Hot topics | Canalside Community Food - Part 3

Canalside Community Food, a pioneering CSA based outside Leamington Spa, is looking for a new main grower. We are seeking an experienced grower to join our team producing organic vegetables and fruit throughout the year for our community of nearly 200 members.

The successful candidate will work in collaboration with the assistant growers, administration team and seasonal staff, as well as the steering committee and volunteers. The main grower will take a key role in organising and leading the day-to-day management of the farm which includes organising and leading volunteer work mornings, working from and adapting an established rotation and cropping plan, operating a tractor and various manual tools, and reporting to the steering committee.

We are looking for somebody to commit to this fantastic opportunity for at least three seasons. We currently have 7 acres of field scale vegetables, 7 large polytunnels for protected cropping and a 2 acre orchard of top and soft fruit. This position is full-time (37.5 hours per week March-October, 30 per week Nov-Feb) with basic salary of £20,229, statutory holiday allowance and a pension offered.

More details and full job description here

Applications by CV and covering letter to mail@canalsidecommunityfood.org.uk: deadline – noon on Monday 16th November 2020.

Interviews on 28th November to start early January 2021 or asap thereafter.

The spell from mid May to mid June is the dreaded ‘hungry gap’: the time when the growers are scratching around down the back of the sofa desperate for anything, anything at all vaguely veg-like to put in the share. Well, don’t know if you’ve noticed but that hasn’t really happened this year!

New projects (e.g. the strawberries) have come good, new varieties have thrived (e.g. overwintering broad beans and onions) and our usual staples are all here a bit earlier (e.g. tunnel carrots and potatoes).

The weather has been outstanding for early production (provided we can get enough water out there), but most of all it is down to our superb volunteers, toiling away – at a social distance – in the baking heat every Wednesday and Saturday. You have kept the crops weed free and got the seeds sown, and kept us well ahead of the game at a crucial time. Enjoy the bumper ‘hungry gap’ share!

The orchard is looking amazing at the moment – the apple blossom is at its peak and the cherry trees that still have blossom have an abundance of it! Hopefully all the blossom foretells of a bountiful crop of fruit this summer, all being well through the growing season.

Click here to watch:

Credits: Filming, editing and music: Eleanor Brown

What do you do if you plant an apple tree and, after ten years of care, the variety you’ve gone for just isn’t performing? One of ours, ‘Tydeman’s Late Orange’, has given us this problem, with a decade of low yield, tiny scabby fruit and other misdemeanours.

All is not lost – this week Dom has been grafting a new, favoured variety (‘Edward VII’, hence royal) onto the old TLO trees. This involves cutting the tree right back to a few decent stumps (leaving one as a ‘sap drawer’) and in this case cleaving into the wood and wedging two tiny scions (twigs from the preferred variety, cut in winter and stored in the fridge) into the edges of the cleft.

The wounds are taped up and sealed with wax. The Edward VII scions will grow with the vigour of a ten-year old tree rather than a new sapling and will reach a good size in no time, so this is a much quicker way than replacing the tree entirely – those 10 years were not totally wasted.

This year’s onion planting will happen in a slightly different way to usual, to make sure this big annual task can be completed whilst at the same time enabling members to get out in the fresh air and still maintain the recommended social distancing measures.

Come and help plant the main onion crop – a task suitable for all ages! The work will continue for as many days as needed (Tuesday-Saturday) and any member who is well and symptom free, and has not been advised to self-isolate, is welcome to come and join in – the work will be arranged so that social distancing measures can be maintained.

Due to COVID-19 we will not be providing any refreshments or arranging shared food during onion planting work sessions. You are encouraged to bring a flask with your own hot drinks, and are welcome to bring a packed lunch if you want to work both sides of lunchtime.

