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.