❄️🧑🏻🌾 Big Winter Work Day
Saturday 22nd November, 10am-4pm
Our all day members’ event for all ages. lunch provided. Beetroot and/or other root harvesting.
More info coming here soon.
If you aren’t yet a Canalside member and you like the sound of this, you can become a social member and come to this and any of our member events – click here to join (£36 standard rate/£18 concessions until 31st March next year then on 1st April annually).
Workshop Sundays: 🍞 ‘Sourdough Baking’
A 2 hour workshop with Erica Moody on Sunday 9th November
Offering two sessions: Morning 10am – 12 and Afternoon 1pm – 3pm
Learn a new recipe and processes, with sourdough rolls to bake and taste, whilst also supporting Canalside. This workshop will be a mixture of hands on mixing dough, watching some of the processes and talking about your starter and how to look after it.
Take home dough, to rise and bake at home, your own starter and a recipe!
Limited spaces, booking required.
£20 per person – 6 places am. 6 places pm.
Book and pay to attend through this link or scan the QR code in the flier below.
🦋 Autumn Moth Breakfast
Saturday 25th October, 8.30am – 10.30am
With Catherine, Holly and Pam.
Join us for breakfast as we open up the specialist moth traps to admire and learn about our astonishing UK moth species. A free event with breakfast and moths provided!
Workshop Sundays: 🍯🫙🍎 ‘Viking Mead and Fire Cider Vinegar’
A day workshop by Nic Bingley and Craig Barnes
Sunday October 19th 11am -4pm
Prepare for winter by crafting some Viking Foraged Mead and Fire Cider Vinegar to support the body and soul through the dark winter months, whilst also supporting Canalside.
🍛 Warming lunch included.
🫙 Take home your own jar of mead to ferment with a brew stick along with your jar of fire cider vinegar to infuse, ready for winter!
🥾 We will be foraging ingredients from Canalside’s hedgerows so come prepared for the day’s weather.
Limited spaces, booking required.
£50 per person – 12 places only. See flier below.
Book and pay to attend through this link or scan the QR code in the flier below.
🍂🍏🍎 Autumn Celebration Apple Day, Sat 11th Oct
🍏 The fruit trees are heavy with an incredible harvest and it’s almost time to meet together for all kinds of apple processing fun! Our Autumn Celebration Apple Day is October 11th this year from 12 – 6pm.
🍎 Autumn Celebration is a fantastic, free community-run event and is open to the public this year. Bring along friends and neighbours as the hands-on apple pressing, juicing and bobbing is so much fun for all ages; particularly the apple juice tasting!
🍻 As well as free, fresh apple juice (bring your own bottle if you’d like to take some home), we will have our colourful bar open with a delicious selection of quality wine, pale ale (Drop Bear Beer), IPA, larger (Purity) and soft drinks (Belvoir). There will be farm cider too of course!
🍰 The brilliant Chacma are going to be frying up vada (lentil fritters, VG and GF), there will be home-made cakes for sale and we are thinking it’s an opportunity to bring back good old fashioned toffee apples!! (take care with those fillings everyone!)
🎁 Young apprentice apple-pressers and bobbers will be rewarded with lucky dip prizes and certificates.
🚐 CCF hope to improve access to the farm for local people so we are offering Free Shuttle Bus trips in and out of Radford Semele village. Do spread the news on this, so folks know they have the opportunity to leave their car at home.
🚏 The Shuttle Bus will run from Radford Semele Community Hall, Leam View, Southam Rd-Church Lane and Bloxham Way at 11.30am/12 noon /12.30pm returning to all stops at 5pm/5.30pm/6pm.
🔥🍏 See you all in October by the fireside to enjoy time together and our amazing apples!
Canalside Team
🍂🥳 Autumn Celebration in brief
Timings:
Saturday 11th October, noon until 6pm
What’s on:
Apple pressing and juicing
Apple bobbing
Bar
Chacma veda (lentil fritters)
Cake stall
Toffee apples
Hot drinks
Fire
What to bring (if you wish):
Cash/card for drink/food purchases
How to get here:
Free shuttle bus from Radford Semele
Cycle and park your bike on the track by the social area
Drive and park in the car park/on the track through Tallis Wood
🌿 Ecofest stall this Saturday
Come down to Leamington Spa’s Ecofest in the Pump Room Gardens this Saturday (30th August), 10am-5pm – visit stalls from an array of local, environmentally-minded organisations and find our stall to:
– chat to members about the scheme at Canalside
– see what’s in the share of the harvest this week
– talk to The Willows Project to find out about their work
Open Farm Sunday, 8th June 2025
☀️ Come and join in with a tour of the farm 🚜
or one of the free activities
On Sunday 8th June, we will hold our open day as part of the national event ‘Open Farm Sunday’, when the farm will be open from 10.30am until 3pm. It’s an ideal opportunity to be taken round our fields and find out what’s growing on the farm at the moment. It’s also a chance to join a foraging walk with members Craig Barnes (forager) and Nic Bingley (herbalist in training), or a fermenting workshop with member Erica Moody.
Sunday 8th June, 10.30am – 3pm
Farm tour, free activities, bring-a-picnic, refreshments
🚜 Tour of the farm starts at 12 noon – look round the fields and polytunnels
🌿 Join a foraging walk at 11am or 1pm
🔪🫙 Fermenting workshop at 2pm
🪴🫖 Plants and refreshments to buy (including pizzas from The Willows pizza oven from 1pm)
🥕🍐 Find out how our community supported agriculture scheme works and what vegetables and fruits we grow
🧺 Bring a picnic to enjoy in the social area
🛝 Children’s activities and play area
🌿🫙🔪 Herbal Harvest, Forage and Ferment!