We will be contacting members to let them know when the work can start (dependent on the ground being dry enough for the land to be prepared). Saturday 4th April or 11th April onwards – to be advised

For two successive weekends we have had been battered by wet and windy weather, and many members have expressed concern about the consequences for our infrastructure and crops. Fortunately Canalside has emerged unscathed, with the tunnels and other structures all surviving the wind without a hitch (touch wood!), and most of our field-stored crops seem to be coping well with the repeated deluges. You might think farmers are helpless against the onslaught of brutal storms, but there are many farming practices that can really help mitigate the effect of extreme rainfall that we’ve seen over the last five months, most of which are integral to the organic approach and involve protecting and nourishing healthy soil as your most precious resource.

You may also be interested in this article which describes some of the factors from agricultural practices that contribute to flooding.

It is with great pleasure that we announce that Canalside Community Food Limited now owns our land!

After a lengthy period of dotting i’s and crossing t’s, the solicitors have finally exchanged contracts, bringing an end to the process that began with our share offer launch and successful fundraising drive last year. This is really a beginning rather that an end, as the purchase safeguards our land in perpetuity and means it will be owned and stewarded by this community from hereon!

We are now in the final phase of our community investment opportunity and we want to say a HUGE MASSIVE THANKYOU to everyone who has come on board to be part of this amazing project that we’ve been working on for the last 2 years.

WE ARE NOW HALF WAY THERE!! We are thrilled that over 60 of you (households and individuals) have invested and become part of the community in this way and we have raised around £55,000 already! THANK YOU SO MUCH and WELCOME to being a share holder!

**The offer period runs from 19th MAY – 29th JUNE and so with 17 days to go we are ramping up the energy so we can meet our goal. We can only make this happen if we make our total of £105,000.

We invite you to invest and become part of our successful, inspiring and sustainable CSA as we enter our second decade and be part of this unique and exciting opportunity for us to share the ownership of the land co-operatively (that we currently rent) and secure and preserve it for the use of community farming for the future.

Visit: https://www.canalsidecommunityfood.org.uk/share-offer/ for all the information on what being a share holder means.

You can invest anything from £50 for one share up to £10,000. You can also simply donate if £50 is too much of a stretch at this time. You do not even have to be a member – this offer is open to anyone who would like to make an ethical investment in this way, so please tell your friends, families and networks who would be interested.

Why should I invest?

– to safe guard the land for local organic food production until the end of time!
– to be a steward of the land and care for the natural environment, to offset your carbon footprint!
– to support a space that provides local, seasonal and organic food production
– to support a space that provides community education and access to local green space

Here’s a video from our four fab Canalside founders, Caz and Tom Ingall, Gareth Davies and Judy Steele, telling us about why they think this kind of ethical investment is the way forward.

How can I help?

– INVEST!
We need to raise another £50 K! It’s a 2 step process –
1) Visit this link https://www.canalsidecommunityfood.org.uk/share-offer/ read the document and click on the relevant application form
2) You will be contacted by us to then make your payment into the bank account. SIMPLES!

– DONATE – if you don’t wish to buy a share, or the stretch is too much at this time then any amount is very gratefully received.

– SPREAD THE WORD – you don’t have to be a member or even live locally to become a share holder. Anyone interested in ethical investment can partake – we have flyers, leaflets and all the information is on our website.

– Help us create SOCIAL MEDIA MOMENTUM – like/comment/share the posts from us – it really helps! We will be posting mightily over the coming days and the more momentum we can build up online the better. Please share our posts, and tell your networks about why you love Canalside/CSA’s and why you are investing.

Thank you so much for reading and for all your support!

Collecting shares

Workshares and the work morning

Friday saw the ‘Feeding the 5000’ event, at which 5000 members of the public in Trafalgar Square ate curry made from surplus food that would otherwise have been wasted. Its aim was to highlight how easy it is to reduce the unimaginable levels of food waste in the UK and internatonally, and in doing so benefit those who don’t have enough to eat.

The event urged the public to sign the Feeding the 5000 pledge calling for acton from governments, retailers and food businesses: ‘I pledge to reduce my food waste and I want businesses to do the same’. Fear not! Although the event is over, those unable to attend the event will be able to pledge through the Feeding the 5000 website (www.feeding5k.org). Around 80 percent of consumers want businesses to tackle food waste: this offers an opportunity for businesses to respond to the challenge in proactive, positive ways.