Snow, snow, snow...

For those of you who are wondering why we are digging a bunch of holes in the ground, watch THIS video!

The snow pretty much killed any chance of the winter crops from producing any more, but I think the onions will be fine since they are underground?? The main problem with all the snow was that the neighbors couldn't see that the field wasn't a blank field any more, and they rode their ATVs around in it. Guess we better put up a fence.



If you look at this picture of the blueberries, you can see the big difference between the north side (snow hasn't melted) and the south side of the plants. We are thinking of putting thermal mass on the north side (rocks?) to absorb sunlight and let off the heat during the night. Ramsey in Winston-Salem says his yard is almost 5 degrees warmer than the surrounding lots because he has so much thermal mass set up.



We are planing on planting a bamboo plant soon. It is both edible and can be used for building. It is not the kind that spreads terribly quickly, but we do want it to be a whole grove one day... it's very useful to have quick-growing plants around.

Another quick growing tree to look into is the Empress Tree...

Thanksgiving planting

This Thanksgiving, the whole family was together again. We had the most amazing feast and the best pies my mom has ever made. We also used the opportunity to get some planting done- 12 plants in 2 afternoons!

2 bush cherry
3 service berry
1 kentucky coffee (nitrogen fixer, not real coffee)
2 asian pear
4 blueberry

The cherry, service berry, and blueberry were all planted the same way, with varying levels of different amendments. The ground is cleared with the rogue hoe, then the dirt is broken up with a pick-axe in a large circle around and under the plant. New dirt is mounded around the plant as it sits on top of the ground. Add wet newspaper and mulch on top, and you're done! The pears required holes 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep. Frankie, Jonathon, Quinten and Ash dug them by hand, because there really isn't any room to bring the tractor in anymore.

Cherry:


Preparing the ground for blueberry:


Finished blueberries:


Kentucky coffee:


Very deep holes for the pear trees:


Sheet mulching the service berries:


It's finally starting to look like a forest!!

The blackberries from last week are now in the ground and looking good. The elderberries are in the background:


Snow Peas doing well, and finally tall enough to latch onto the trellis.


We are still gathering greens as needed from the veggie patch:


Everything is looking really frosty in the mornings. A good long frosty winter is actually essential for some fruit trees to develop properly:



Ash, my mom and I are going to Europe tomorrow and will be back on December 8th. See you then!!! If any of you see my brothers or my dad, remind them to feed the animals.

New plants from a friend

Our friend Ramsey has an impressive forest garden in Winston-Salem that he started 30 years ago. I met him at a workshop in Pittsboro and it was one of those rare moments when you discover that you are not alone in your optimistic, apocalyptic thinking.



He didn't just bring us edibles (1 cranberry, 3 elderberries, 1 goji berry) but also ornamentals (2 nandina, 2 forsythia, 1 butterfly bush, 7 irises). Ash has been busy! He slept all day yesterday because his body was so exhausted from the hours and hours of digging and hauling.

If you ever want to rip up a bunch of ground in a short period of time, then you need the ultimate hand tool.... THE ROGUE HOE. It's so boss, it has an elephant on it.



Here is the goji berry:



Here are two wildflower beds where Ash laid down seeds (the circle Taz is walking on, and the bare patch to the left and behind Ash):





He put the cranberry next to the blueberry, since they needed to be in the well-watered lowland area:



These three elderberries will one day be HUGE and spreading like wildfire:



We picked up some liquid kelp meal to soak all of these plants before they were transplanted. This is a photo of four blackberry plants that Bountiful Backyards gave us.



We had our first serious deer damage.... one of the asian pear trees was totally eaten!! We will leave it and see if it grows back in the spring.



That roll of chicken wire in the background might be going around the other pear.... but we also bought this stuff to try out:

Look! Mushrooms!

Today we got a BEAUTIFUL harvest from our shiitake logs, because of all the rain we had this week. Ash, my mom, my dad and I each got a mushroom log when we took a workshop at Pickards Mountain in Chapel Hill this spring.

My mom cooked them into a stir fry (broccoli, onions, carrots, etc) and served it with wild rice. The mushrooms tasted so SWEET and wonderful! Dried mushrooms are the best dietary source of vitamin D... in fact, don't eat too many dried mushrooms (don't ask me how many that is, probably an ungodly amount), because you can actually overdose on vitamin D that way.







We are trying to keep the dogs from running through the vegetable beds. They don't dig so much, but they walk all over the seedlings. We have put up sticks with green string to deter them, but it doesn't seem to be working. Tomorrow we will go get metal T-posts and wire to make a sturdier fence.



I think we are favoring the name "Black Snake Homestead" for our project. Ever since we moved onto this land ten years ago, there has been a strong black rat snake presence, with an especially beautiful snake that is easily over 5 feet long and lives on the bluff behind the house. When we broke ground on the first day, a beautiful, young black rat snake slithered out of the grass and across the field, sort of christening the project. We took it as a good omen, and think it would be good luck to name the project after him/her.

Ash and I have been thinking a lot about what kind of home we want to build for ourselves. One option is to buy a yurt, another is to build with cob (clay, straw, sand, water, wood). Either way, it's our ticket to a sustainable future!

http://www.blueridgeyurts.com/
http://carolinacob.com/

Woodchips and new growth.

With a big load of wood chips finally acquired from a local tree service, Ash laid down the path between the blueberries and finished mulching around the vegetable beds and between the two big vegetable beds:




The snow peas are growing well! We have been thinning them out slowly as they grow.

This was what they looked last week:



This is what they look like this week:




The lettuces, kale, and broccoli are sprouting as well, in most of the places that we planted them.




Ash planted onions yesterday, in the two mounded rows pictured here.



The clover cover crop is looking LUSCIOUS!!



Still waiting for more plants to come from the nursery.

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THE FOLLOWING IS A POST THAT GOT SKIPPED, DATED OCTOBER 17th 2010!

Recently we have been watching things grow as we wait for more trees and wildflowers to come in.

We sowed some clover seed down in the circular bed in the driveway, hoping it would take, but there isn't enough sun.



But the clover in the trenches is doing great!



Ash dug two beds on the slope where we found a random plot of really great soil. Things are sprouting in that bed, but nothing is sprouting in the beds below. (unless you count the wheat from the straw...)



The old bed that my parent's used for vegetables is being used for snow peas now. No germination yet.



The beds I mentioned that aren't sprouting- Ash expanded them and mulched with leaves harvested from around the property. We may get no germination this season; these beds are sheet mulched, no-till beds designed to maximize worm activity for the next 6 months in preparation for planting the spring.



These are the compost bins my parents built ages ago... there is some nice humus in there. Amazing how much food waste comes from 6 adults!



We planted 130 tulip bulbs in a mulched bed on the driveway... should look very nice, every spring! Unless the Costco-quality bulbs fail, which is entirely possible. But it took hours to plant them, so it had better work.

Goodbye September! Hello Annuals.

We've been preparing and planting a lot of vegetable beds in the last few days. Ash prepared the annual vegetable beds with sheet mulching and soil amendments, then gave the beds a nice cool-weather quilt of straw. We planted broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, arugula, red lettuce, red kale, and lacinato kale. Ash also sowed red clover and white clover seeds into the trenches, and covered them with straw. They are sprouting very quickly because of all the rain!!




Close up of the prepared beds (sheets of cardboard, newspaper, dirt, amendments, then straw):



Holes parted in the straw to plant leafy greens:



Sprouts in the swales:



Straw over trenches by the pear tree, and in the nearby swale:



Straw over trenches in between fig trees: