Farmers and growers meeting at Pelistry

On a lovely sunny day last Friday, the inaugural meeting of the Scilly
Farmers and Growers' Initiative was held. Gordon and Mervyn Bird kindly
invited every commercial farmer and grower on Scilly to their farm at
Pelistry on St Mary's.

The farm covers around 70 acres and includes flowers, grass, fodder
crops and beef cattle (they also used to grow a lot of veg). It also
hosts a summer campsite for school children. It's a truly family farming
business and the enthusiasm and hard work of the whole family, spanning
three generations, was heart warming and encouraging.

Enthusiasm from everyone was very forthcoming and a feeling that this is
an important initiative to help progress farming and growing on Scilly.
Support from the project will enable skills development, co-ordination,
collaboration and help with access to capital investment in businesses.

Transition Scilly will be engaged with the Initiative on future
projects, including the Scilly Food Festival this September.

Orchard work day - Sunday

The Community Orchard at Trenoweth is looking more like an orchard as each month goes by. The trees are growing nicely and there's a fair amount of fruit on the trees at the moment - not bad considering they're only two years old.

We're organising a work party at the Orchard this Sunday (24th June) 3pm to 5pm to do some tidying up, mowing and other bits and pieces - and a chance to sit down and enjoy the peace and quiet of the orchard. Come and go as you please, everyone welcome.

Later in the year we're planing a community apple pressing session, so if you have spare apples you can put them to good use.

We're on Facebook

We've decided to have a presence on Facebook as it's quicker and easier to update, and easier to reach out to more people.

There are updates very regularly of relevant news and information, so have a look and send us a 'Friend Request' if you're on Facebook.

http:www.facebook.com/transition.scilly