Walking through the farm reveals a plethora of bushes and trees that are budding out. A few weeks ago, many of these bushes and plants were dormant. Now buds are forming and you can see the first signs of growth of the year.
Last year we sold out of honey from the farm. This year we are adding more bees. The first new hives arrived this week.
Every year we do a farm tour. This is a great chance to meet the farmers and see the farm. We’ll show you our work in progress and talk about how we do regenerative farming.
Farm tour includes
– detailed tour (family friendly)
– 1/2 lb of honey from our remote mountain location of Troublesome Gap, NC
What to Bring
Just bring yourself and your family and comfortable shoes. We plan to walk on grassy fields and uneven ground.
We are Dirt Farmers and Pesticide / Insecticide Free
If we grow good dirt, then plants will grow and produce abundantly. We use a minimum of organic fertlizers. We avoid the use of synthetic fertilizers. We also don’t use any pesticides or insecticides. We do use natural amendments like woodchips, hay (pesticide / herbicide free) and feather meal.
Diversity of Plants and Trees on the Farm
Let us introduce you to some of the variety of plants, bushes and trees on the farm including
Row Crops
– garlic and onions
– potatoes
– moringa
Fruit Bearing Trees
– mulberry
– hazel
– black walnut
– figs
– olive
– persimmon
– paw paw
– yaupon holley
– pecan
Fruit Bearing Bushes
– blueberry
– goji berry
– elderberry
– blackberry
Specialty
– native cactus (edible / nopales)
– comfrey
– honey bees
February is shaping to be a month of blueberries. We took a class in pruning blueberry bushes last weekend. Seems like there is a always something new to learn. This weekend, on a gloriously nice Saturday (mid 70s), we are pruned our blueberries at the farm. Next up is blueberries at my bonus child’s house (he has a bunch), then doing the grapevines and blueberry bushes at my parents house. Finally doing the blueberries at our home.
Blueberry bushes need to be pruned in the winter. February is the last opportunity until next Fall. Blueberries are a native plant but do much better (from a production standpoint) when they are properly pruned. A properly pruned blueberry bush will produce bigger and tastier berries than one that isn’t well maintained. The blueberry bushes at the farm were planted last spring, so it will be a year or two before we have a crop of blueberries from them.
We’ve pruned the blackberries at the farm. Next step with the blackberries is to prune them at the house.
If you want your own domesticated blackberry plants, we will have thrornless blackberrry plants in mid March. These will be ready to plant. Contact us if you want plants or want to learn how to prune your blackberries.
Another bit of good news is that at least one of our olive trees looks like it made it through the winter.
The elderberries have started to bud out. The diakon cover crop went through a winter kill with the cold weather. The clover cover crop is growing very slowly but should really take off as the weather warms up in March. It won’t be long before it is time to plant onions, potatoes and rotate cover crops.
The bees were very active today. Spring will be here soon.
Daikon (sometimes call field radish or mooli) is a large radish of Japanese origin. We use it as a cover crop on the farm. The daikon helps in 3 ways:
This spring we will terminate the cover crop, leaving the tuber in place to compost over the summer returning the nutrients to the soil. We avoid the use of synthetic fertilizer and cover crops are a big part of making that possible.
Thanks for checking in with what is happening at the farm.
Elderberry plants are robust and easy to grow in most of NC. The umbrals are easy to harvest. The flowers and the berries have many healthy uses. We have found that many people don’t realize the healthy benefits from elderberries growing in the ditch that they drive by every day on the commute to and from work. However, a surprising number of people take a teaspoon of elderberry syrup every day during the fall and winter to help fight off colds.
Elderberry is a plant of contrasts. Join us and walk through some of these contrasts. Let us share what we have learned by growing this amazing plant.
Elderberries grow wild in NC, usually on a ditch bank or in wet soil. They are everywhere, but many of the wild plants are in locations that are hard to reach at the time of harvest. If you enjoy foraging, then consider adding elderberries to your summer foraging retinue. The berries you harvest will be worth it.
Elderberry plants spread along the ground and a row of elderberry plants tends to be come a hedge. If you plan ahead, it is easy enough to manage the hedge by mowing and just have to prune once a year when the plants are dormant. If you were to plant your elderberries in the middle of an area where you can’t mow around them to control spread then you might have a difficult time managing them. They can be invasive, but if you plan ahead before you plant them it really isn’t a problem.
Harvesting elderberry umbrals is straight forward. Removing the berries from the stems can be a challenge. Some of the ways to remove berries from the umbral are easier than others. At some point in the future, it would be great to add a destemmer to the equipment we use on the farm.
This year we have making different elderberry products including:
It is really cool seeing the dark, dark and luxurious purple liquid that comes from the elderberries. Especially knowing all the health benefits in the liquid.
