Most of the CSA site is now turned thanks to a local veg grower, Budgie, with a plough. Our dashed hopes of borrowing equipment and the failure of our funding apps has meant we don’t have access to mechanisation and we realised the hand digging method was just too hard! Funding apps are still going ahead thanks to the hard work of Sandi and Kate and perhaps we’ll get our rotovator yet….

The early potatoes are just poking through and the radish (always eager!) is up and away. CSA crops in the ground are garlic, red onions, carrots and parsnips with lots of other things at the seedling stage in Rachel’s dad’s greenhouse. Huge thanks to him for being so tolerant of our needs! Our greenhouse on site, which took such a big effort to get built, has really suffered in the gales and we need more glass to fix it.

CSA workdays are proving to be great fun for all the family though we have had a few teething problems with turnout. Hopefully, this will improve with the weather!

The hard work of our growers at Cilcain, Rachel and Simon, and our committed and pioneering VegSharers, have turned a potentially disastrous spring into a wonderfully ‘fit for purpose’ looking site and we are looking forward to our first, local, organic veg in June.

Community Gardeners are also busy and we have some wonderful rhubarb ready. The asparagus is a disappointment, so far, with just the odd fat spear showing – fingers crossed we haven’t lost too much of it this winter. Spinach, onions, broad beans and new potatoes are in and looking good.

We lost one of our two bee colonies this winter but the remaing bees are out and busily feeding on the weeds and crops we’ve left to flower. They seem to especially love the mizuna (see pic).

The bracken is just starting to appear so our battle really begins here….watch this space!

Members who were there

Nikki, Rachael, Mark, Jean, Sue, Alison, Doug, Colin, Marcus, Vicky, Gill, Lucy, Pauline, Deb, Rich, Ruth, Rob, Pam, Bethan, Steve, Charmian, Louise, Steph, Selma.

(This is approx 40% turnout)

CSA growers (non-members)

Simon and Rachel Farr.

Some members also brought partners along and it was lovely to see so many youngsters.

Please let Nikki know if anyone is missed off above ….

Lunch

What a wonderful spread! Far superior to anything I was given on my recent trip to CSA’s in France – we really can do food! Thank you to everyone.

Apologies to anyone who didn’t realise the meeting would not start till 3o/c.

The Meeting

I kicked off with a report on recent events in Cardiff and France.

Cardiff

This was organised for all UK CSA’s to get together and discuss whether we need an ‘umbrella’ for UK CSA’s and, if so, what we might want it to do for us. There will be a full collation of the meeting available (contact Nikki if interested) but the main points were…

•  Now 150 CSA’s in UK with another 80 in development. 10 are in Wales and I am collating a list of these and will put links on the website to their projects.
• An umbrella org could:
  • Lobby at County, Assembly and Westminster level to raise the political awareness of the fact CSA’s tick all their food supply boxes!
  • Publicise CSA’s principles widely so that the general public become aware of it as a viable option for obtaining local food and the importance of supporting our farmers/growers.
  • Arrange regular information exchange and problem solving sessions for regional CSA’s.
  • Offer start up support and advice for new CSA’s
• Funding all this is a challenge! It may need at least one paid worker even if part time to begin with. Options mentioned were:
  • Each CSA pays in to the pot
  • Each CSA member is asked to contribute what they can individually
  • Other ideas?
• First step is detailing what we need money for and we will all be asked to contribute our thoughts to this.
• An FS member suggested other organisations could be paid for their expertise.
• ANYONE with an interest in this wider initiative please contact Nikki.

France

Nikki was invited to join the UK delegation to visit CSA’s in the Paris area. These are called AMAP in France – association to preserve peasant agriculture. France has protected its agricultural heritage zealously and values short distribution networks at a political level. AMAP’s enjoy extensive government and regional support with land, startup costs (loans) and training. Imagine FCC seeking us out to offer some land at a minimal rent with a loan to buy tunnels and equipment!

There are around 1500 with 200 AMAPs on the outskirts of Paris. Their membership ranges from 30 to 450. I was struck by how many households could be served from relatively small farms. Polytunnels featured strongly as did lots of machinery. Most AMAPs are producer led rather than communities starting them.

Our party included people from Germany, Hungary, Austria and Croatia, all of whom have CSA networks in various stages of development. The trip was organised by Urgenci, a worldwide umbrella for CSAs.

