Another batch of lettuce was harvested and delivered to Bradley Burn to sell. Keep your eyes open for our local produce at Bradley Burn and Donaldsons in Stanhope.

We went down to the rectory garden with every intention of getting harvesting done, only to find the top 90% of one of the apple trees had blown down. Two of us spent most of the morning chopping up the tree and harvesting the apples that hadn’t been too damaged by the fall.

George and Geri also harvested a lot of the onions, which are now hung up in the shed in the rectory garden to dry out.

After a bit of path clearing, thinning the carrots and sowing some swede we did a bit of harvesting. We picked lettuce, radish, peas and broad beans.

So, Stanhope is really coming along well. The watering system still needs ironing out but the netting has really helped to keep the pesky bunnies at bay...

 

Tony put in a fair few hours at the weekend sorting out the broad beans and caulis, then tonight, during our weekly Thursday evening efforts we planted out more caulis, purple sprouting broccoli and sprouts. The Frosterley site is so large we are containing our efforts to two long beds and the orchard. Weeding is always a job to do here but we are keeping ontop of it where it matters!

The broad beans are looking happy, and might even get harvested next week.

The Weardale Area Action Partnership provided the funding for our tree planting event and BTCV helped us replant the orchard. We still have more tree guards to build but thanks to all those who popped in throughout the day to help.

On Saturday 5th June Weardale CSA are working with BTCV to celebrate World Environment Day at their Frosterley site near Harehope Quarry.

All welcome at the Frosterley site from 10am to 3.30pm

During the winter, half of the trees in the orchard at Frosterley were ring barked by rabbits that got over the tree guards due to the height of the snow.

Volunteers will be replanting apple, pear and plum trees as well as putting up tree shelters and general weeding, strimming and planting.

This event has been made possible with the support of BTCV and funding from the Weardale Area Action Partnership.

Make a day of it! Jack Drum Arts will be at Harehope showing an interactive exhibition of artworks followed by their new play at 4pm ‘A Feather in The Sky’

Now that the days are longer again we are meeting Thursday evenings to dig, weed and generally keep on top of the weeds at Frosterley. This Saturday too, a few of us weeded.........and probably got very burnt too!
Theres plenty more to do if you would like to join us next time!

Today some turnips and squash went in and a few beds were prepared for beans using bits of willow as a frame.
and now that the days are longer we are starting our weekly volunteer sessions for a couple of hours on a Thursday evening. This will help us get the Frosterley site under control in preparation for an event that we are planning to co-incide with World Environment Day.



 

We made progress at Frosterley today - we re-dug over 40 yards of beds and planted out 200 broad beans and 500 onions.

This week sees 10,000 leaflets getting distributed locally to promote the project.

Please help us gauge interest in locally grown food by downloading this flyer and returning it via email or the address stated - thanks!

WCSAleaflet.pdf

We have been planting in our new raised beds! Onions, carrots and beetroot are all now planted and are protected from the resident rabbits by rather smart frames and netting. Theres still some work to do to prepare the final beds for planting.
and what a lovely day for it too!

The troupes assembled ready to barrow 10 tons of manure from the Rectory driveway down to the garden. The manure was late in arrival so  we made ourselves useful anyway!
The fruit bushes were transplanted to a warmer location in the garden, the final raised bed was created, The other beds were filled and titivated.

Then the manure arrived! loads of it! It was finally shifted by Sunday afternoon.......

We got another couple of raised beds sorted and then retreated to Geri and George’s house for some grub! We plan to do some muck shoveling next week - so bring a wheelbarrow if you have one.....

A dry but cloudy day. Nine of us finished off weeding the beds. We also replaced the grass turf Irish style (grass downwards) and two beds were filled with manure.

Then off to Lesley and Graham’s house for vegetable soup and a polenta pie.

A lovely sunny day – again!! Eight of us finished off making the wooden surrounds for four more raised beds – there are now a total of 17 beds to be prepared. We also started to weed out dock roots from the beds (although it was still somewhat frosty) in preparation for them to be backfilled.

At 2pm all retreated to Tony and Muna’s house for vegetable soup and spinach and cheese plait. - yum!

busy, busy, busy!!
A bunch of old railway sleepers were lugged to the Frosterley site and the team continued at Stanhope building more raised beds............
What a difference!

The snow put paid to progress at either site over the last few weeks. We will be getting into the swing of things again soon so watch this space.

We lifted a load of celeriac today from Frosterley. whoop whoop!

A volunteer team from Groundwork have spent a couple of days clearing the turf from the top area of the garden so today, armed with some new CSA volunteers we staked out where the raised beds will go. The next volunteer day at Stanhope will see the beds being built and prepared ready for next years growing season.

A fairly productive day. We lifted the rest of the onions and planted broad beans for next year.

Next session we should be at Stanhope building beds.

Today the greenhouse was dismantled - long story! and we harvested the squash and some apples from Stanhope

As planned we dug over the first 25yards or so of the onion bed and produced a significant number of onions, both red and white.

Onions! We explored the onion bed and found, under all the thistles a fairly happy patch of them. The priority next session is to lift the rest of them and dig over the bed.

Don't be fooled by these sunny photos - it was wild!