Growing and processing elderberries has been a wonderful learning experience. We’ve enjoyed teaching how to grow elderberries in hands on classes. Thanks for letting us share with you.
Everything has a season. The cover crops are planted. The hay is put down. The last of the trees and bushes planted. In the last 2 weeks, we have planted paw paw, elderberry and figs.
The cover crop is a mixture of austrian peas, daikon radish and clover. We’ve also planted clover in areas where we cleared brush and limbs. If all goes well there should be plenty of clover for the bees next year.
The first deep frost has come and gone. The fig tree leaves and the elephant ears show the passage of the frost. Many of the young trees we planted have dropped their leaves. It was good year and its nice to be able to take a break.
It takes a lot of help and input and learning to make a farm work. I thank everyone who helped make this year a success!
This week we had a large brush pile to burn. Camping out on the farm to made it easy monitor the burning brush pile and have a relaxing evening. Thursday morning I got an early start on preparing the rows in the back field for planting elderberries, figs and persimmon. It was nice watching the sun rise as I worked.
We were able to turn the rows that the figs, elderberry and persimmon were planted in. The first picture shows the steam coming off the freshly turned soil. We try to minimize tillage. The approach here is to turn the soil once, then run the harrow and finally the disc through it. Then a cover crop was planted. The fall cover crop consists of daikon radish, austrian peas and clover. The trees and bushes were then planted in the same area as the cover crop. This approach helps prepare the soil over the winter for the trees and bushes when they bud out in the spring. Doing this while monitoring the burning brush pile helped make effective use of time on the farm.
The goji berries are here! It is amazing that we have a small crop of goji berries this year. The goji berries we planted this spring. Our test plantings of moringa are also doing well. We have been busy putting in cover crops and working hard to improve the soil. We work hard to have great soil to make the farming easier.
The clover we planted last week is really coming up strong. All that rain helped. We were worried the storm would wash away the clover seeds but the hay seemed to help hold the seeds in place.
It was almost 100 degrees! We were very much appreciating the shade in places.
The areas disturbed by the skid steer were also areas that we wanted to improve the soil. We planted clover and native pollinators in those areas. The clover also has the benefit of improving the soil, prevent erosion and help control the water flow in those areas. The pollinators are good for the bees and other insects. The deer is a win with the deer. The pollinators and the clover add beautiful flowers. This was also a way that we could add vegetative matter (i.e. clover) under the oak trees control water flow and erosion, with minimum soil disruption under the oak trees. From a permaculture perspective, this is function stacking at work.
We placed hay on the disturbed ground to help hold the seeds in place and hide them from birds looking for an easy meal. We are supposed to get several days of rain this week so that should help give the plants a good start.
We hope to stay busy over the next few weeks preparing beds and planting cover crops.
Goji Berries – Elderberries
We harvested what should be the last of the elderberries. We had a first goji berries. We only picked a handful of goji berries, but it was nice to finally taste goji berries from our farm.
It is definitely warm out. We started the day out with a sprinkle or two and a nice breeze so it wasn’t too bad of a day to work on the farm. We picked tan cheese pumpkins and cushaw squash after weeding sweet potato beds. The first fig fruits are developing, but it is still going to be long time until they are ready to harvest. Most of the fig fruit is still at the small bud size right now. We are continuing to pick elderberries.
The moringa that we planted as a test is doing great! Getting the moringa plants to make it through the winter may be a challenge, but one step at a time.
We have honey from the farm available at https://www.montiegear.com/simply-us-farm/honey. We have 1/2 lb and 1 lb jars.
My wife and I love spending time outdoors. Having a farm and garden is a great way to do that. It also means we have more nutritious foods. Many of the people we have met on this journey like similar things and that makes it even better. I’m a mechanical engineer turned weekend farmer, so I’m just smart enough to know that there is a lot that I don’t know especially when it comes to farming, permaculture and food forests. Come on the learning journey with us!
We would love to share what we are learning so that you can grow at least part of your own food. It is within your grasp to grow part of the food that you eat. You can improve your food security and enjoy higher quality food in the process.
We also have limited opportunities for you to camp out on our farm, enjoying the serious peace and quiet. Sometimes we hold classes, usually on Food Preservation. Join us for those too.
Meet the Farmers
I’m a mechanical engineer turned weekend farmer, so I’m just smart enough to know that there is a lot that I don’t know especially when it comes to farming, permaculture and food forests. I’ve been heavily influenced in my love of farming and permaculture by my Mom and Dad and also by people like Jack Spirko (TSP) and Dan (Plant Abundance)
Connie has her certificate in Sustainable Agriculture from CCCC. She really enjoyed the classes at the community college and learned a lot. The program was a mixture of classes and work on the school farm. What she learned has really added to our technical proficiency on the farm.