The latest news on Cafe Sustain and what's happening there, Sustaincare, the kitchen garden, the physic garden and more...

Joey's Cafe Sustain Blog

June 2009

Making Medicine's from the Garden - Workshop

Last night Roberta Hutchins ran a workshop on making remedies from the garden. We looked at (and picked) the mint family and after chopping, mixing, infusing, decocting, sieving, squeezing, mixing and pouring everyone went home with a little brown bottle filled with sage honey (great for sore throats or coughs) and a glass jar filled with lemon balm lip balm (great for keeping lips healthy). Roberta really knows her subject and made the evening really good fun as well as packed full of gems of information. But best of all it felt really satisfying to go home with a little collection of loving made goodies.

The workshop was the first of a series that we are going to run at the cafe. Pop in for more information or ask to join our mailing list.

We have extended our menu to include suggestions from our customers.

We now have milkshakes, freshly made smoothies and Luscombe juices.

We also serve cooked breakfasts from 9am - 11am.

For people with specific dietary needs we have banana, oat and cranberry muffins every day which contain less sugar but are still just as delicious as our other cakes as well as gluten-free lemon drizzle cakes which use ground almonds to produce a mouth-watering cake.

For the last 5 months I have been fully absorbed in Cafe Sustain at Culm valley so I am afraid the blog went a little quiet. But we are now back to blogging.

Jan and I are finding it harder and harder to source local honey and local sourcing is one of our key aims. So in casual conversation we wondered if it would be possible to have a hive at the cafe. We have a herb garden, our own kitchen garden, composters, green cones and as we are becoming more and more self sufficient why not bees. Well in that same week a swarm of bees appeared in the tree which overhangs our physic garden. Luckily Jan phonebook reads like a Who's Who of Mid Devon. she rang for Tom the beekeeper. The swarm were not as amenable as we might have hoped but it was a bit of entertainment.

The swarm in the tree:

And this is how you catch bees...

Tom and his able assistant Chris wishing the bees had picked a slightly lower branch:

29th November 2008

Brian has worked really hard this week to improve the drainage for the box hedge. He has put a drain down the side of the green man closest to the path and dug some sand in too. He has plans to scrape the branches too in an attempt to make the box hedge a little healthier. Thank you Brian.

18th November 2008

We now have a new featured herb. Sage plants are the lobby with the new postcards.

Brian, Chris and Simon are planning a revamp of the garden over the winter to put the plants that are in temporary homes into their permanent ones.

12th September 2008

The big event in September was the visit of HRH Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall for the official opening of the Culm Valley Centre for Integrated Health. They took time to visit the Physic Garden and clearly showed their interest in the exhibits!  

 

Standing in front of the Physic Garden in the picture above, from left to right: Brian Chubb, Chris Fuller, Adrian Lovatt, HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, Joey Lee, HRH The Prince of Wales, Simon Mills, Dr Michael Dixon (senior partner at Culm Valley Integrated Centre for Health).

A big thank you to Adrian Lovatt from the Eden Project who drove up to Cullumpton with a van full of plants for the physic garden. This included four trees which we have planted at the entrance by the garden. Also a huge thank you to Chris Fuller and Brian Chubb, our gardeners and patient support group members, who worked really hard to get the new plants into the ground.

This month our herb of the month is Rosemary.

31st July

The variable weather has allowed the Physic Garden plants to settle in while we sort out long-term arrangements for their watering. However some of the box hedge has suffered a little with yellowing. We expect this to be a temporary problem and will be feeding the plants appropriately. New plants will be arriving soon, thanks to Eden Project. A brand new display board and other signage are also on their way.

Note the Lemon Balm plant in the lobby with the new postcards.

30th June 2008

Simon Mills gave a free talk at Culm Valley Integrated Centre for Health on Wednesday. The talk was open to everyone and drew over 30 including patients, partners from the practice and other health professionals. Thank you to everyone who came and we hope you enjoyed yourselves and thank you to the Patient Support Group who organised the evening.

28th June 2008

There are more signs in the physic garden now. We have added information on Valerian, peppermint and evening primrose.

13th June 2008

Lavender is the featured herb for this month and there is a wonderful specimen in the lobby at the practice. If you are in the practice, take a look at the information on lavender and help yourself to a postcard.

12 June 2008

The physic garden has really grown with our wet and warm spring. After some experimentation we have found a way to write on slates (a big thank you to the local Free-cyclers who gave us the slates), so our labelling has started. Please take a moment to have a look at the garden. If you walk up to the top with your back to the practice, you can get a much better view of the green box hedge man. We would also like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Chris who has put many hours into keeping the garden weed-free and looking good.