Notes from the Field / April 2024
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writings & media
Articles, photography, video, and writings sourced from our work in and beyond the field. Our “from the field” series features projects, daily life, and reflections inspired by our work at home on our two farm sites in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Our “beyond the field” series features, projects, collaborations, and partnerships we are engaged in with our broader community.
Popular subjects include permaculture, forest gardening, regenerative agriculture, plant medicine, ecological restoration, earth based spirituality, and other diverse musings on agroecology topics.
Notes from the Field / March 2024
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March has arrived as March often arrives, in blustery fits and false starts. A sunny mirage disappears beneath silvery overcast clouds for days. A warm breeze beckons only to become fearsome wind nipping. That the most tender of iridescent petals should be the first to emerge into this rugged terrain is a reoccurring mystery. A heartening mystery, and surely a sign that the god of spring must hold a jaunty sense of humor.
Read MoreHow To Use Elderberries?
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Understanding the art & science of the tiny berry of mythological proportion - Perhaps you know about the impressive immunological effects of elderberry. You've heard plenty of anecdotes from friends and family about preventing colds and swiftly recuperating from the flu. Maybe you’re well versed in the powerful anti-inflammatory potential of dark berries, and once read that the elderberry boasts one of the highest antioxidant content of all berries… But still one lingering question remains, perhaps the most essential question of all… how exactly am I supposed to take it?
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WILD FARMING SERIES: Perennial Polycultures / Complexity & Abundance
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Growing in perennial polycultures mimics the complexity and abundance naturally displayed by wild ecosystems. Cultivation happens within a horizontal and vertical spacial context, maximizing the productive yield of any given area, but also within the context of perpetually unfolding succession.
Read MoreBecome a Member of Fields Without Fences Herbal CSA!
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Friends, if you have been thinking about joining our community as a CSA member, now is the time to sign up for savings on 100% organic, locally grown herbals. This is our fifth season offering this CSA program, and this year’s membership has a ton of value for members.
Still looking for a reason to join? Here are our top 5…
Read MoreWATCH: Fields Without Fences Forest Garden Interview with Green Revolution
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Sharing this rather sweeping interview with our friend Alex Marcoulides for his Youtube channel called Green Revolution. Alex stopped by Fields Without Fences for a broad conversation with us about forest gardening, permaculture, successionally managed farm ecosystems, and elderberries, and we go pretty damn deep. This interview is from last season (2017), and listening back to it, I am completely impressed with Alex's ability to listen, synthesize, and offer careful reflection at a nearly rapid fire pace! Alex's energy is purely electric and plugged in.
Read MoreLISTEN: Fields Without Fences Interview on Farm Small Farm Smart Podcast
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Back in early April I had the pleasure of speaking to Diego Footer during an interview for his Farm Small Farm Smart Podcast. Diego initially reached out to talk to about medicinal herbs and our herbal CSA, but the conversation organically expanded into more nuanced topics including plant medicine for the earth; site specific design; breaking free from traditional modalities of cultivation; plant autonomy and sovereignty; and understanding the driving force that is propelling and defining your interaction with the land…
Read MoreSeasonal Plant Medicine
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In a world of mediated experiences and mediated environments, it can be easy to forget that we are people of the earth, derived and fashioned from the same carbon and and hydrogen as the soil, the plants, and the astral bodies of far flung planets. Incomplete organisms that have evolved in inextricable relationship with the plant world, and cease to exist in isolation. In the scope of our planetary history, there was a time not long ago when human beings moved across the landscape according to the seasons. The sun, wind, rains, plants, and animal migrations in cyclical connection forged a compass to locate ourselves in our world. Their sacred language so essential and heavy with meaning, it formed the foundation for all human culture to be built upon. From the forty-fifth floor looking down it can be difficult to recall the root of humanity; hum, connected to the latin humus, meaning, of the earth.
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