Carbon-free transport

A lesson to us all? As all our customers obviously know, we at Llangybi Organics, run a vegetable box scheme. Every Friday, we harvest and pack our veg in boxes and bags for our customers to collect. Everything we produce is grown on our two farms which are within one mile of each other. So food miles = 1 at the outset. Some customers collect their veg on foot and some collect by bike. The two in the photo cycle around 5 miles to get theirs and so does another regular. This is the way food distribution should be if we, as a species, are to reduce our heavy footprints on the planet's biosphere.

Not carbon-free but worthy: Most of our customers live too far distant to collect our produce by self-propelled means and have to rely on cars. But they're smart: they have almost all organised themselves into local groups so that only one person and car need make the journey each week, collecting for the others in the group.

And the moral of the story? Our ideal would be to have all our customers within riding or walking distance so no cars were involved at all. Sadly, most people in the area are stuck in the supermarket rut and have no interest in supporting locally-grown organic veg. But maybe our customers' example will inspire other local growers and communties to at least aspire to car-free food transport.

News

Starting again: Once again, we're about to start harvesting and packing boxes and bags. The first collection day will be Friday 25 July. Val has tried to be in touch with every customer about this. To get in touch, remember there's our contact page on the Llangybi Organics website.

Help 1! We need a few more customers. Several former customers have left, mainly because of the travel involved in these days of rising fuel prices. Happily, most of you are members of self-organised groups which really keeps costs, carbon footprints and inconvenience down. So please spread the word to friends, family and neighbours about our vegetables.

Help 2: This is a good place to say a big thank you to Deio, our stalwart and trusty volunteer who comes to help us on a regular basis. His wife Danielle comes too from time to time, so thanks to her too! We could do with a few more people who'd be prepared to come and help out now and then. Please contact Val or Jill if you could. What we really need is a few people who'd be happy to come when we're doing something which needs several people. The potato harvest is a good example of the sort of thing.

The year so far: It's customary to grumble about the weather at this point. Since everyone does that all the time this 'summer', I can say that it has suited us quite well. Regular rain and sunny periods and not too much hot weather work well for the range of veg we grow. The rain brings on the weeds, of course, and we've all, aided by Deio once again, been weeding like mad over the recent weeks, especially the carrots (picture shows Val handweeding at Mur Crusto). But on the whole, things have done quite well and potato blight, although in the area, hasn't hit us yet. So the bags and boxes should have plenty of tasty fresh veg in them. Raspberries will be increasingly available as our autumn raspberries 'kick in' as will fruit like apples and pears.

When slugs rule...

If it's not bad enough that a grey blanket of cloud has been a permanent feature this summer, the wet weather has had another impact: the slug population in gardens across the country has doubled.In what has become a record year for slug breeding, experts estimate there could be 15 billion in Britain - with up to 1,000 found in a single square metre.

Slugs eat twice their body weight every day and are able to lay up to 100 eggs each, so gardeners and farmers are understandably concerned at the impact of a lacklustre summer which has provided the perfect conditions for the pests to thrive.

Read the rest of this article from The Guardian to appreciate why we've been having big troubles this summer!

Future foods

If you're one of our customers, you might find my 'review' of this summer's growing conditions - and the implications for the future - of interest. Click here to see it.

A difficult summer

2007 Season – news so far (written by Jill): The new season started with a promising but rather unseasonable hot and sunny April leaving us complaining of drought conditions by the first week in May! Since then it seems like we have had nothing but rain, wind and overcast days. Unfortunately this has been perfect weather for fungal diseases, slugs and weeds to flourish and this has had a severe effect on some of our crops:

• Broad, French and runner beans have failed to set due to the lack of bees and other pollinating insects, resulting in no beans or late crops


• Sugar snap peas have brown marks on pods, spread by rain splash (but should not affect eating)


• Onions and garlic are small and have been badly knocked back by fungal diseases – again this may affect storage.


• Brassicas and lettuce are slow to develop and have been devastated by slugs


• Potato blight has hit particularly early and has gone into some of the tubers (brown/grey coloured flesh) and may affect winter storage.


• Tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines and peppers are taking longer than usual to mature, and have also been subject to fungal disease.


• Apples have bad scab and canker.

We trust that you will understand the problems we have encountered and stick with us. With the loss of things like the beans, we have been struggling to find enough variety to put in the bags/boxes so far, but hope that the “summer veg” will come into its own soon. We hope that over a full year, our bags will average out as being good quality and value. We do our best but we can’t control what the weather brings us. As you know, our vegetables and fruit are seasonal and all produce comes from our two farms.

Potato day: Jill and Mike will be holding a “potato harvesting day” where the potatoes, once lifted out of the ground by tractor, need to be picked and packed into storage crates. Refreshments will be provided during the day and a few extra pairs of hands would make all the difference and hopefully the day will be fun too. They can’t be sure of the date because it’s very weather-dependent though it will be at a weekend sometime quite soon – provisionally sometime during the Bank holiday weekend August 25-27 September 1st. If you would like to come along, please call Jill. She will then contact you when a date can be confirmed (dependant on having a a couple of days of dry weather).

Re-use and recycling of packaging: Thank you for returning the cardboard veg boxes and any used and clean punnets, egg boxes and carrier bags. We try to use as many paper bags as possible and you will be pleased to hear that we are about to change over to biodegradable plastic bags.

Bag collection and payment: Thanks for picking up the veg promptly any time after 5pm on Fridays. It helps if you can pay for the veg on a monthly basis, but please remember that some months have 5 weeks in them! Any cheques should be made payable to Val Lynas.

Never mind the weather! Back in production today

Our 'new year' starts today. Above are (from left) Deo, Roger (telling a joke, no doubt), Jill and Val in the packing shed preparing the boxes and bags for our customers. This is our first veg for this year: summer 2007 until spring 2008. And once again we are indebted to Deo who has spent many days working voluntarily to help Jill and Ty'n Lon during spring and summer.

It's been a pretty dreadful summer for us. Weeds worse than ever because of the rain, which has brought diseases like potato blight which came early and in a new, much worse form than before. Because of the lack of warmth and sunshine, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers have been slow to develop and ripen. The slugs are always on the verge of gaining the upper hand.
Even so, we battle on...

End-of-season party for volunteers

Left to Right: Jill, Val, Mike, Beverley (Roger's partner), Danielle (Deio's partner), Roger and Deio (who supplied the proper French champagne). Click the image for full size version.

Being a volunteer for Llangybi Organics has many bonuses. Above is one of them, a celebratory party for Deio and Roger, who have helped us so willingly through the winter. Deio, in particular, has been a stalwart, working with Jill helping with harvesting whatever the weather and then continuing on with the packing on Friday afternoon. Once, he brought Danielle and his daughter to help with the packing. That really went well!

Five reasons why you should consider becoming a Llangybi Organics volunteer:

1. The 'crack', as the Irish have it: good conversation, appalling jokes (Roger is joke specialist but, sadly, may be moving away from the area), serious discussions... it's all there on Friday afternoons
2. Multilingual chat: at least 4 languages are in variably common use by the packing team. Welsh and English, obviously, but also Spanish and some French.
3. Healthy outdoor work
4. Free vegetables as a 'thank you'
5. You're helping a small sustainable company supply high-quality veg and fruit to its loyal band of customers

If you think you might like to join in, contact Val or Jill by phone or email.