local, seasonal food for Chagford

On Saturday 19th May Chagfood will be joinging thousands of farms, gardens, schools, cafes and restuarants up and down the country to celebrate the start of the growing season in a day of celebration of Real Food. Food Revolution Day has been organised by the Jamie Oliver Foundation to inspire change in people’s food habits and to promote the mission for better food and education for everyone.

As your local community market garden we think its our responsibility to put on a good show for  the day – so that’s exactly what we’re doing. From 12.00pm we’re throwing open our beautiful gates to invite Members, local residents and visitors to see what Real Food looks like in action. We’ll also be putting on vegetable-themed activities for children, tours of the gardens, working horse demonstrations and, of course plenty of tea and cake for your refreshment.

Bring a picnic to enjoy in the sunshine, bring friends and family and a shared interest in what Real Food is about. We look forward to seeing you all there!

Chagfood is hosting a Springtime celebration at our beautiful market garden near Chagford. We are currently taking on new members so if you are interested in finding out more about Chagfood then its a great opportunity to meet the growers and working horses, and see a community market garden in action.

Lots to do for kids – sow a sunflower seed, Easter egg hunt, egg & spoon races, face painting and more.
Tea and cake galore! Drop in at any point throughout the day and bring a picnic to enjoy in the garden.

If the weather is fine we’ll also be having a fire, music and local ale in the evening so feel free to drop by any time that takes your fancy.
Plenty of parking but please try and share lifts if you can.

tidy.

Chagfood is now taking on new Members for the 2012-2013 season. Chagfood is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme which was launched in March 2010 and has since been providing 50 local households with a weekly supply of ecologically-produced, seasonal vegetables.

This year we are expanding and have a limited number of large shares available. Large shares are suitable for those who love a good supply of fresh seasonal veg, either a couple or a family,and are priced at £600 per year, or £50 per month. All shares are based on an estimate of 40-weeks supply throughout the growing season, beginning in June and ending in February.

Chagfood is not simply a veg-box scheme, its a new approach to buying fresh food which involves consumers in the risks and rewards of farming. Members are buying a “share” of what is ready to harvest on the field each week and and take an active interest in where their food is grown and how it is produced. As a result you will quickly become aware of what is in season in each particular week, how the weather affects your crops and what it is like to taste truly local, fresh produce. Chagfood hosts an open day on the field on the last Saturday of each month where Members are encouraged to come along and meet each other, see how their vegetables are growing and help out with seasonal tasks, this is also an opportunity to share in the rewards of the farm.

As well as the rewards that come from being part of a local food scheme members are also sharing in the risks of the farming year. If it is a good season for a particular crop, you can enjoy a bumper harvest, if however crops are lost due to pests or we are unable to harvest due to the weather, members share this loss between them.

Although CSA is a new approach to buying fresh produce for most people, existing Members have found the first year of the scheme surprisingly rewarding. Here are some of their comments:

- “Chagfood has completely refreshed my understanding of what local food is about” -

- “Its so much more than just going to the supermarket” -

- “We have extended our cooking repertoire though being shareholders” -

- “People of all ages can have fun and find useful things to do on open days – even oldies like us!” -

- “Throughout the season it has been incredibly good value for money” -

Chagfood shares are still available but are selling fast. If you would like to subscribe, or find out more about the scheme, please drop us an email; chagfood@gmail.com or give us a call on 07858 381539, or 07908 683401.

The Soil Association have kindly made a video of Chagfood community market garden in order to promote Community Supported Agriculture in the UK. They also have a fantastic set of resources on their website for anyone wanting to set-up a CSA in their own community

www.soilassociation.org/csa

Luckily for us the short film also does a fantastic job of showcasing our luscious vegetables and bountiful fields at their best! Enjoy.

Ooooarrrr!

