J-CAN rocks the Casbah at Mr Organic’s. Fuelled by spicy parsnip soup

 Last Saturday, 5 J-CAN members planted about 30 willow cuttings each to form a new hedge at Brian Adair's organic farm at Sion.

Brian got the 200-odd cuttings from Alcindo Pinto, who's "The Man" to supply you if you want to grow your own Wicker Man to sacrifice some climate change denialists in. We were half expecting that Edward Woodward would turn up, but… Edward Woodward wouldn't. (read that last sentence out loud).

As I’ve pointed out before we are only supposed to have the equivalent of 61 trees each  for our lifetime, worked out by the total number of trees in the world divided by global population. Although willow hedging probably doesn’t “count” as a full tree, it was nice to know that we had each planted enough to approximately add an extra 50 % to our personal global tree tally.

After we finished this community action, we retired to Brian’s office/shed for some warming and highly spiced organic parsnip soup and French bread and some of Maria Barnicoat’s chocolate dipped soul food to finish. Probably it was because we were glowing with that warmth that you get when you work hard outside in cold weather, but it all tasted incredibly good.

Brian, who’s a leading light in the Jersey Soil Association, and the Jersey organic movement generally, started Jersey’s first accredited organic farm.  He supplies the organic shop in Stopford road - he also grows around a million organic seedlings a year. Some of his plants are raised by other growers locally, who go on to supply Riverford Farm Organics with courgettes and cauliflowers. Riverford have probably the biggest and best known organic box scheme in the UK – and Jersey supplies it!