With Canalside members Nic Bigley, Craig Barnes and Erica Moody
Forage and Herbal Harvest 11am and 1pm
Fermentation workshop 2pm
Join us to forage delicious weeds from around the farm and to make herbal vinegars and vinaigrettes to taste, like elderflower vinegar.
Those attending Erica’s fermentation workshop will learn about fermentation, get hands on prepping veg and have the opportunity to taste and take home a fermented treat made from delicious Canalside organic veg and our herbal harvest!
⬇️ Craig and Nic will lead a forage and herbal harvest, Erica will run a fermenting workshop
⌚ What the day will look like:
10.30am – open day starts
🌿 11am and 1pm – foraging walk
🚜 12 noon – farm tour for about an hour
🍕 1pm onwards – pizzas from The Willows’ pizza oven
🫙 2pm – fermenting workshop
Anytime: 🧺 bring-a-picnic to enjoy
🛝 children’s play area
🪴 plants and 🫖 refreshments to buy
🐶 Dogs at events:
We are happy to welcome people with their well-behaved dog(s) on a lead when they come into the social area for Canalside events. Thanks so much – this means everyone can feel relaxed and enjoy the event/space.
We hope to see you there. With bright summer wishes, Ali
🌸 Spring Celebration, Sat 3rd May 🥳
Our Spring Celebration is this Saturday May 3rd, midday until late. The Maypole ribbons are ready for the dance! It’s time for Canalsiders to have some Spring fun and to welcome new faces into the farm. The plan is:
🌸 ‘Decorate your Spring Bonnet and Bunting’ Family Activity
🌼 Spring Face painting offered by Aggy’s Girls Group “Girls Go Wild”
🌸 ‘Maypole Celebration’ Radford Semele School children dance at 2pm
🌼 Look for what grows and lives at Canalside with Pam Reason leading “BioBlitz” at 3pm.
“A BioBlitz is a natural history event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area in a short period of time. Record all of the plants, birds, animals and insects that we see. We will create a snapshot of the biodiversity on the farm, as well as learning more about the natural world on our doorstep!”
🌸 It’s ‘Bring a Picnic’ 🧺🥪🧁🍏
🌼 Cake stall 🧁 plus 🫖tea, ☕coffee and 🥤🍏🍎orchard apple juice
🌸 Welcoming ‘Chacma’ delicious Chilli Bhajis from 3pm
🌼 Canalside Bar serving Belvoir Farm lemonade, Purity Brewing Co. I.P.A. and Pure Helles Lager, Drop Bear Beer Co. Yuzu Pale Ale 0.5%, wines and a Spring Perry Elder Fizz!
🌸 It’s Happy Hour from 4pm!
🌼 Wear your Spring Bonnet and see you there!
Looking forward to seeing you there with a Spring in your step!
🌸🥳 Canalside team 🍾🍰
🌸🥳 Spring Celebration in brief
Timings:
Saturday 3rd May, noon until late
What’s on:
Decorate your Spring Bonnet and Bunting
Face painting
Bioblitz
Maypole dancing at 2pm
Bar
Chacma bhajis from 3pm
Cake stall
Hot drinks
What to bring (if you wish):
A picnic
Spring bonnet to decorate
Cash/card for drink/food purchases
2025: January news
It is time for the first newsletter of 2025. We have been back from the winter break and going since four weeks now already… I can hardly believe it.
Over the last month we have seen a few pretty windy days which have blown the covers about on the farm. So we have kept a vigilant eye (or two) as the covers are protecting some of the most precious crops at the moment, like Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Cauliflowers and Cabbages. These have been planted in June/July and are still out there and growing and ripening. At this time of the year the birds are relentless and devour any bit of Brassica leaf that becomes available to them.
There have also been quite a few frosty days and nights, which means we have kept the tunnel doors shut and the indoor crops wrapped up under some warming fleece. Still the indoor lettuce has been suffering from the temperatures and the moist conditions. At the same time some of the overwintering crops in the tunnels like Spring Greens, Spinach, Spring Onions and Pak Choi are still waiting for slightly more warmth and longer daylight hours to kick-start their growth.
Work at the farm in January kept me extremely busy and was definitely not the wind-down that the winter usually promises. While we are cutting down on working hours in winter heavily, there is also a heavily reduced team conducting the work at the moment. A zero sum game as such.
We have been using the available time to harvest for the share, to plan for the next season, and to prepare the farm for the next season. These jobs are ongoing throughout the season but an intensive focus on the planning at this time is essential to ensure a relatively smooth running for the rest of the year.
At the tail-end of January we get a proper first idea that it is not too long until spring is starting. Our first sowings are looming (the very first rocket has already been drilled in the tunnel) and further tunnels are prepared for the early potatoes and carrots to go in within the next week or so. At the same time we are setting up our propagation areas, ready to raise those first little precious seedlings.
Lena, grower
Apple pressing and autumn open day, Sat 12th Oct 2024, 10-3
Come and visit our farm for a fun autumn day out!
10am-12noon: Join in with a volunteer morning in the orchard
From 11am: Apple pressing – suitable for all ages. Bring your own apples if you have spare from a tree in the garden and/or bottles to take juice home in.
Bring a picnic lunch to enjoy in the social area/pole barn.
Time TBC: Take a farm tour to find out what we grow.
Event details on Canalside’s Facebook group