This week I had the pleasure to meet two amazing people. One is an inspiring lady working at creating a more sustainable way of life in Norfolk – more about this in another post. The other person was Ryan who is working with this wonderful, inspiring community farm at Rushmere, just outside of Ipswich. As the director of the project, Tom, says, “Of all human activities farming has the biggest impact on climate change and biodiversity. Most industrial farms work unsustainably and are slowly ruining the soil that supports all land-based life on this planet.”
But at The Oak Tree Community Farm, IP5 1DW they are doing all the right things to change the quality of the soil. This has been a massive undertaking. I first visited this farm six years ago when they agreed to show our home educated group around their beautiful place. The founder, Joanne, had bought the four acres of land in 2010 as she’d had a vision of creating a community farm. The downside was that the land had been sprayed for many years – it had had wheat growing on it – and was completely dead. She explained how she’d had to take good quality soil from other places and introduced it into her land – something that blew my mind at the time!
Twelve years on this is four acres of heaven. Not only are they creating food that is full of nutrients, which most of our food lacks nowadays, but it’s a wonderful place to grow community too. Two massive ticks for us at Joinavision!
By healing the soil we’ll have more nutrient-rich food. That food will increase our gut microbiome meaning we are happier and healthier too. By eating better food we’d also see a reduction of illnesses and pharmaceuticals. The benefits really are endless.
So why do the majority of people still shop at supermarkets when we know all this – ease, delivery, time-saving, cheap food? But at such a cost. It’s all designed to create a poor environment for our bodies and the repercussions of eating poor quality food are huge.
Fortunately for anyone in Suffolk we now have access to two amazing farms – The Oak Tree Community Farm in Rushmere, just outside of Ipswich, and the other is Fellows Farm in Gosbeck. Both are offering veg boxes. Ben at Fellows Farm opens his doors every Monday for people to come and create their own veg box.
At The Oak Tree Farm they make boxes up on Mondays and Fridays and are ready to be collected by 2pm. Boxes cost £16 and a typical box would contain between 8-10 items. This week they have tomatoes, potatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, french beans, aubergine, beetroot, chard and broccoli. Payment is via bank transfer. Anyone interested should email: box@the-oak-tree.co.uk
With farms like this all over the UK who needs to shop at a supermarket? I’m so grateful there are people like Ryan and Ben out there whose focus is on not just healthy food but regenerating the soil thus helping all of us in the long run and I’m thrilled both are on our doorstep!
Welcome to The Oak Tree Community Farm – located on the outskirts of Ipswich