This week down at Longfield Jude Alfie has been getting in some tractor driving practice – allowing his Pop some time to update the website. We’ve made the best of the dry spell to turn-in a lot of the old crops left over from the summer; leaf beets, beans & peas and a few brassicas along the way. We’ve since ridged-up nearly an acre of this ground with Samson and the Kassine and have sown a mixture of white clover and yellow trefoil as nitrogen fixing cover crop for winter. Proper.

As you can see from the picture on the left, Longfield is looking resplendent at the moment. And rather than keeping it to to ourselves we’re holding an Open Day of vegetable-themed family fun on Saturday 30th July from 1pm until late. Come along and enjoy a picnic in the orchard, a bimble along the headlands or a mosey around our new field. There will be activities for children, a nature trail, working horse demonstration and tours of the garden. Tea and cake will be on sale from 1pm onwards and from 7pm we’re having a Bar-B-Que, fire and music. Please bring along something to share for the Bar-B-Que and any local ale, cider or tipple you fancy. Please spread the word and tell your family, friends, neighbours and anyone who likes their fun rural, rustic and free-range.

As you can see from the picture below we’ve been lifting garlic and onions this week and storing them in our conveniently empty potting tunnel. Believe us the smell in PT3 at the moment is intense! Luckily – the racks we made for potting have been ideal for drying the alliums meaning we will be able to spread the supply further through the season. This week we also harvested our very first tomatoes – 10kg in all from PT1! Along with the fresh Basil which went in the boxes this week we hope our Members are exploring some tangy Mediterranean recipes!

Today Chagfood made our first full veg-box deliveries of the new season- surprising even ourselves with the bountiful harvest that was ready to be picked! Yep it was back to a good old 7.30am start on the field to get the salad leaves picked while still crispy fresh before the sun gets too hot, Spinach and Chard is usually next around 9am with the root crops plucked out of the ground just before a well earned cup of tea at 11.00. The flowers are the last to be picked just before the boxes are packed and Samson was harnessed-up and rearing to go for just after one’o'clock.

As you can see from the picture Longfield is well in the swing of the season. The leeks and brassicas will all be transplanted out to their final homes by the end of the week, and the broad beans, turnips and onions will all be making an appearance in the boxes soon. The courgettes are a little slower than we hoped but are audibly growing after every rain shower, the runner beans and peas have also been held back by the dry weather but are now making up for it.

Today also marks the official unveiling of our all-brand-spanking-new Chagfood logo, designed by a local artist – we hope you like it as much as the veg in your boxes. This week you’ll especially be wanting to try our fresh out of the ground waxy-new-potatoes – lightly boiled with a knob of butter and a fresh salad they are divine.

If there are any teething problems with the new drop off points, or anything else, please feel free to give us a tinkle and we’ll get it sorted. We’d also like to warmly invite you all along to our first open day of the season on Saturday 30^th July from 11.00 til late. It will be a family day of vegetable-themed fun and a chance for you all to see the field at its best and see how your vegetables are getting along. We’ll also be having a bar-b-que and a fire in the evening for Members to get to know each other. The day and the evening are open to everyone so feel free to bring friends along. We’ll be sending out an e-mail with more details soon but pop it in the diary now eh!

Here’s to a veritable feast of a season!

Longfield April 2011

A drop of rain this week has finally allowed us to tear ourselves away from the end of a hosepipe and pick up the camera to take a shot of the field (below).It makes quite a contrast from the picture on the right, taken less than six-weeks ago at the end of April! Those of you who haven’t visited the field for a while will notice that the top hedge has now been laid, letting a lot more light onto your vegetables. Compared to last year Longfield gets a full 3-hours more direct sunlight between about 6am – 9am in the morning.

As you can see from the more recent picture below the perrenial and annual flowers are well away with themselves, the leek and brassica seedbeds are nearby (under the first row of mesh) so we can keep an eye on them and keep them well watered. Next in line the squashes, pumpkins and courgettes went out last week and have made a determined start despite the dry conditions and you can probably just make out the sweetcorn, broad beans & peas in the middle of the field.