Tony resumed position with the strimmer ensuring we have somewhere to park next time.


and the celeriac beds were brought back under control

We are planning to meet alternate Saturdays to weed, strim, dig over, plant and harvest. This Saturday - the 3rd October we will work at the Frosterley site from 11am - 1pm although volunteers are always welcome to work longer if they feel the need!

Bring along sturdy gloves and gardening tools if you have them as we will be waging a war on thistles.

We met up for some epic weeding..........well, we made inroads anyway!
We planted out more celeriac, pulled out loads of thistles and had a mooch about the site. The hedge is looking happy, the little copses of trees that we all planted are looking happy. Our fruit bushes havent yielded anything this year but are healthy looking..........and despite the thistles the onions are battling through.

AND..........the grass is dying off so the site will look a little less wild shortly!

well, the soil is definitely fertile at Frosterley. We have a rather healthy crop of thistles!
We weeded the celeriac bed and planted out some more before covering with fleece in an attempt to foil the bunnies.

before we put the fleece over.....

Tony put a hard shift in strimming, Julia planted out a load of swede and/or turnip (we weren't sure!!!), I dug over a new bed..............and we all got eaten by the midges!



Tony lost in all the undergrowth.....


If you missed the session and fancy it- the rest of this bed can be dug over up to the wall.......

We managed to get the greenhouse weeded tonight. The plants look happy and are getting stronger by the day. The drip watering system is doing the trick.

yup, its the time of year for crumble, compot, jam etc............

Before.......


After.........a delicious apple and blackcurrant crumble

I just got our third harvest of Broad Beans in before the heavens opened. Our regular volunteers will be conjuring up Broad Bean recipes this weekend!
Recipes to follow........................

We met at the Rectory between 7-9pm to make headway with weeds!
We weeded and de-cloched the squash, planted out some spare tomato plants and earthed up a load of potatoes. not bad for a couple of hours work. Come and join us next week for more digging/weeding/strimming action!

Andrew, Tony and myself met to finish planting out the tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse, strim the weeds and dig over some beds. Quite a productive day.

Almost ready for the plants.....

We made some significant progress today, doing some more of the technical joinery on the shed construction, and discovering a row of potatoes desperate for sunlight under one of the remaining black plastic sheets.

The broad beans were ready and we picked 4 tubs full!

Today we planted more fruit bushes - a mix of gooseberry and raspberry, 400 onion sets went in, the beans got trained out of their bad habits and the strips of ploughed land got a going over with the cultivator.

The Bishop of Durham, the Rt. Revd Tom Wright,  joined volunteers to build raised beds and plant fruit bushes in the Stanhope Rectory garden.

We moved 10 tonnes of manure today at the Rectory garden.

We now have a young orchard at the Frosterley site!

The balance of our grant from Wear Valley District Council arrived last week, which meant we've finally been able to purchase hedging, fruit trees, soft fruit bushes, seeds, and materials for constructing raised beds, compost bins and a lean-to, plus a strimmer and shredder.  There's going to be some back breaking work going on next week getting all the plants in the ground!

On the 7th & 8th March our hardy volunteers braved the changeable weather to do some serious hedge and tree planting! We planted a Hawthorn and Blackthorn hedge around the edge of the site and couple of little woodland copses of Oak, Willow, Ash, Silver Birch and Rowan. It might take some time before they offer us some shelter though!

Today an eight-strong detachment from HMS Bulwark, currently moored at North Shields, braved the extreme winter conditions to help clear dead trees and build access ramps at the Stanhope site.  Rev Susan Kent very kindly welcomed the detachment, together with Andrew Charles (our volunteer organiser) and Lance Davenport (a member of our growing group).  Susan also treated the hard workers to a wonderful three course lunch!

Quite a busy day really.
We dug up some of the potatoes that were planted earlier in the year and then covered the lower part of the garden with sheeting to suppress the weeds. We also put in a hard shift of clearing the garden of the windfallen apples as well as picking the ones we could reach. We found out recently that some of the apple trees in the old garden are actually pretty special heritage varieties - yay!

After months of behind the scenes work, we finally started work on the land.  Somehow I persuaded my two young sons to join me and several others muck spreading at Frosterley.  While others were busy planting young leeks and beans, three of us were wielding wheelbarrows and forks to spread the muck and fertilise the ground.  Eventually we were beaten off by rain, but felt an enormous sense of achievement at getting started.

We met up for a few hours at the Frosterley site and planted a few more potatoes before meeting a group from the Centre for Rural Economy - Newcastle University for lunch.

Today we cleared away the worst of the very overgrown garden and popped in some potatoes. Its been a fair few years since the garden has been loved and the fruit trees will need a thorough pruning later in the year.

theres an awful lot of work to do!

On 28th April 2008 we held a public meeting to update everyone about progress and to gather ideas from the wider community about how things should be done. Professor Mike Bell from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (who is also a visiting Professor at the Centre for Rural Economy, Newcastle University) attended the meeting and shared his experiences of CSA in the USA.

We held a half-day Workshop on 15th September 2007 at Wolsingham College supported by Wear Valley and Teesdale Enterprise Agency. This event was attended by 60 local people who were able both to learn about the proposed scheme and also to input their own views and ideas.
A Steering Group was established following this event and we have been meeting since October 2007 to determine the details of the scheme and how it should operate.