2024: July news | Canalside Community Food

A very warm welcome to our new members who have subscribed after their produce trials – and hello to all Canalsiders who take the time to read this newsletter! The intent is to keep you connected to what is happening in the fields and to the source of your food and the people who grow it, as is our CSA ethos.

As usual, July has been a flat out kind of month! It’s been all hands on deck to get the last main plantings into the ground which we’ve done well within schedule. Joining all the main crops mentioned last month we now have leeks and late brassicas (over wintering cauliflowers, purple sprouting broccoli and cabbage) planted as well as various other rotational crops (e.g. the popular New Zealand spinach planted in the wake of tunnel potatoes).

The weather this month has been a game of two halves. Decent rain earlier in the month gave us a welcome break with irrigation, but obviously it wasn’t as warm as some of the plants would like. Summer crops like peppers and aubergines need much more sun and it’s been a slow start to the season all in all due to the earlier delays and cooler weather. The share has looked more like June than ‘as it should’ in July. The beans and tomatoes are starting to pick up now but crops we would have expected to be harvesting already like our first planted kohl rabi and cabbage are still growing and our tunnel carrots never got that big before they needed to be picked. Tasty all the same, and the share has felt fresh and varied. Spring onions have been a feature of my recent meals! We’ve also been getting some of our biggest harvests of cucumbers and the courgettes are really kicking in now. We hope you’ve enjoyed some of the berries and currants that the orchard has offered us too.
↖️ Harvesting early polytunnel carrots
Picking abundant cucumbers ↗️

The second half of July then kicked into sunshine and summer arrived! Great for crop growth and everyone’s spirits whilst bringing the inevitable challenge of field irrigation.

After a hot week and the 30 degree Friday we found a problem with our water pressure (due to an issue with Severn Trent) which left our fields unwatered over a weekend and highlighted yet again the issues of our system. Had the issue gone on indefinitely, it would have only been due to unforecast overnight rain into the Monday that our crops would have survived. As a grower responsible for your food, I can’t begin to explain the stress and feelings of powerlessness when things like this happen. To walk around the fields and see everything we built from scratch on this land, the many people and hands who have co-created this place over the last 18 years and the journey each of these specific crops have made this year and the care that has gone into tending them: my gratitude to the rain is immense. And the fragility is palpable. Even when the water pressure is working fine, it is still not high enough to water all our fields adequately during a drought period. We must find a way to bring sustainable and off-grid systems to our farm, we must find solutions to adapt to the challenges and these changing times and preserve the ability to grow our own food amongst a UK farming crisis and an impending food shortage.

But for now – back to the minutia. Weeding is the name of the game for the coming weeks, as anyone coming to volunteer at the moment well knows! We are also broadcasting our green manures and trying out a new under sowing in our late brassica section. This is a special mix created by Ian Tolhurst that we will broadcast after our initial weeding of the brassicas to create cover and suppress weeds, fingers crossed it works.

Thanks so much to everyone who has come out to help the growing work this month. It was great to see some new faces as we trialled a Tuesday afternoon session and we’ll let you know through Ali’s weekly bulletins when we do any more of these – otherwise do come down during the school holidays if you can to join our regular Wednesday volunteer session (10am – 1pm) – we love to see you.

Thanks for reading and ‘til next time

The growers, July 2024