A new year begins
This time last year our site at St Baldred’s consisted of a few small beds, one small polytunnel and a lot of good intentions. One year later and we now have a fully operational market garden with two large polytunnels, a packing shed and a car park. It’s been a wild ride to get here: we could never have predicted the terrible weather, the plague of wireworm and all the many obstacles we had to overcome.
2024 was truly a year of surprises. For many it was the worst farming year in decades, as you might have noticed from the price of potatoes. We lost most of our onions and carrots, but some crops did surprisingly well. Our brassicas (mostly) thrived, except for the ones in the north-east corner which probably needed more fertility. It was a bumper year for fennel and the greens in our tunnels kept on cropping much later than we expected.
Which all goes to show that there’s always more to learn when it comes to growing food.
And growing is the order of the day for 2025 in every sense of the word. We plan on massively expanding our operation this year. We’re taking on a second grower and should be filling up all the corners of our existing site as we expand to deliver roughly three times as many veg boxes as we did in 2024, while still ensuring that everything we sell is picked on the day its delivered, making it the freshest veg you can buy in East Lothian.
So if you’re full of good intentions to eat better and support local growers, this is your chance! You’ll be able to sign up shortly for the 2025 growing season - we will email everyone who’s expressed an interest when our booking system is up and running, so watch this space. And please, don’t take our word for it, ask one of our customers from 2024 about our produce.
Another important goal for us this year is to grow our impact on the local area. In 2024 we had around 40 people come and volunteer on the farm, which was a huge help to us and, we think, enjoyable for everyone involved. We want to work with more volunteers, and to get better at measuring our environmental impact. So if you’re interested in getting involved please get in touch.
Finally, as a Community Supported Agriculture scheme, we aim to connect growers with consumers of food, to share the risks and rewards. And as such every year we must hold an AGM where anyone can hear an update on our finances and our governance; take part in consultations about how we operate and, if you’re a “member” of TCF (i.e. a paying customer or regular volunteer) you can also vote on some key decisions such as appointing directors and expanding our membership.
This year’s AGM will be at Tyninghame Village Hall on the 2nd February from 2.30-4. Refreshments will be provided. If you’d like to attend you can just turn up on the day, but we’d appreciate an email to get an idea of numbers.
