The Sheriffs on the Land

Since last Autumn we have been really lucky to have the Sheriff family help out once a week. Mostly helping Lizzy with Wednesday harvest. It has been a real pleasure to have them around. Here’s a little blog post from the Sheriffs! Scroll down for pics & text…

We’ve been volunteering at Cae Tan on Wednesday afternoons since September (and plan to do so for a whole year) to learn more about the project and Community Supported Agriculture as well as connect our children (and ourselves) more with vegetables we are eating, the seasonal changes and cycles of growing.

We are now 6 months in and we are there come rain or shine. We’ve learned lots over this time from a variety of tasks, from clearing beds and poly-tunnels, rolling out and rolling up netting to sowing and harvesting the veg. We have harvested 13 different types of vegetables – which has taught us lots about how they grow and when they are ready for harvesting, about the unpredictable successes and failures of organic growing, and also about the land and people.

We have enjoyed watching the kids get stuck into a job (sowing onion sets, searching for ‘ready’ courgettes..) spot something interesting (an extra long worm, a GIANT cabbage…) and I’ll never forget the look on Tansy’s face when she dug up a massive carrot ”all by myself” (with a little bit of help!) And when the weather is wet and wild and their attention span is short, they are still out in nature making their own fun – striking the enemy hedges with dead celeriac stalks, spying on us from their secret den or splashing in the mud.