After the success of our pilot veg growing and livestock projects we’ve had a very busy start to the year planning how to expand and develop Diss Community Farm.  The good news is, we’re taking on new members, so if you’re interested in joining us then please get in touch, email Sue Pitt, our new membership secretary dcfmembers@yahoo.co.uk 

From Spring last year through till mid December members of the farm collected a weekly share of the vegetable produce that was harvested from our site at Winfarthing.  Our professional grower Gabbi Reid and some of the VegShare members worked hard to ensure that our weekly shares were made up of some delicious and varied veg; sweetcorn, broad beans, sprouting broccoli, french beans, mixed salad leaves, herbs, potatoes, carrots, spinach, parsnips, I could go on…  there has been an abundance of quality veg.  The vegetables were harvested and delivered to Roydon Village Hall each week by a team of dedicated members that turned out come rain or shine!

We’ve had some great social events and some fun farm work days, where members were invited to get involved with jobs like sowing seed, potting on, planting out, watering, weeding.  Even weeding can be fun when it’s done with a good group of friends!  Farm works days have been a good way for members to get to know each other and for us all to learn new skills from our experienced organic grower.  It’s been like having the rewards of an allotment but without demanding the same time commitment or needing any prior knowledge to make it a success.

Last Sunday evening about 25 members met at Roydon Village Hall for a shared meal and general meeting. As always with these ‘bring-food-to-share’ events, the food was wonderful, as people pulled out the stops with their cooking creativity.  Much was based on produce from the Farm.

There was a brief general meeting before the meal, at which we gave our appreciation to all those who have been working so hard to make the Farm run, and to David Mitchell, who has contributed not just the land, but lots of his own work.

We discussed plans for the future, especially now that we have a field of our own. For next season, we will be expanding our membership to 80, and encouraged everyone to help find new members, especially, but not only, people who would be willing to help with the work of the farm (on the land, organising events, etc.)

We also voted to extend the constitution, which was originally adopted only for the pilot projects. We will produce a new one before the new season begins.

If you want to read the minutes, they are attached below.

16-10-11 General Meeting -minutes

Newsletter 3 – click on the link to read Octobers newsletter.

Diss Mercury/EDP story on new land for Diss Community Farm Click on the link to read the story in the local paper:)

Some of the Diss Community Farmers who have bought a field near Roydon to help expand their business. 

(You didn’t know you were farmers did you?:)

If you have a paper copy of the EDP there is a gorgeous picture of our lovely kids walking through the grass.

Wonderful news we have successfully secured at auction a piece of land in Roydon, and here it is:

A farm member, who wishes to remain anonymous, has generously purchased it for the Diss Community Farm’s use.  As you can see from the map the land is easily accessed from Snow Street in Roydon.  The 3.6 acre field has been used for a hay meadow for a long time, and is mostly surrounded by trees which will give added protection to crops.  We are thrilled to have a site that is nearer to Diss as this will enable more people to come and get involved without needing a car.

We are not planning to up sticks, we will still be working the site in Winfarthing that we have generously been given use of for at least the following year as it will be sometime before we are ready to grow veg on the Roydon site.  Once the new site has been made secure with adequate fencing livestock could be reared there as part of the preparation for vegetables.

So I just want to express our thanks to David Mitchell who has enabled us to get started and for his ongoing support and enthusiasm for what we are doing, and now thanks to our anonymous benefactor for enabling us to expand further and bring part of the project to Diss.  We have much to celebrate at the shared meal on October 16th, look forward to seeing you all there.

DCF is getting lots of news coverage at the moment. Look out for us in tomorrow’s Diss Mercury, where you’ll find our regular column on page 2, while the latest on the pig project will be featured on page 7.

So here they are, our tasty little escapologists! Last Saturday a few of us turned out to help Steve at Kadesh transfer our pigs from the cosy paddock with their Mum to their new home in the DCF paddock.

After much huffing, puffing, dashing about and squealing (porcine, not human) 4 piglets finally had a brand new leafy home to explore ….

….. so they promptly squeezed out of the fence and ran back to Mum! This process has been repeated countless times since, despite the anti-escape measures being upped at each attempt. Steve and I decided to give up until our electric fence arrives in a few days. Hopefully by the weekend the DCF piggies will be secure and it won’t be too much longer til they’re too big to squeeze through the spaces in the stock fencing.

There are still meat shares available if anyone wants to sign up and we have a few spaces in the pig feeding rota too so if you’d like to be involved, please get in touch.

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The date of 17th September had been etched on the minds of several members and friends of Diss Community Farm for some time; well it is with some relief and elation that we can now refer to it in the past tense.

Having been in denial for the last few weeks it suddenly seemed very real now we could see real logs, real fire with our own eyes. So setting aside common sense 21 of us signed the disclaimer to say that we only had ourselves to blame if we were burnt by walking 15ft over 500 degrees C hot coals! (3rd degree burns can occur at about 70 C, yikes!)

Scott Bell of FireWalk UK then took us through a little training session, where we contemplated the theory: a little physics of conductivity, the Leidenfrost Effect – water vapour theory, mind over matter, the power of our electro magnetic field, or our aura (not my favourite theory!), the walker’s intention, and so on.  I’d previously been clinging to the idea that it was just a matter of physics, but now my belief in this and the other theories was a little shaky, so what was it that would stop me from getting burned?  At this point I really wasn’t sure, would believing I wouldn’t get burned really mean that I wouldn’t?

In the dark we lined up in front of the stretch of burning hot coals, Scott measured the temperature and confirmed that they were over 500 c.  Despite this some walkers were brimming with confidence and others lingered at the back to see how the front runners would fair.  Jack stepped up first and strode across with confidence, quickly followed by more walkers eager to show that they could do it too.

It was suddenly my turn, could I do it?  I had no idea how, but I repeated the only mantra that came to mind, ‘I won’t get burned…and Erika will do me greater harm if chicken out and fail to collect the sponsor money!’  As I placed my foot onto the hot coal my first thought, ‘Ouch!’ but I got to the end.  The heat was intense, my feet were black, but I was unscathed, no burns, not even a blister.  The feeling of relief and excitement for us all was immense.  Each walker was cheered on by the crowd of spectators and each stepped off feeling elated, many of us made the most of this once in a life time opportunity and had second and third goes.  For a short moment we felt like gods!

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The official pics can be seen on the FireWalk UK website http://www.ukfirewalk.com/diss.html

The main event was followed by some great entertainment from Hilary Cornell.  There were cakes and pickles and great chilli, circus skills, beautiful face painting and a raffle.  The evening was a resounding success, we’ll let you know just how financially successful when the count up has been done!  Thank you to all those who worked hard behind the scenes to pull this event together.

And to all those brave fire walkers: Erika Doerksen, Kris Doerksen,  Claire Mitchell, Steve Scott, Carol Denham, Jay Hurley, Ruth Noble, Steve Noble, Ange Lamb, Gareth Newberry, Nicole Doerksen, Jack Dickenson, Jonas Enqvist, Jess Dickenson, Suzy Chrystal, Sylvia Stribley, Harriet Beckett-Allan, Anne Beckett-Allan, Patricia Doohan, Martin Springfeld, Claire Clarkson thank you, remember now we’ve braved the hot coals we can do anything!

The organisation Best Foot Forward has recently issued this ‘infographic’ to show the amount of land required for current UK food production. Interesting!