🌸 Spring Celebration, Sat 2nd May 🥳
Our Spring Celebration will be on Saturday 2nd May, midday until late. The Maypole ribbons are ready for the dance! It’s time for Canalsiders to have some Spring fun and welcome new faces to the farm:
🌸 Maypole dancing
🌼 Family Fun
🌸 Canalside bar selling a range of alcoholic and soft drinks – bring cash/card for purchases
🌼 Bring-a-picnic 🧺🥪🧁🍏
Looking forward to seeing you there with a Spring in your step!
🌸🥳 Canalside team 🍾🍰
🌸🧑🏻🌾 Big Spring Work Day
Saturday 18th April 2026, 10am-2pm
It’s our BIG SPRING WORK DAY on Saturday 18th April, our members’ event for all ages.
Come and help get our onion sets (mini onions) in the ground between 10am and 2pm. It’s straightforward work and even little kids can get involved with adult supervision. Work at your own pace, for as long as you feel like, stop for a cuppa or lunch when you need to – all help is very welcome!
From 10am – help plant the onions
11am – grower led farm walk to orient new members on the farm and show any members what’s happening in the fields – finish by the onions for a cuppa and to help plant the onions
Work wrapping up at 2pm
Hot and cold drinks, and biscuits provided.
Home baking to share is very welcome – please list ingredients to help those with dietary needs.
Bring a picnic to eat whenever suits you.
We hope to see you there to get our onion crop into the ground!
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 (£37.50 standard rate/£18.75 concessions until 31st March next year then on 1st April annually).
❄️🍎 Wassail
Saturday 31st January 2026, from 1pm
Drink “to the bud, the blossom and the fruit tree” at our Wassail on 31st January, 1pm in the orchard.
The superb Songlines Choir are singing, we have wonderful mulled cider and apple juice and we can make Ivy Crowns!
By processing, loudly waking up the trees and by hanging bits of cider soaked toast in the branches we can see off unwanted spirits and ensure peace and abundance for us all in 2026!
“Wassail the silver shilling,
Wassail the silver moon,
Wassail the silver apple,
Drink hail the sign of the Sun!”
Please park in the car park and walk to the orchard. If that won’t be possible for you, please get in touch giving in indication of your needs and we’ll advise.
🎥 Documentary about Canalside
Please do watch the documentary film about Canalside made by student film-maker Maya Taylor in the summer of this year.
❄️🥳 Winter Festival
Saturday 6th December 2025, 12 noon – 4pm
Join us for our warming, light filled Winter Festival this December 6th from Midday to 4pm. Canalside Community Food welcomes the wider community to the farm all year to enjoy the bounty of every season and this is our free Winter event. Scroll down for more info.
Make jam jar lanterns with the family so we can light up the farm as dusk falls and add sparkle to the colourful performance of Plum Jerkum our fantastic local Border Morris Side!
We will have delicious hot food for sale: baked potatoes, samosas and cakes of course! Our bar will be serving mulled cider and apple juice (made with apples from the Canalside orchard) to keep everyone warm as we gather by the bonfire.
Updated on 4th December: Hop onto our shuttle taxi for a free ride to and from the Festival, running from Leamington Spa Train Station and stopping at Southam Rd-Church Lane, Radford Semele Community Hall and Bloxham Way. Leaving Leamington station 11.30am, Midday, 12.30pm. This is now an 8-seater taxi rather than the minibus originally arranged.
Pull on your warmest Winter boots and jumpers and join us for this, foot tapping, bright and colourful, family Festival on the farm!
❄️🧑🏻🌾 Big Winter Work Day
Saturday 22nd November, 10am-4pm
It’s our BIG WINTER WORK DAY on Saturday 22nd November, our all day members’ event for all ages.
10am start– Drinks and snacks available all day – hearty lunch provided at 1pm – We expect to work until 4/5pm but please work with us as suits you into the afternoon.
Lena and Nikki will be leading us with a variety of interesting tasks on the land: removing bean-canes, cutting back willow hedges, moving squash and hefting covers! (Pictures from previous Novembers.)
You can work at your own pace and switch to different jobs as you wish. All help is welcome.
Our Social Team Volunteers will be cooking a delicious soup with our organic vegetables for lunch. In addition, our talented bakers, Carmen and Xandra have plans that include home baked bread and hot puddings! That should keep us all going across the day if we don’t start napping by the fire!
In the afternoon we can begin to get the wood piles ready for Winter socials and festivities. The WINTER FESTIVAL is on the 6th December and we have a generous bonfire to prepare.
We need to process, gather and move wood before we decide for sure where to site the fire, which will be a fun project for everyone to work on together.
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