Chagfood’s annual Harvest Festival took place on Saturday 20th October in a blaze of autumnal sunshine. The event was particularly well timed to coincide
with one of the only clear days in the past month giving us an opportunity to harvest our plot of heritage wheat. The spring-sown wheat seed was donated to Chagfood from the Oxford Bread Group and is a variety specific to mid Devon which has been bred from seed found under a medieval thatched roof – it has the wonderfully charasmatic name of “Devon Orange-Blue Rough Chaff”. The harvest was helepd along by several willing helpers who brought along their own sickles and helped to bind the stooks before they were loaded onto the Landy to be take to a dry barn ready for threshing. We hope to complete the process of threshing and milling over the coming weeks so please get in touch if you would like to get involved.
The day also included an apple-pressing session using a mobile press provided by Grow Chagford. In total around a tonne of apples were pressed with the majority of juice being taken away by members and visitors – we did however keep a bit of juice back for ourselves for a little’bit’o’Cider. In the evening a bring & share buffet was enjoyed by all before a marathon storytelling session around the fire provided by Tom Hirons & Rima Staines. Judging by the scores of faces in the firelight the adults were just as enthralled as the children. The evening was rounded off by some music around the fire under a clear sky and a cresent Harvest Moon. Proper.