The second row of mesh is keeping the early carrots and parsnips safe from the cheeky carrot root fly and you may just be able to make out the onions and garlic struggling away at the far end of the field trying to hold on to what little water comes their way. However, things are looking up! The weekend is forecast to be wet and we have a low pressure for most of next week giving us some hope at least of a little more rain!

....and in the middle of June!

Chagfood is now taking on new Members for the 2011-2012 season. Chagfood is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme which was launched in March 2010 and has since been providing 25 local households with a weekly supply of ecologically-produced, seasonal vegetables.

This year we are expanding and have a limited number of large shares available. Large shares are suitable for those who love a good supply of fresh seasonal veg, either a couple or a family,and are priced at £600 per year, or £150 quarterly. All shares are based on an estimate of 40-weeks supply throughout the growing season, beginning in June and ending in February.

Chagfood is not simply a veg-box scheme, its a new approach to buying fresh food which involves consumers in the risks and rewards of farming. Members are buying a “share” of what is ready to harvest on the field each week and and take an active interest in where their food is grown and how it is produced. As a result you will quickly become aware of what is in season in each particular week, how the weather affects your crops and what it is like to taste truly local, fresh produce. Chagfood hosts an open day on the field on the last Saturday of each month where Members are encouraged to come along and meet each other, see how their vegetables are growing and help out with seasonal tasks, this is also an opportunity to share in the rewards of the farm.

As well as the rewards that come from being part of a local food scheme members are also sharing in the risks of the farming year. If it is a good season for a particular crop, you can enjoy a bumper harvest, if however crops are lost due to pests or we are unable to harvest due to the weather, members share this loss between them.

Although CSA is a new approach to buying fresh produce for most people, existing Members have found the first year of the scheme surprisingly rewarding. Here are some of their comments:

- “Chagfood has completely refreshed my understanding of what local food is about” -

- “Its so much more than just going to the supermarket” -

- “We have extended our cooking repertoire though being shareholders” -

- “People of all ages can have fun and find useful things to do on open days – even oldies like us!” -

- “Throughout the season it has been incredibly good value for money” -

Chagfood shares are still available but are selling fast. If you would like to subscribe, or find out more about the scheme, please drop us an email; chagfood@gmail.com or give us a call on 07858 381539, or 07908 683401.

Wee-Willie-Workers!

First of all – a very happy New Year to all of our Members, we hope the festive season was full of cheer for you all. Following the particularly hard weather before Christmas we were only too happy to get onto the field this week and back into the swing of the season. The new year brings a new start and we spent yesterday putting together the cropping plan and seed order for next year’s harvest. We ended up getting very excited about learning from our experience over the past year and all the new vegetable varieties we can try out. We’re just putting the finishing touches to the cropping plan so please let us know if you’d like to have any input – suggest any varieties we could try out or simply have a look so you can plan what to grow in your own veg-plots this year.

This week’s box is particularly seasonal, in that there ain’t much growing down on Longfield at the moment. Unfortunately the prolonged frost took an inevitable toll on your vegetables and although the carrots and parsnips have survived pretty well, both the leeks and the cabbages suffered varying degrees of frost damage. On top of that we have finally been discovered by the local deer who made an extended visit to the field on Boxing Day. From the evidence of their hoof-prints we could tell that they had a very hearty feast on the remaining Brussel Sprout tops, kale and purple-sprouting broccoli before settling down to sleep it off under the big old Oak tree. Although we knew it would happen sooner or later we now have an added incentive to finally get the deer-fencing up – or possibly to offer venison as an added extra in next week’s box!

The picture above shows some very willing volunteers enjoying a well-earned tea break at November’s work-day. Some members have asked us to give a bit more notice of upcoming workdays so they can book them in well in advance – so here we go; January’s will take place on Saturday 29^th, February’s on Saturday 26^th, and March’s also on Saturday 26^th. Workday’s usually run from 10.00am to 4.00pm and as well as a bit of work always involve tea & cake. The next one will most likely involve a bit of hedge-laying as we try to open up a bit more light onto the field in preparation for next year’s growing season.