We visited 5 farms in the two days and all had different aspects to offer but the common, striking feature was the commitment of the farmers to their sharers and to their connection with them.

CSA is a food distribution system which is gaining momentum all over Europe and worldwide. WE ARE NOT ALONE!

I only returned from the trip the night before the meeting so apologies for the disjointed and rather rambling delivery!

FlintShare Business

Hawarden

Mark showed us photos of the progress of the plot. The compost bins have been moved (uncovering some quite respectable compost in the process!). They are moving the path to the middle so that the drier area can be made better use of. The boggy bit will be raised beds.

There is plenty of Purple sprouting broccoli to crop.

Hawarden would like more people to go and help there so if this site is near you please get in touch with Mark or go along to a workday. It’s right by the farm shop so great coffee is on tap! The site is only accessible during farm shop opening hours.

Cilcain Community Garden

Nikki outlined the reduced area now being ‘community gardened’. This area can be increased again next year if there is sufficient support for it. The rest of the fenced area will be for CSA production to give Rachel and Simon a head start.

We are growing a small range of crops, to keep down the maintenance, and will have some community days to coincide with CSA workdays so we can all work together.

Current crops in the ground are for Community garden use (Veg accounts rather than CSA shares).

Cilcain CSA

Simon graciously thanked us for the opportunity to grow on the site and told of his pleasure in seeing a sparrow hawk fly by with prey while he was rotovating!

The soil is turning over nicely and we have hired a rotovator for the initial cultivations. Sources of horse equipment are being explored.

Simon and Rachel are happy to hear from sharers direct about workdays, veg or anything else.

Northop Community Garden

Colin was sorry to have lost a crop of carrots to rats and mice. These are a real problem in the tunnels and he was hoping to supply the carrots during the March and April. The next crop is being sown and the seeds are now bought for the coming year.

It would be good to have more support for the CG tunnels so all must feel welcome to join in at Northop. Workdays are Saturdays, contact Colin or Peter for any info on cropping or visiting.

Northop CSA

Marcus gave the report on behalf of Peter Rogers who is growing for us at Northop.

Two tunnels are being repaired for Peter to grow for the CSA shares. He has sowed peas already and new potatoes and carrots will go in as soon as poss. Rachel is raising seedlings for Northop of Pak Choi, lettuce, peas to give them a head start.

Ffynnongroyw

The core group felt it was best to drop Ffynnongroyw from the website as a FlintShare garden as we no longer have any members that go there. The assembly agreed this was fine.

We fully support the garden project and are happy to help if asked and able.

Lamb Shares

Mark said we have not attracted enough sharers to run this year despite its success last year.

The lambs are raised by a FlintShare member who has a small flock. Flintshare lambs are chosen at birth and regular updates given on their progress. Transport to final destination is kept to a minimum. Half a lamb costs £60 (£7.06kg last year) and this is paid in instalments. Mark will write a piece for the newsletter giving more detail as there was interest in the shares at the meeting.

Accounts

Deb presented the accounts. Our year end is 20/02/2013 so these are the figures to this date.

Income £3,816

Expenditure £2,618

Excess £1,198

Ring fenced (£1,100)

Current surplus £98

Deb felt we are in a moderately healthy position at present. As this is our first year running the CSA we will have to see how the cash flow works during the year.

We have just been granted £890 from Flintshire community chest for a shed at Cilcain for the CSA. We still need a further £455 to get the size we wanted – any ideas?

Membership and getting veg.

Lucy did the membership bit on behalf of Paul Jewell.

32 membership renewals

28 new members (some due to CSA)

1 mystery member! (A deposit in our account with no reference).

Single membership is now £25; joint membership is staying at £36 to try to encourage more joint memberships.

Lucy clarified how to get veg for the newer members at the meeting.

Members can get veg in two ways -

1. Veg Account

Each new member gets a veg account with a credit of £3. This is for accessing the community grown veg. Members take veg from the site and weigh it, sending the weights to Nikki. The account is reduced by the value of the veg (which should be, but isn’t always, in the newsletter!). Members also send any community garden hours (not CSA share hours) to Nikki. This increases the account. As the account gets low members are asked to top up by between £10 and £25. (Note:The more you can put in the less the admin burden!)

It is unclear whether extra CSA hours should go on the veg account – we will clarify this in a newsletter after the next core meeting but your opinions are welcome (to Nikki, please).

