It’s been the height of the ‘hungry gap’ this month at COCA, as we turn over to the summer crops, and the greens in the polytunnels make way for this year’s tomato crop. It leaves us with slightly less veg in the weekly shares for now, but paves the way for the summer glut! And of course, it’s still been all go on the farm!
Never one to turn down a chance to tell people all about community supported agriculture and sustainable farming, this month Caerhys and the Miles family got a visit from the welsh television show Gwyl Y Gwanwyn, explaining how COCA works and the relationship between the growers and the members. It’s still available on iPlayer – http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02r51j1/gwyl-y-gwanwyn-2015 – Caerhys is featured from 7.30 minutes in (click S for english subtitles).
COCA were spreading the word of what we do and encouraging new members to join at the Really Wild Festival this month, conveniently located this year over at Pwll Caerog, the farm next door. As a small fundraiser, we held a raffle for people to win a hamper of COCA veg and local produce, and as usual gave some of Caerhys’ piglets a day out, which is always popular!
The high life of TV production crews and festivals aside, this month also saw the first volunteer day specifically for Cartref COCA, a new project for this year that will see us building a new ecologically minded building to use as our share store and meeting space. The day saw the gang clearing the site, a big job in and of itself, so that we can get started of the first stages of the building.
Finally, toward the very end of the month we were joined by the first UNA Exchange group of the year, who have been busy helping out with all aspects of COCA. It’s our second year hosting the UNA Exchange groups, and it’s brilliant to have people from all over the world visiting the farm, seeing how we operate, and getting stuck in.
UNA Exchange settling in!
