From the Field: The multitudes that surround us

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From the Field: The multitudes that surround us

This season is shaping up to be a season of revision and revelation both on the farm, and in the wider world that surrounds us. There have been no markets here this year, no events, no classes, and barely a visitor on the farm to speak of. And in the silence and stillness, an opportunity for deeper listening has risen into focus. In the absence of rote imposition, the natural world rings out loud with its secrets - not really secrets at all, just intelligence that can go unheard in the heavy to-do of the day to day…

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From the Field: The Overlap Between Productive and Wild Spaces

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From the Field: The Overlap Between Productive and Wild Spaces

There is often the opportunity for overlap between productive and wild spaces. The best designs are guided by observations we can make about the way the world around us behaves.

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Permaculture Principles: Appropriate tools & technology

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Permaculture Principles: Appropriate tools & technology

Appropriate tools & technology: The plant nursery on our ten acre forest garden farm is active, robust, and as low tech as they come. Early in the season I’ll start propagating in a small unheated hoop house, but for the bulk of the year all the action happens in sprawling, shady area under an old maple tree with a few wooden pallets and raised bed boxes.

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WILD FARMING SERIES: "Up there, that's for the birds..."

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WILD FARMING SERIES: "Up there, that's for the birds..."

Friday flashback to a few weeks ago when fruit harvesting at the farm was in full swing! Each season, in what feels like a matter of moments (though it could be a couple weeks), elderberry, beach plum, seaberry, blackberry, and aronia all come into ripeness at once. At that point a flurry of activity commences as us and the birds race to liberate the ripe from fruit from its branches!

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Shifting Seasons

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Shifting Seasons

There is a shift in the air today, and I can feel the sun is beginning to set on another summer... Soon the landscape will change color and shape again.

Dynamics systems require dynamic response. Participating in a long term relationship with the natural world, means one must evolve in tandem.

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WILD FARMING SERIES: Perennial Polycultures / Complexity & Abundance

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WILD FARMING SERIES: Perennial Polycultures / Complexity & Abundance

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.

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Flower Medicine (We're not that different from the bees after all)

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Flower Medicine (We're not that different from the bees after all)

We’re not that different from the bees after all. Helplessly romanced by the allure of a blossom unfurling into a flower...

Flowers reliably command our gaze, silently beckoning us with their sweet, soft scent traveling effortlessly through the ether. An invisible cord compels us toward them until we find ourselves transfixed, bent forward or on a knee, nose deep in delicate petals.

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