19th February 2022 Tom O'Kane

News From The Field

February 2022

Happy new Year!!

We have had a great group of volunteers with us throughout the winter months, diligently digging and packing with a smile on their faces; a big thanks to them! We’ll be buying in veg for your shares soon… due to a series of strange weather early in the year, crops got in the ground late, so the hungry gap is hitting us earlier than usual. But never fear! We have all sorts of lovely leafy things coming out of the polytunnels, and we’ve already started sowing our Spring crops! The season is upon us! We’re excited to have two local trainees and two European trainees joining us from April, and now we have an opening from the YMCA, who will be funding a seasonal part time position from March. Look out for all the new faces arriving soon!
A big thanks to Bella, our winter Kickstart placement, who has worked hard throughout the darkest and hardest months of the year to be a farmer! Sadly she’ll be leaving us at the end of the month, but I expect we’ll see her on an exciting land-based

Hello from Eva!

I joined Cae Tan as a grower this winter after completing an apprenticeship and working on commercial farms. But I feel passionately that the CSA model is the way forward, so I’m really excited to be here and to be a part of your community! I’ve met lots of you in the veg shed or the field, but if we haven’t met, please come and say hello! I am also working on membership and I’d really welcome you to get in touch with any questions, ideas or ways you might like to get involved! caetanmembers@gmail.com / 07403680132

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Training by Tom 

Building on the success of Cae Tan over the past 7 years, we secured a grant last year from Gower AONB to establish an online training course to share our knowledge across the UK. Uptake for the course was great and all spaces were filled to start last October. We have 5 English, 5 Scots and 5 Welsh people! I’ve been feeding the students information & homework on a weekly basis and we’ve been meeting 3 times a month online. During the online sessions I’ve been hosting and running elements of the course alongside a range of guest speakers. Ruth Evans has been a regular as she’s become a great source of knowledge in the finances of CSA. We plan to run some summer residential courses using the same materials. We’re also working in partnership with a group of farms and organisations on developing the second year of our all Wales horticultural training to skill-up 15 more Wales-based trainee growers this season. Plus at Cae Tan we’ll be running regular theory sessions alongside the practical work for our trainees. The pool of growers is growing…..