Blog | Canalside Community Food

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Full details about the event here and on the poster below.

On Sunday 9th June, we will hold our open day as part of the national event ‘Open Farm Sunday’, when the farm will be open from 9.45am until 3pm. It’s an ideal opportunity to be taken round our fields and find out what’s growing on the farm at the moment. It’s also a great opportunity for a rare volunteering session open to the public, led by the growers.

Sunday 9th June, 9.45am – 3pm
Volunteer morning, bring-a-picnic, children’s activities, tour
In the morning, join in with the volunteer morning to help the growers progress a seasonal task at this busy time of year when all the crops for the coming year need to be planted out.

Come and have a tour round the fields, polytunnels and orchard and bring a picnic to enjoy in the social area.

There will be hot and cold drinks available and children’s activities to enable their discovery of the farm. The Willows Project will also have a cash stall selling herbs their participants have potted and grown and skin products they have made. They are also going to be firing up their pizza oven (pizzas available while ingredients last and cash donations appreciated).

What the day will look like:
9.45am – open day starts
10am-1pm – volunteer morning led by the growers, with tea break around 11.15
1pm onwards – bring your own picnic lunch, time to socialise
1.30pm – farm tour for about an hour, starting at the pole barn/social area

We hope to see you there.
With bright summer wishes, Ali

Recently we’ve been asking our members what they enjoy about being a produce share member at Canalside. Here’s what some of them have to say:

My family and I have benefited immensely from Canalside over the years.  There is something hugely ‘grounding’ about being at the farm, hanging out with people around the fire pit and getting involved in the growing. It is a great antithesis to  working life on a PC. The veg is tasty and I have learnt how to cook seasonally from what is available. I notice that my teenagers have a broad knowledge of vegetables and eat them willingly!

Annie, April 2024

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Collecting our Canalside shares is a high point of the week. I love the the way the vegetables change with the seasons. Eating food that was grown right here, in Warwickshire, helps me feel connected, rooted, in the here and now. Thank you Canalside.

Rebecca, April 2024

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I cannot recommend Canalside highly enough. As a member for some time I can say it has been different things to me at different times:

– Always a consistent provider of lovely seasonal veg, grown on site, that supports local employment.
– An opportunity to escape from the daily ‘busy world’ by strolling round the land.
– A chance to get some exercise and fresh air by volunteering in the fields.
– The ability to meet pleasant people from a wide range of backgrounds.
– And, it has broadened our cooking skills as we have tried new recipes to suit the veg provided in any given week.

We feel very lucky to have Canalside on the doorstep.

Martin, April 2024

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Today, was like any other Saturday for us.  A drive over to the peaceful, lovely farm to pick up our small share.  We have done this for years now and still the magic is there for us!  It is a community that we love being part of.  The current problems of weather, harvest, rodents are just part of the cycle in our minds. Sometimes we have a huge bounty and other times less.

Please do not get discouraged by this….our community is strong and full of good intentions and I think love for the earth and each other.  Everything each of you do to contribute to this gem of a place is so valued.  So a heartfelt thanks from us.  On we go!

Liz, February 2024

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You can read more testimonials as they’re added here.

It’s been a busy January on the farm as we work to get the new season underway – our tunnel potatoes are now planted in tunnel 1 into the remnants of last year’s hotbeds spread over the bed thanks to a great couple of volunteer mornings.

At the same time a new load of muck has arrived from a local farm plus we’ve supplemented it with a load of chicken muck from Skye Orchard Eggs (the egg scheme for anyone who gets eggs from the egg shed)  to make our new hotbeds this season so we can generate some heat and sow our first seeds next week.

Despite the challenges we’ve harvested lots of lovely veg from the fields – our carrots have been great this year and we’re still trying to add as much diversity as possible to your share with things like black Spanish radish, cabbages and Jerusalem artichokes. It was great to get a share of fresh claytonia (winter salad) thanks to some serious weeding that we did on the last day before we closed for Christmas.

