Llangybi Organics Newsletter – July 2004

Welcome to our new customers and welcome back to our regulars! Firstly, let ‘s deal with the important points that help us keep everything running smoothly:

Collection – Please try and collect your bag or box as early as possible after 5pm on Friday, and certainly by Monday so that your veg is still fresh and we’re not confused by wondering whether you’ve forgotten. When you collect, do check the tick box on the whiteboard list.
What’s in the boxes? – Each week, we place a list of all the veg in the bags and boxes in the Swallow House (Ty Wennol) so you can see exactly what you’ve got.
Payment – Would you help simplify the accounting Val has to do by paying at the beginning of each month in advance? Please pay in cash or make cheques payable to “Val Lynas” (NOT “Llangybi Organics”). Place your payment in one of the supplied envelopes after writing your name and what you’ve taken and put the envelope in the black metal box.
Eggs – Please pre-order what you want by contacting Jill. Demand is greater than supply much of the time so don’t take eggs unless they’re clearly marked as available for all. Otherwise you will be taking someone else’s ordered ones. Do please make a note on the whiteboard confirming how many you’ve taken and paid-for.
Going away? – If you’re taking holiday, please do your best to arrange for a friend to collect your veg whilst you’re absent. Our production is geared to producing enough for all our customers each week and plants simply won’t wait. So we have to harvest the full amount every week regardless of whether half of you are in Spain or wherever!
Packaging – Please help us to recycle clean strong boxes and supermarket bags by bringing them to us so we can pack your veg in them. Jill also needs egg boxes please.

Farm news: After an exceptionally warm, sunny and very dry spring – meaning we had to do a great deal of irrigation – we now seem to be having a cool July. Happily, most things are looking good and the tomatoes are colouring up ready for harvesting in a week or two. Cucumbers are starting now and courgettes aren’t far off either. In autumn, it looks like we’ll have some fruit like apples and pears too as the Ty’n Lon orchard begins to come into bearing for the first time. Mur Crusto’s orchard is one year behind. We both had our annual Soil Association inspections a couple of weeks ago – and passed!

Pick Your Own extra peas: Jill invites anyone who wants to pick their own larger quantities of peas to come along and do so at Ty’n Lon farm. Picking peas is very time-consuming which is why they are so expensive (even when picked by poorly-paid people in Kenya). If you’re interested, let Jill know and she’ll advise you when the peas are ready.

Pick Your Own raspberries: At Mur Crusto farm, we now have raspberries in full production. If you want to combine collecting your veg with picking some raspberries too, just see Val or Bry when you arrive and one of us will show you where to go. Like peas, raspberries are very time-consuming to pick. We will always pick some and have punnets displayed in the Swallow House for you to buy if you don’t have time to pick.

Pick Your Own… ducks? Well, sort of. Jill has a number of Indian Runner ducklings – champion egg-layers – for sale if you’d like to have a duck or two in your garden. Ducks are the best slug-killers around too. Advice on how to manage ducks is available free from Jill.

Pick Your Own, well, everything! If you’ve read the website information about Community Supported Agriculture, you’ll know what I’m talking about here. If you haven’t, we are very keen to foster closer ties with those of you who are really keen on what we do and maybe want to help or learn more. The basic idea is that you assist us with some of the tasks we have to do (like harvesting or weeding) and receive in return an appropriate discount as well as a deeper understanding of how organic systems actually work. If you’re interested, let us know.

Find out more: If you’re a new customer and want to find out more about us and our farms, it’s all on the website. If you haven’t got a computer, there’s always the public library where you have free Internet access. Previous newsletters are also archived on the website.