food security

Posted on July 23, 2024July 23, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Fresh from the Farm this Week

One of our goals has been to send out emails as we have items available from the farm. This is the first edition of that notice. Currently we have available:

elderberries
garlic (very limited supply)
raw honey from the farm in Bennett (yes, it is back – we sold out last year’s supply)
raw honey from Troublesome Gap
comfrey

You can place your order our store. You can go to the store directly at https://www.simplyusfarm.com/shop/ or click on the store icon (circled in red below). Any of the produce will need to be picked up locally. We do porch pickups in Sanford.

Freeze Drying Comfrey

We freeze dried our first batch of comfrey and stored the test batch in a vacuum sealed canning jar with an oxygen absorber. The freeze dried comfrey was easy to turn into a sorta powdery consistency after the freeze drying completed. The comfrey freeze dried fairly quickly. The entire run fit in a single wide mouth mason jar after we crunched up the leaves and stem. I’ll call it a success.

Next step is to make a salve.

Posted on July 13, 2024July 13, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

First Comfrey Harvest

Over the past year we have been planting comfrey in the food forest. We have also started planting comfrey with many of the trees and bushes that we plant. Comfrey is a great plant that has several jobs on the farm. These jobs (also known as function stacking for the permaculture crowd) include:

ground cover that suppresses grass and weeds for the plants and trees that we plant the comfrey around
living mulch that we can chop and drop in the fall to compost in place
medicinal plant that can be used in a salve or poultice

Today, we harvested enough comfrey leaves to make a full run in the freeze dryer. The plan is to freeze dry the comfrey and then make a salve. I’ve never made anything before with comfrey so this will be a new experience

We plan to offer comfrey on demand. When an order is placed, we’ll schedule a day for porch pickup in Sanford (most likely a Saturday). This allows you to have comfrey that was harvested earlier in the day. Next year we hope to offer comfrey root cuttings so you can plant your own comfrey.

The picture below shows comfrey leaves ready to go into the freezer and then the freeze dryer.

Elderberry Harvest Continues

We are still harvesting elderberry. The dry weather in June seems to have caused us to have smaller berries this year, but we are still getting a nice harvest.

Figs Growing Taller and Taller

It is nice to see our fig trees continue to grow. Many of them are covered with figs. We can’t wait to try them

Posted on July 7, 2024July 7, 2024 by admin

Potato Growing Class Wraps Up

We have a great time during the last session of our potato growing class. I am proud to say that we finished with 100% of the people that started the class. We had a nice harvest of potatoes. It was great to work with everyone for a class spanning several months

Currently Available Produce

This week we have

elderberries
garlic (very limited supply)
raw honey from the farm in Bennett
raw honey from Troublesome Gap
goji berries (you pick – email to schedule a time)

Visit our online store to place your order. We do porch pickups in Sanford, NC. Just select “porch pickup” as a shipping option when you place your order. Visit the online store here or click on the “Store” link at the top of the page.

Lack of Rain and Hot, but Some Plants Do Well

The fig trees are loving the high temperatures and growing like crazy. The warm spell in Feb of 2023 caused a lot of damage to our figs but now they are recovering nicely. The birds are enjoying the seeds from the sunflower heads

Future Plans

We have a wooded section on the farm comprising several acres. This part of the property was actively farmed 30 years ago. One of the goals for the farm is have a park like appearance. Having a beautful farm adds to the enjoyment.

The are several areas that were previously terraced and farmed but are now tree covered. We would like to reclaim an area for growing elderberries. There is an area with great microclimate. There is also flow of rainwater draining off the field that we can manage to provide an area that won’t need irrigation.

We’ve been working to manage the area grown up areas to

build abundance
return part of that abundance to the land and wildlife
provide a home for wildlife, diverse native plants and insects
provide pollinating plants for the bees on the farm and other pollinators

The first step is to have a plan that is open to pivoting. I’m realizing how important it is to be able change plans are we learn and discover more about farming and about our property. The next step is to remove brush, dead trees and small trees that don’t support the goals of the plan. This week I had an opportunity to do some work with the bush hog. Here are some pictures of the results.

Posted on June 22, 2024June 22, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Garlic Incoming

We harvested most of our garlic today. Once we have it processed, we should have a limited amount available for sale. We didn’t use any insecticides or pesticides and we practice regenerative farming where we try to continuously improve our soil. Once we have an idea of what we have available, I’ll post it here. Please keep in mind that we only harvest garlic once per year, so when we sell out we won’t have more until this time next year. In the meantime, here are some pictures of part of the garlic and onions that we harvested today

Posted on June 18, 2024June 18, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Getting Young Trees Ready for Summer

The project this week was getting the young trees ready for summer. This involves pulling off the anti-deer cages, weeding around the trees and then putting mulch around the base of the trees. The mulch helps to keep the soil around the tree moist. It also helps trap water when we water the trees during the summer months. As the mulch breaks down, it will also provide nutrients to the trees.

The elderberries are coming right along. We are looking forward to having a great elderberry harvest.