Meanwhile, rest assured the orchard is thoroughly wassailed (!) as we had a great turn out for our social and orchard work morning, pruning lots of the soft fruits ready for re-growth and abundance later in the year. Many thanks to everyone who came along.

Eleanor, grower

(All photos Eleanor Brown unless credited otherwise)

Following on from the Veg in the Spotlight last time, here’s some recipe inspiration from members for celeriac, a sometimes ‘hard to use’ root vegetable.

Thanks to Sarah Biddle for sharing a few of her tried and tested favourite celeriac recipes which she has posted in the Canalside Facebook group – accessible with this link:
Fennel & celeriac soup with orange zest from River Cottage
And 2 from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book ‘Much More Veg’ (full recipe in the FB post)
Roast celeriac, shallots & dates with watercress
Red cabbage, celeriac & apple braise

Thanks also to Celia Russell for this one which she thought sounded delicious!
Pork belly with turnips, celeriac pakora and cauliflower toad in the hole: Ravinder Bhogal’s recipes for British winter veg from the Guardian

And you can find all the celeriac recipes from our recipe contributors over the years with this link.

This week is the annual event that is the celeriac harvest, which means this staple root of the winter shares will be pulled from the ground, have some of its spindly roots trimmed off, and then be stored in a sand ‘clamp’ in the pole barn in the same way that the beets were recently. The damp sand protects the root veggies from winter frosts and prevents moisture loss which would reduce the quality of the veg.

‘Clamping’ is a traditional method for storing veg through the winter and is particularly used in regions where the winters are harsh and digging veg out of the ground is not possible for a large part of the winter. For us, a particularly cold winter would also put us in a position of not being able to harvest roots when we need them, and in a milder winter, the frosts we do get can still damage the tops of the roots meaning they would deteriorate in the field. The alternative frost protection for veg left in the fields is a thick layer of straw, but we’ve found that when we don’t get many frosts, the veg underneath starts to rot. It is also a useful storage method when the land needs to be turned to something else (though this doesn’t apply for us). As we are off-grid, traditional storage methods such as these are essential at Canalside to maintain the quality of the veg through the winter and into the spring: we don’t have access to the power/facilities needed for refrigerated storage, as would be used by the supermarkets and veg wholesalers.

With a taste a bit like celery, some people can find celeriac difficult to use, but it’s a very versatile vegetable adding flavour from everything from soups and casseroles to gratins and salads (yes, it’s delicious raw – for example a grated celeriac salad in mayonnaise is a typical French dish that you will find in any charcuterie in France).

If you have any good recipes that you’ve tried and enjoyed, please add them to the Canalside Facebook group to help other members enjoy their celeriac shares this year. Then look out for a round up of recipes in the next news update in a couple of weeks.

Here are two to get you started, from the bank of recipes on the Canalside website:
Hasselback celeriac with miso and red onion
Celeriac pasta ribbons

And you can find all the celeriac recipes from our recipe contributors over the years with this link.

It’s feeling very autumnal on the farm at the moment as we’re in the thick of the main crop harvest season. The last couple of weeks have had some real ups and downs. After a great morning bringing in our squash and pumpkins to cure in the tunnels as usual, unfortunately rodents really went to town on some varieties in the space of one night. This is extremely upsetting after all the hard work to produce them and we are sorry not to provide Jack o’Lanterns this year for Halloween.

The good news is our maincrop squash – Crown Prince, the tasty blue/green one that see us through many months – thankfully went undamaged and we’ve now moved them into storage sooner than planned, so as to protect them. The other good news is our apple harvests have been great and maybe higher than ever. We’ve moved lots into storage and still have more to bring in so do come along next Wednesday morning to help bring in the remainder of the harvest – a good job for all ages.

Eleanor, grower

(All photos Eleanor Brown unless credited otherwise)

Come and visit our farm for a fun autumn day out!

