview for a great job).  But clearly we'll have to wait another day.  So instead of worrying about that. Here's a pic of the last Totnes Town pickup… Happy veg waiting to be taken home to their forever home. 😉

Final Harvest of 2014 Season

I love the seasons on the farm. We had a CSA member Gill Coombs (who’s running as a Green Party candidate at the next election) helping us today who asked if we were relieved that the harvest was over for awhile? I’m not relieved, but I am celebratory!  It’s a hard thing to plan a season and have it go as well as 2014 did – but we did it!  We delivered veg from the first week of June until the last week of January. And every single day we are grateful to all the students and volunteers and members who have contributed.  Thank you everyone! Now time for a hot bath…

Our Last Harvest of the Season

We say goodbye to all the veg we sowed in 2014 tomorrow. It's both sad as it marks another year gone by, but also exciting as it marks the beginning of the new season of veg.  To celebrate we've asked our members if they'd like to join us for the morning harvest – so I've baked some sugar free carrot cake/muffins for our morning tea break… Mmmm.

Accidental Seed Saving ;)

One of our veg successes in 2014 was trialling Greek Gigantes for dried beans from The Real Seed Catalogue.  I've been munching on the delicious results of the trial plot and can't wait  to grow them again (and share with our members of course!).  But I went onto the web to buy more and found that a) the shop is closed today because they're very busy and b) that it would cost over £50 if I bought 300+ seeds from them.  Compare that with the £5.15 I'm spending on the runner bean bed.  So instead I've raided my supply of Greek Gigantes in the kitchen and have found 225 seeds that look good so I'm going to pretend like we planned to save them for seed – and just top up by buying a few more packets of new seed.  When life gives you lemons… make a greek bean salad and squeeze some of that lemon on the top. 😉

Seed Companies We Buy From (plus a little treat)

Now's the time of year people ask us 'where do you get your seeds?'  Well here's the list.
Tamar Organics: probably about 90% of our seeds come from here because they're all organic and they do quantities for home growers and market gardeners
The Organic Gardening Catalogue: good for finding quality varieties, but you have to keep an eye out because not everything is actually certified organic
Other ports of call: The Real Seed Catalogue, Kings Seeds, Tuckers Seeds, Sea Spring Seeds  (we get derogations from the Soil Association for particular varieties that are great but that aren't available organically)
And here's my yearly treat for all those ladies planning their gardens:

Crop Planning & Buying Garlic

Today is when I sit down at the computer to take our first thoughts on cropping and flesh them out in more detail.  It's a long way from being done, but every step forward gets us closer! Also, if you want to grow garlic, you're running out of time to plant it out so buy some soon and plant it asap.

Crop Planning & Buying Garlic

Today is when I sit down at the computer to take our first thoughts on cropping and flesh them out in more detail.  It's a long way from being done, but every step forward gets us closer! Also, if you want to grow garlic, you're running out of time to plant it out so buy some soon and plant it asap.
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Pitching to Unltd at the Eden Project



Today we were invited to pitch our project to a panel of judges at The Eden Project, for the chance of £15,000 towards expanding our farm operations.  Even if we aren't selected it was a lovely sunny day to visit Eden, and it was lovely to spend time with so many interesting food projects in Devon and Cornwall.  Thanks to Tim for driving us down, and to all the other projects that wished us luck and commiserated on the bout of nerves prior to presenting!