Cropshare Harvest Party 2012
We threw a party to celebrate a successful season of growing together. Thanks so much Farmers Paul and Doreen for having us join you on the farm all year! Here’s what we got up to at the party…
Thanks to volunteer Axel for filming and editing this video of our Harvest Party! As you can see we had a great time!
Our video has also been featured on the community video site Video Connected, which showcases...
Much ado about scything
CropSharers had fun on the farm again scything the tall rye crop and stacking bundles of it into stooks. (Love that word! Will try to use as much as possible in everyday life this week…) Check out how we did on our first scything session here.
Andrew at Wimpole Hall Farm
This time we had more scythes on hand, Wimpole Hall Farm kindly lent us two more. Thanks so much guys! Check them out on the web here...
Bees move in to CropShare farm
As promised here is the video of Dave unloading the swarm of bees into the CropShare hive built by Farmer Paul from reclaimed wood. Enjoy!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItP5IW9vvpE...
CropShare is buzzin’ and scythin’ this week…
So this is what I encountered at 9 am last Saturday morning…
Does what it says on the tin
Exciting stuff! We delivered a swarm caught by a CropShare volunteer to the farm today. They’ll pollinate crops on the farm like broad beans and apples, and of course produce gorgeous honey.
This season’s beekeeping fashion must-haves
After getting kitted out in the safety garb, we took the bees to their luxury bespoke accommodation made out of reclaimed pallet...
Lettuces donated to Winter Comfort food4food
We donated fresh green and red lettuce to Winter Comfort’s food4food initiative this week. They do great work providing food for the homeless in their cafe at Victoria Avenue, as well as selling lunch buffets for events.
Thanks for the feedback food4food chefs, glad the lettuces went down well in both the cafe meals and buffets!...
Cute baby animal alert….and a salad of weeds
Had to open this blog entry with this little chick, learning from one of his mums how to take a dust bath in the sun….
First, we checked out the crop of squashes which are looking good! We planted these earlier in the year and it was good to check up on them and see how much growth they’d put on.
A closer look: harlequin squashes are starting to shape up
Can you tell what it is yet
Weeding them...
Sharing the harvest – redcurrant jam and salad workshop
Here at CropShare we know how to make the most of a great, fresh harvest.
One of the things produced in large volumes on the farm is redcurrants. Our volunteers got together and decided to make the most of this local glut of fruit, and share it with the community.
The redcurrant season was late this year because of the lack of sunshine, which is needed for ripening the fruits on the bush. When we...
Massive cabbages and fashionable salads
Another great day out on the farm, in some great weather! This time we got stuck in weeding the cabbage crop, which was looking HUGE.
Massive tasty cabbage
Easy to see the weeding team’s progress as they power through this cabbage crop
Swallow’s nest on the farm
We spotted some very cute baby swallows. The farm is full of birdlife, as a farm bird survey in 2011 by one of our volunteers who...
First CropShare harvest shared
Do we have time to mess around taking funny photos? Of course not, we’re too busy farming.
In the sunshine this Saturday, CropShare volunteers planted out a few hundred squash and cabbage plants, straightened out the mypex plastic sheet mulch that had blown all over the place in the strong winds, and weeded squash crops planted out on our last visit. Got all the jobs done!
Squashes mulched with mypex plastic
Squashes weeded – looking good!...
Sun, squashes and… circus tricks?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tgToLv-RaU
A glorious sunny day for Cropshare again, this time round our volunteers were working on their sun tans (or burns in my case) and planting out around 2500 squash plants, of different varieties- Harlequin, Harrier, Hunter… and courgettes too.
Harlequin squash plants
Squash plants loaded onto planting machine
Smaller plants were planted out on the planting machine, and others by hand either into bare soil or through mypex- a plastic “reusable mulch”, as explained by a Cropshare member...