From 10am: Join in with a seasonal work morning in the fields/polytunnels.
From 11am: Apple pressing – suitable for all ages. Bring your own apples if you have spare from a tree in the garden and/or bottles to take juice home in.
Bring a picnic lunch to enjoy in the social area/pole barn.
1.30pm: Take a farm tour to find out what we grow.

Event details on Canalside’s Facebook group

We’re coming into the season where different types of greens are once again going to make a more pronounced and regular appearance in the veg, now that the spell of frequent shares of mixed lettuce has passed. We’ll still be seeing lettuce from time to time. Check out the recipes suggested back in June if you need inspiration for using your lettuce. The greens we’ll be seeing more often again will include New Zealand spinach (already producing well and for a little while), chard and different types of kale (each with their own particular features: flat leaved, slightly sweet Red Russian kale, grass-green curly kale, dark green, mega iron-rich cavolo nero).

Known officially as tetragon, and having a large number of other nicknames, New Zealand spinach is a relatively recent addition to the range of veg grown at Canalside. It has a flavour and texture much like perpetual spinach (though the stems are more robust), and  has the advantage of being great to grow in late summer and early autumn because it is much less prone to bolting (sending up a flower head and going to seed) in warm/hot weather.

Chard (also known as Swiss chard – with white ribs – and rainbow chard – with white/yellow/pink ribs) is somewhat like spinach/NZ spinach though it has a slightly earthier flavour and slightly more robust texture needing a slightly longer cooking time.

Kale is a member of the brassica (cabbage) family, so is full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Brassicas are also the only fruit/vegetable source of glucosinolates, which are the sulphur containing compounds that have been linked to many health benefits including reduced incidence of some cancers. Cavolo nero is the most robust and is therefore ideal for heartier dishes and stir fried.

Any recipe that mentions any of these vegetables could use any of the others – you just might need to adjust the cooking time a bit and accept that the finished flavour may be slightly different if you have used a substitution. Below are some ideas that specifically mention the greens you can expect in your share in the coming weeks. They’re also perfect for adding to any daal, curry or stir fry recipe to up the nutrition and add a pop of green.

Recipes for New Zealand spinach are limited online as it isn’t a very widespread vegetable, although it seems to be growing in popularity in culinary circles! Here are some ideas which could give you some inspiration:
Japanese-Style New Zealand Spinach
Vietnamese-Style New Zealand Spinach

Here’s a very simple pasta recipe with few simple ingredients

From one German man’s bike travels in New Zealand, a gratin recipe

Braised NZ spinach with garlic (and some unusual/interesting ingredients to season it)

BBC Good Food has a delicious sounding array of recipes that use chard, including:
Chard, squash and parmesan tart
Swiss chard gratin
Chick pea and chard tamarind curry
Morrocan chard and lamb pan-fry
The River Cafe’s winter minestroni

There’s a wide range of recipes for kale with an international flavour, collated by Olive Magazine, which includes:
Kale crisps with smoky paprika sal

Sausage and lentils with cavolo nero
Kale, chilli and ricotta calzone
Kale hush puppies with lemon aïoli
Kale fiorentina pizzas
Plus a number of different salads using kale

As always, there is also a wealth of ideas in The Boxing Clever Cookbook  (easily available secondhand for a few pounds) – 19 spinach recipes which could be made with New Zealand spinach, and 15 for curly kale, which could be adapted for other types of kale. Dips, bakes, risottos, sauces, daals and much more – it’s all covered in this one book for these greens. Interestingly there are none for chard!

For recipes for the different greens that Rebecca, Rob, Pip or guest contributors have tried and shared, go to the blog on our website here
https://www.canalsidecommunityfood.org.uk/about-canalside/blog/
or click on one of the links below
Spinach
Chard
Kale

If you have miscellaneous items to use in your fridge, and can’t find a recipe to match, you could try out the Oddbox Recipe Generator!