2. CSA VegShare

This is a monthly standing order to secure 1/20th of the produce from the CSA area at Cilcain and Peter’s CSA tunnels at Northop. This produce is not available to non-vegsharers unless there is a surplus. A four hours a month labour commitment is required (plus ½ hr if poss to make up the Caffi Florence bit). CSA time is not logged on the veg account.

Liaise directly with Rachel about the times each month.

Members can use both systems if they wish.

(Note: the logging of the veg accounts is very work intensive. A suggestion is a direct input to a page on the website or in a dropbox. Lucy and Mark are looking into this but if anyone could help that would be great….)

Events

Alison outlined plans for our big summer event on 6th June. Please put this in your diaries and make it a special event!

• We gather on the Cilcain site with an option to camp overnight.

• Bring more wonderful food and drink to share (you do it SO well!)

• Anyone who could ‘do a turn’ – we’d love to hear from singers, musicians, poets, storytellers etc…..

Help will be needed to erect a cover so it can go ahead rain or shine. Please tell Alison if you can help.

Also…..

Alison and Gill would like a rest from organising FlintShare events and will be stepping down after the summer event. Many thanks to them both for the wonderful get-togethers they have provided for us over the last couple of years.

Our celebrations are a major part of what makes us great so please step up to the mark and take on this role for us. Alison and Gill are happy to help out but just want to step back after two years in the saddle!

AOB

Our current directors and core group will be resigning in October.

Most will not be standing for re-election as they have served three years which is as much as we can ask from anyone! It is not good for an organisation such as ours to have the same people making decisions for too long – we need new energy.

We will need to fill these roles for FlintShare to function. A full job description and details of how to get involved will be added to the newsletter and (perhaps) the website.

These roles are rewarding, energising and sometimes challenging! Much of the hard work has been done by the founder members in structuring the basics of how we operate, writing our articles and getting the CSA aspect up and running. Now is the time to tweak the detail and consolidate before growing again.

The Quiz

Marcus was such an excellent quizmaster we think he should be a regular! It was fun to relax and the ‘fill in the veg words’ bit elicited groans all round! Thanks to Marcus for organising it and to all who took part. Well done winners – hope you enjoy the spoils.

Thank you to all of you who came and contributed your great food, good company, useful comments and general support.

For those who couldn’t make it I hope this gives you a flavour of the day. Please let me know if you want any more detail on anything.

See you soon,

Nikki

Richard did a demonstration tree and then we all had a go at pruning. I think everyone found it hard to be as ruthless as Richard. It feels like a massacre yet, when done, you can see the open nature of the tree.

Winter pruning is for shape and summer pruning for fruit so we were trying to see the overall shape of the trees and how branches would bend when laden with fruit.

We managed about half the orchard and there will be another opportunity on Saturday, 9th March if you missed this one.

In May/June we’ll tackle the plums to see if we can get a bit more fruit from those. You can’t prune a plum in winter as the cuts are prone to attract silver leaf disease at this time.

Thank you, everyone, lovely day.

We had laughter and giggles and sticky spades and marshmallows and home made soup on the fire. We made flags and shrines of bones and wellies got filled with water. We chatted with old friends and made lovely new ones.

We had fun.

Oh, and we got a fair bit of soil turned and the window in the greenhouse!

Can’t wait for the next one!

12►

Simon and Rachel Farr are a local couple with all the skills and enthusiasm we need to help us achieve our ambition of supporting slightly larger scale food production. They will be growing veg for us at Cilcain and we hope that Boxer, the Farrs’ shire horse, will help, too. Wonderfully romantic, of course, but also very practical as he will be able to work the ground in conditions a tractor could not. He will be easy on the land and will give his fertility freely!

Over a glass of mulled wine, we all had a good chat about the plans for our VegShares and the first CSA day at Cilcain was set for 3rd Feb. Rachel and Simon have a wide variety of skills and interests and we are really looking forward to working alongside them.

If you are interested in sharing in our harvest follow the VegShare link.

The garden area is looking good and the compost has been turned. Wondrous what a bit of chicken poo can do to get the debris rotting nicely. We even had some harvesting to do with the last of the celeriac and parsnips, lots of lamb’s lettuce, PSB and sprouts.

We’re continuing to put manure under the covering on the field area ready for spring growing. It’s clearing nicely and shouldn’t be too hard work to get ‘growable’ in March.

Thanks everyone.

