2015 Polytunnel clean up day - January
Community work day - June
Potato Harvestimg day - October
2014 Local Food Fair / Community day 25th May  Creating a sunflower hedge was the main job in the field that Sunday, as you can see in the photo. Our treasurer Keith had to put off tidying up the stone pile by the gate, as we found a pheasant sitting on a dozen eggs! We also showed a potential crop sharer around the site. Early Potato Planting day, 29th March 2014 As well as planting the first early potatoes, we moved the bike wheel den to it's new home with a nice new, clean (so far!) floor.
2013 Potato harvesting day, 6th October Several of the community met on a warm Autumn Sunday to help harvest and store our maincrop potatoes. Quite different from our first spud harvest, where we only had forks for the task, now we use our hand tractor with a special potato lifting attachment, which scoops them up to the surface. Before this however, we removed the stalks, and picked up any large stones, which would have slowed the tractor down.
Once the tractor had gone by, we moved in, sorting into 3 grades: the good potatoes for storing, which we spread out on a large tarpaulin to dry in the sun; those damaged by the machine or insects, which would go into the next week's harvest for immediate use; and finally any unusable ones, due to being green, slug eaten beyond use or too tiny. After lunch, which featured Elspeth's delicious Leek and Potato soup (and other tasty foods that people brought along to share), we started bagging the dried potatoes up into large paper sacks: these would later go in our vegetable store. Up at the farm, where the Community Food event was going on, some of our committee members were manning a stall to attract new crop-sharers, whilst providing art activities for children, and using a press to turn some of the farm's surplus apples into refreshing cloudy apple juice, which was offered to people visiting the stall.  Maincrop Potato Planting & Scarecrow making day 28th April
Early Potato Planting day 6th April - An account from Elspeth, a member of the CHW Committee.  |
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"Stone Garden" creating day, with Transition Leicester/National Citizen Service Volunteers, Sunday 26th August 2012
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1: One pile of perennial weeds on top of an unwanted heap of vegetation.........
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2: One pile of 16 year olds from the NSC/Transition Leicester project on top of a tarpaulin.........
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3: Both piles have come together. The weeds and heap have been removed and the soil is being raked level.
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4: The girls have found a way to keep their footwear protected! The area being transformed is covered with pre-used plastic to suppress weed growth.
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5: The Whetstone cairn is about to come into it's own as raw material to cover the plastic. Many barrowloads later, the plastic disappears under a covering of stones
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6: Whilst the groundwork is being done by half of the group with Pam, the other half are getting creative under the gazebo with Cat Bellinger.
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7: Used plastic bags and juice bottles are cut, plaited, heated and generally transformed into colourful flowers and greenery.
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8: A 'fruit shoot' flower.
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10. A Free-form plastic flower. Adornments attached with wool & tape to a 'tree', which then gets 'planted' in the stone garden.  |
10. The Stone Garden completed
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CHW Barbecue & Camping Weekend, 4-5th August 2012
Early June Community Day 2012 - Planting Leeks and flower border
April Community Day 2012 - Onion Set Planting
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March Community days 2012 - Seed sowing & early potato planting
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CHW AGM & 70's-80's Disco, February '12
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Potato/Squash Harvesting day - October '11
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Community Barbecue, July '11
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Polytunnel skinning day, February '11
Community Day, Spud lifting, October '10
Community Day, August '10
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Scarecrow Day, April
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| If this doesn't scare the birds, nothing will! | One of the scarecrows in action. |
Salad Day Social, March '10
A morning of work in the field, planting the first Followed by a sumptuous lunch, with the first salad leaves
potatoes, spreading the muck about, and tidying from the polytunnel, and a nature walk up the disused
the pre-existing garlic beds... railway and back via the large ponds (above).
Film night, January 2010
A couple of weeks into the new year, and CHW members met to see a documentary called 'A Farm for a future', about the need to change modern farming into a more sustainable method of food production not reliant on fossil fuels.
Polytunnel Community day, October '09
Many barrowloads of topsoil and compost wheeled in and forked into the impoverished soil. The first
young winter salads were then planted into the worked soil in rows.
Open Meeting June 2009
Our Landlord Anthony shows people around the A simple game with a ball of string shows how
field that we planned to take over. the many stages of food production are
interdependent.
The meeting ends with a short talk from members of
the core group and a question and answer session.