Lots to do preparing for the new season, so we had an impromptu working party on the May Bank Holiday Monday, and the weather was (mostly!) kind. A great day – lots of people sowing seeds, weeding, palnting our and construcing beanpole supports! Thanks to all who came along
Constructing new beanpole structures
Beanpoles
Share food and drink May social evening, early on
The first Tuesday of the month is our social evening at the Fat Cat pub, Spring Road Ipswich. The Fat Cat is a lovely friendly real ale pub that supplies plates, knives and forks in the week to its customers. We shared a lovely meal of all kinds of dishes from the fabulous Prawn Jambalaya cooked by Jon and Debbie to Joanne’s “Hungry Gap Greens” pasta, not to mention samples of roast pork from the Acorn Antic pig club.
Lots of people came along this month, which was lovely, we needed three tables at one point of the evening! As usual a few of us were there until closing time…!
Tom, Kirsty and Kate at the bar later on
We have a great turnout for the CSA public meeting on Saturday 7th April, and the last of our Community Supported Agriculture Places for a veg box from June 2012 – May 2013 were subscribed to.
Joanne telling the story of The Oak Tree CSA
Kirsty describes life as a CSA member
New CSA members Viola and Mosaic explore the polytunnels
The chickens turn shy!
You can never be sure what CSA member Lesley is planning next… in fact, she isn’t planning to save on airfares and carbon emissions by tunneling to Australia. She is, in fact, starting work on The Oak Tree wood fired clay oven. This is her digging the hole for the foundations.
Now, this will be no ordinary oven as Lesley is a talented sculptor and there is talk of her sculpting our new oven into the shape of an acorn and its leaf… how fantastic!
It’ll take a few weeks to build as each layer of clay has to dry out before we can fire it up! Watch this space, or rather hole – if you come up to the farm soon you may well be roped into helping with the construction (though remember the CSA rule that no-one has to do a job they don’t want to!) Or if you hang on a while you may just find yourself eating pizza 
Great turnout for April’s social meeting, which is our regular opportunity to drink some beer, share food and set the world to rights.
April social meeting at the Fat Cat pub
Lots of the Community Supported Agriculture members had come up from the World Future Society ‘The Food Community‘ meeting at UCS. They felt that the CSA was already doing some of the things we will need to look at in future according to the talk.
Social meeting at the Fat Cat pub
and Lesley got to pick up her veg box fresh from the farm as well!
We’ve just begun the “hungry gap”, the traditional time when veg was scarce in the UK because the winter veg had run our and the early summer veg hadn’t got started. I had been pretty worried about this time when we set up our Community Supported Agriculture scheme. Eating with the seasons is great in August, and not bad in December, but April and May can be a real challenge.
After this week, we will run out of leeks and carrots, but I am glad to say that we do still have quite a few crops that are doing well outside, despite the dry weather, and our polytunnels are serving us very well, yielding spinach, salad leaves and radishes. Indeed our first box of the hungry gap is testament to the hard work of everyone in the CSA – well done all!
Our first box of the Hungry Gap
Lots to do here, lettuces sown in modules to go into the cold frames. Weeding, and of course spreading our piles of Mushroom compost over the ground to get it working for us and growing lots of veg!
Margaret moving the decreasing pile of mushroom compost
It was dry but a bit breezy today, so tea and coffee were very welcome. We even had to erect a temporary windbreak!
A welcome sight - tea and coffee
We also welcomed two new members, Graham and Judith, to the CSA today, with a mug of tea!
Chris on the way back for more compost
Gemma refuels with a digestive!
Our WWII V-2 rocket crater has been filled over the week with pond dredgings from a neighbour's pond in Rushmere, both filling the hole and adding fertility to our soil.
Today was also the time to recommission the farm veg box stall, overhauling it, making it a lot more sturdy and adding an insulated roof using an airspace and foil to try and fend off the summer noon-time heat to keep the boxes in top condition
Tierney and Haditha from Norwich CSA (Norwich Farmshare) had invited us along with other interested people to take a look at how Norwich Farmshare were doing things, up in Postwick near the edge of the city. Thanks to Tierney, Christophe, Haditha and everybody who welcomed us and gave us a very interesting tour round their operation.
Tierney explaining the rotation strategy up at the far end of the site
There were quite a few visitors from other parts of East Anglia – Diss CSA, Saxmundham, as well as quite a few other people interested in the great work they’ve been doing. Lucy, Kate, Fraser and Gemma came up with me, thanks to Lucy for driving us up there.
Haditha (L, with little one) who arranged the visit for us and grower Tierney (R)
Norwich Farmshare rents about 8 acres from a farmer in Postwick, with two growers, Tierney and Christoph, with help from Eric on the finances and some more help with admin. They’ve got about 90 members at the moment, with a different, more central distribution point for the veg that at the Oak Tree. Everything is harvested and taken into Norwich distribution point (near Magdalen street?) on a Thursday afternoon/evening, and members weigh their shares out and pick them up from the distribution centre. Postwick is a little bit of a way out from the city, so this is a way of working with the location of the farm and the members.
all of us by the shipping container used as a shed
Norwich is into its first year of operation, and growing for 90 people clearly keep Tierney and Christophe extremely busy, indeed it looked like they were run off their feet with work and we all really appreciated them taking some time out of their busy schedule to show us round. They also have consultancy from William, Josiah and Waveney Organics.
They have more machinery than we have at The Oak Tree, including this lovely little secondhand tractor and a range of tools
Norwich CSA tractor and tools
Like us, Christophe and Tierney have two polytunnels, one which they were getting ready and the other already had produce growing in it and providing content for the boxes, including purslane.
Christoph showing us where the beans will go in the polytunnel
At the moment there aren’t any animals at Postwick, as they have their hands full with the day to day running of the scheme.
The second polytunnel with purslane, kale and other crops being harvested
Volunteers working on the land at Norwich CSA
All in all thanks to Tierney, Christophe, Eric, and Haditha for a fascinating tour and an insight into the project. I attended one of the early meetings of Norwich CSA before they had found a site, and it was good to see the ideas turned into something which was delivering real food to members.
Glorious sunshine graced us this working party, with plenty to do, inclduing ridging the leeks, hoeing and weeding, and spreading the mushroom compost. The pigs were moved in the morning, onto the old potato field next to the parking zone. They will help get out some of the potatoes that remain in the soil and enhance the soil fertility at the same time.
Eric pruning some trees in the Forest Garden
Pigs in their new location rooting for potatoes left over from last year
Lucy hoeing the leeks
Tom weeding
The blackthorn is starting to in bloom, flowering before the leaves come out.
Blackthorn in bloom
The skylarks are busy, too
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The Oak Tree CSA won an award from the “Creating the Greenest County” awards in the Communities: Local Food category. Here is a video of three of us going up to collect the award. Apologies for the gonzo video shooting style
and here are no fewer than four members receiving the award.
Joanne also collected the Suffolk Carbon Charter certificate