For 6-8

Ingredients

• 1 litre good chicken stock (or I like Marigold Bouillion stock powder made up)
• 1 Celeriac
• 2 Onions
• 2 Celery sticks (we haven’t grown those so I use the leaves from the celeriac – not chopped up and remove before pureeing)
• 25g butter
• 2 garlic cloves (I used about 4 chopped finely!)
• 1 Cooking apple peeled and chopped
• 1 dessert apple peeled and chopped
• Salt and Black Pepper
• 75g blue cheese (optional – delicious without)
• 2 tblsp single cream (also optional – I resisted!)

Method

• Warm stock, peel and chop veg
• Melt butter and add veg. ‘Sweat’ with the lid on without letting them colour – several minutes.
• Add garlic then stock. Simmer for 10 mins.
• Add apples, cover and simmer for 20 mins.
• Puree (remove celeriac leaves first if using)
• Return to heat and season.
• Add cheese and/or cream just before serving if wanted.

From Sarah Raven’s ‘Garden Cookbook’

Chilli jelly (or as Nigella calls it – ‘chelly’) – goes perfectly with cold meat or cheese.

It’s very easy and quick to make unlike most jellies, if you like your chillies on the fiery side use more – I harvested 10 red chillies over 2 weekends to make 8 8oz jars of jelly.

Ingredients

10 red chillies (deseeded and cut into 4 pieces)

1 large red pepper (cored, deseeded and cut into rough chunks)

1 kg jam sugar (the one with pectin in)

600 ml cider vinegar

Method

1. Sterilize your jars (wash in hot soapy water and put in oven 150C for a few minutes) and leave to cool.
2. Put the cut-up chillies into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the chunks of red pepper and pulse again until you have a vibrantly red-flecked processor bowl.
3. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a wide, medium-sized pan over a low heat without stirring.
4. Scrape the chilli-pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring the pan to the boil, then leave it at a rolling boil for 10 minutes.
5. Take the pan off the heat and allow it cool. The liquid will become more syrupy, then from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly-like as it cools.
6. After about 40 minutes, or once the red flecks are more or less evenly dispersed in the jelly (as the liquid firms up, the hints of chilli and pepper start being suspended in it rather than floating on it), ladle into your jars. If you want to stir gently at this stage, it will do no harm. Then seal tightly.

Recipe from nigella.com

4 of 20 VegShares are left. These remaining shares will be allocated on ‘first come first served’.

The basic plan is :-

• To pay our grower, 20 sharers will pay about £10.40 (tbc) a week from Feb 2013 for 10 months.
• The grower then has to grow the veg so we expect it to be available from about mid May, although if funds are found we will be able to supply earlier by buying in.
• All payments stop for December & January but weekly veg continues till the renewal date in Feb 2014.
• The site is in Cilcain and there will be weekly collection points in Mold and Cilcain village.
• There may be a small labour contribution requested (currently 4 hours per month but may be less).
• If we can secure more money than our own for the grower there will be a lower labour requirement from sharers.
• We expect a share to feed two people although quantities will vary with the seasons and are not guaranteed.
• Sharers will take 1/20 of ALL veg produced so sometimes there will be a surplus to share out.
• Shares are only available to FlintShare members; current annual fee £24 (rising to £25 in March)
• Your financial contribution is to support the CSA project – not a direct purchase of veg. The veg is the ‘dividend’!

For more on the general benefits of membership see here  and follow the links.

Just to clarify (I hope!) FlintShare will run two, distinct veg schemes and members can belong to either, both or none. They are -

The Veg Account scheme (current) – community gardens; you grow and crop; ‘buy’ veg with labour and/or cash; high time commitment; details on the website here (note: due for updating).

The Veg Share scheme (from Feb 2013)- professional grower; bigger scale; regular veg for more money, less time commitment (though still some); detail as above.

For more info contact *protected email* or become a member and state that you want a VegShare on your joining form.

Come and join us and help shape a new way to get local food!

I’m really pleased with them, though. As the cold weather sets in they’ll get sweeter with every frost. If you’re cropping parsnips at Cilcain use a spade to get as deep as you can all round the root to stop them snapping off before lifting.

The aliens in the picture are celeriac – makes delicious winter soup and great in mash. The leaves are good for flavouring stocks and stews, too.

The picture of the veg bed is how they should all look (unless they have a crop in) before the really cold weather – well mulched to protect the surface and keep some warmth in the soil.