permaculture

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 June 29, 2024July 5, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Elderberries Incoming!

We have started picking elderberries from our food forest. Please contact me if you are interested in placing an order. We don’t use any insecticides or pesticides. The fertilizer we use on them is organic.

You can order your elderberries here (select “porch pickup” under shipping options for local pickup in Tramway)

Raspberries

We have been trying a variety of raspberries that was developed for the climate in this area. Many raspberries just won’t tolerate the warmer tempertures here (zone 8a). That is why you see raspberries mainly in the mountains. The plants came from Rabbit Ridge Berry Farm in Coats, NC. We have bought friut bearing trees and bushes from them. They have great products and are wonderful to work with. They also have a u-pick farm.

We might have a few raspberries this year

Nice to see the beginnings of fruit on the raspberries

Blueberries

This is our first year of having a blueberry harvest, even a small one. Previously our plants were too young, so we pulled the berries when they first formed to encourage the plant to put its energy into the plant instead of the fruit. The first of the blueberries are almost ready to harvest. I can’t wait to have blueberry pancakes.

Nice to see the blueberries getting ripe

The blueberry plants have been growing quickly with the warm weather

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 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 20, 2024April 20, 2024 by admin — Leave a comment

Scenes While Just Mowing the Grass

Sometimes the moment is just enough. I am a blessed man.

Posted on April 18, 2024April 18, 2024 by admin

Growing and Drying Herbs at Home

Herbs are often the first crop that we harvest. We grow them close to our house so they can be harvested just before cooking with them. If you are permaculturalist, then this is our zone 1.

This year we hope to have plenty of

rosemary
oregano
dill
coriander / coriander
basil (best used fresh, not dry)

Rosemary and Wild Mint Growing Around a Utility Pole

Pairing a basil with fresh mozarella and tomatoes with a sweet sauce drizzled on top is definitely a summertime treat

Herbs are one of the easiest crops to grow. We have already started harvesting herbs from some of our established pots and beds. They don’t take much space and you’ll get to enjoy them all summer long. If you dry your excess herb crop then you can enjoy them this winter as well.

Drying your own herbs is also super simple. Below is a link to a video that explains how.

We’ve also freeze dried herbs very successfully. They freeze dry quickly and store for a very long time.

I also enjoy seeing flowers in our yard. Here are some pictures from this morning

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.