Winter Gardening in Progress

Our winter garden space in progress

We had an amazing, beautiful and busy weekend at Crow Forest Farm!

Seneca led us in a project where we created raised beds out of stacked stones that we then covered with old windows.  We are already sprouting radishes, lettuce, and onions under glass.  We are arranging the cold beds in a spiraling fern pattern a la the golden ratio.  We’ll see how the flow works.

Drew can dig it!

We also dug out some beds that are sunk in the ground.  As you can see, we are putting pop-up cold-houses on top.  That way, we can walk in and stand up fully, and plants have more room to grow tall over the winter.

Jon and Seneca moving buckets of dirt among our felled trees of heaven.

We chopped down a bunch of tree of heaven with machetes.  Tree of Heaven is an invasive plant that sends out juglone hormones that prevent other plants from growing.  We are chopping them down for firewood, digging out the roots, and building hugulkultur finger beds around the perimeter of the fenced area.  Our hope is to rehabilitate the space.  We will transplant a bunch of our horseradish to the new space, and hopefully it will be high enough above the juglones to thrive.

D&D, Apple brandy, and a showing of “River of Dread” around the campfire to celebrate our hard work : )

We finished off the day with some Dungeons and Dragons, Apple Brandy hot toddies, and a showing of Seneca and Patrick’s independent masterpiece, “River of Dread.”  We stayed warm around the fire until it was sauna-time. Pretty nice life, if you ask me : )

I am very grateful for the creative, hard-woring friends in my life. Thanks to Seneca, Jon, Drew and Patrick for your hard work this weekend!  Please come again!

 

 

Korean Medicine and Food Foraging at Crow Forest Farm

It’s been a busy week, (busy with fun and beautiful things) so I apologize for the delay in posting.  Last weekend, my friends Roy and KD came to visit.  They just moved to Chapel Hill, NC from Maryland, but they are originally from Korea.  KD is a certified acupuncturist and Eastern Healer, and Roy has a lot of knowledge about Korean farmers that he is now extending to Permaculture.  We had an amazingly fun time!!!

Roy and KD brought us Jerusalem Artichokes (aka Sunchokes), which we planted by the CFF entrance.  Hoepfully, visitors will be regaled with tall yellow flowers when they first enter the property.  In Korean, Jerusalem Artichokes are called “pig potatoes” because these creatures will find them and dig them up.  We’ll see if any critters try to uproot our Sunchokes.

Roy & KD planting Jerusalem Artichokes at CFF

We hiked around the property and discovered that there are many medicinal plants growing at Crow Forest Farm.  We may have discovered a new guild: to-bok-ryoung (Rhizoma similacis) growing up a paw paw tree and paw paw trees!  Apparently, to-bok-ryoung is used as a detoxiying and chelating agent.  It is winding all up and down our paw paw trees.  Could we be on to something?

Rhizoma Smilacis growing up a paw paw tree

Roy and KD also informed me of many wild delicacies growing right under our feet.  We assembled a delicious meal of foraged salad, Jap Che (Korean Sweet Potato noodles), fermented mulberry sauce, chicken soup and home-baked bread.    We are discussing having a food foraging/Korean medicine workshop at CFF in the Spring.  Deep warm thanks to Roy and KD– Please come visit again!!!!

A delicious meal! Jap Che (Korean Sweet Potato noodles), fermented mulberry, mung bean pancakes, chicken soup and fresh-baked bread… don’t forget the foraged sorrel and sunchoke salad!

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