Test planting of figs and persimmon in the back field

Comfrey and fig growing in the back field

Posted on May 26, 2024May 26, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Farm Tours! – Our Annual Fun Day on the Farm

Thanks to everyone who came. We had 16 attendees from 8 families. What a great day. We shared about permaculture, design thinking, innovation and regenerative farming. Attendes learned about how we go about building good soil so the plants, trees and bushes thrive. We also talked about how we farm without insecticides or pesticides. Attendees also learned how we do function stacking so many plants on the farm have multiple jobs.

We also had a meal for people who have attended our classes. It was nice sharing a meal with familiar faces. Thanks to everyone who attended. Also, thanks to everyone that helps make the farm a success.

One of the new items we showed off on the farm tour is our growing cadre our medicinal plants. We now have

comfrey
witch hazel
white yarrow
motherwort

Here are some views from the farm this weekend

Our walnut trees in the backfield are growing nicely

2 of the walnut trees with room to put pawpaws in between

Black walnuts in a deer resistant cage and with fresh mulch

Steam coming off the mulch pile at sunrise

There are so many on some of the limbs that we had to remove them before they damaged the limb

Our camping site in the back field is coming along nicely

Posted on May 19, 2024May 19, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Berries are Blooming

We’ve been getting ready for the farm tours so this will be a shorter post. We are seeing lots of green growth all over the farm. The elderberries, blueberries and blackberries are starting to bloom so it won’t be long before we have berries. The potatoes are starting to bloom so its time to hill around them to encourage potato growth.

Posted on May 8, 2024May 8, 2024 by admin

So Much Growth

The warm rains have helped kick off so much green on the farm. It is nice to watch everything grow. The fall and winter test plantings of fig, elderberry and pawpaw in the back field are growing well. We’ve had a few figs that might not make it, but overall it is looking good.

I hope you enjoy the pictures from this week.

Fig in back field is coming up, one of our test plants

Fig trees are recovering from the warm spell in February in 2023

Posted on April 27, 2024April 27, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Spiders, Crazy Bugs and Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

What beautiful days to work on the farm! We enjoyed spectacular weather.

Day 3 of our Growing Potatoes class was today. Just in case you are wondering this is a day where we just weed potatoes and adjust any hay covering. The potatoes are growing nicely. Although we did discover that if you put too much hay down after you plant the potato slip, the plants won’t make it through the hay. So we had to uncover quite a few potato plants.

There are so many flowers blooming on the farm and in the field right now. We must have some happy bees.

Those aren't strawberries — Those aren’t strawberries

We also weeded garlic and onions. The garlic grows so well on our farm. However, I’m not sure that I’m much of an onion farmer.

It won’t be long before the garlic is ready to harvest, Connie did a great job weeding it

We also saw a lot of bugs from a very large spider with egg sac (maybe a wolf spider) to a very large unknow spider.

Posted on April 7, 2024April 10, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Potato Planting Class (Part 2) and Finding Meaning in Life for Men

What beautiful weather and a nice day to plant potatoes. We took time to plant potatoes (and a few onions) then cover with hay.

We also installed drip tape. Because potatoes are a early crop and generally finish before the summer temperature gets hot, we may not need to irrigation the potatoes. The need to irrigate is driven by how much rain we get in May and early June.

Why work hard on the farm when we can just to go the grocery store? What does that have to do with doing big things as a man?

Growing your own food has many benefits for the farmer and people who work on a farm.

Getting out on the farm and working with our hands leads to good conversation and a sense of accomplishment. Men do better in life when we can take on and accomplish big things. What are we responsible for in life? We have responsibilities at work. We have responsibilities at home. What big things are we doing?

Our jobs are tenuous. You could be severed from your employer in one conversation because someone 1000 miles away made a decision while looking at a spreadsheet. We trade hours of our lives for time spent at the office. I’m not anti-company, I just recognize the system that surrounds us. Most of us work for someone else to earn a living and that is the system that we currently live in. Working for someone else is how we pay the bills and there isn’t anything inherently wrong with that. The tenuous nature of the relationship with our employers means that we should not seek meaning in life because of our position at some company but instead in what we do that has lasting value.

Growing part of your own food means that you have taken on responsbilities for the following:

for the land and the soil
for the crops that you have to nurture and harvest
for yourself so that you are there to prepare, plant, nurture and harvest
for the time you spend
for getting to know the people you work with as you grow your own food
the neighbors that you give some of your excess food
leaving the land better off than when you found it
leaving behind a lasting legacy of abundance – abundance that you developed and nurtured

How are you serving others around you?

These are all questions and opportunities for us as men to answer as we seek to live meaninful lives.

The abundance of a single fig tree and doing big things

Even a single fig tree can provide a bountiful harvest for generations. If you plant and nurture that tree, you are providing figures for generations. Having a purpose in life and accepting responsibility for a man is one way to develop joy. Don’t “search” for joy in things or titles, instead develop joy and purpose by accepting responsibility. Men were made to do big things. What is your big thing? Accepting the responsibility to do those big things can bring joy to your life.