How we grow :
We grow with sunshine, rain, living soil and loving attention... After all, if we are what we eat, why would we eat unnecessary and unknown chemicals, hormones, and artificial genetics?
We grow without the use of chemicals or pesticides which degrade the soil biology and nearby watersheds. We compliment our production with organic fertilizer, nutrients, and inoculants from Advancing Eco Agriculture, ensuring that over time we are building a well-rounded nutritious soil and diverse soil life, which in turn are the building blocks for nutrient-rich foods and medicines. We also believe healthy soil is the foundation for healthy individuals & communities.
We plant in polycultures, or companion planting guilds, designed for beneficial and supporting relationships between different species. At times we use a plant to attract a pollinator, to distract a pest, to help fix nitrogen, or to provide a living mulch, and sometimes we simply trust folk wisdom and observation.
We keep honeybee hives to help pollinate our fruiting flowers and we plant a variety of host plants for other helpful pollinators. We utilize earthworks and catch and store rainwater to ensure that we are conserving one of our most precious resources: fresh water. The result is a garden organism that is productive, supportive, and it turns out, quite beautiful.
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And finally, we grow it by hand and we grow it with love. In a world increasingly processed and industrialized - it's a refreshing taste!
What we grow :
We have a 10,000 square foot annual garden planted with most of your annual favorites. Delicious green beans, peppers, summer and winter squash, tomatoes, potatoes, melons, cucumbers, kale, lettuces, arugula, spinach, cabbage, beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, peas, parsnips, eggplant, corn, garlic, pumpkins fresh cut flowers, and culinary herbs.
However, most of our food production is perennial - meaning it keeps growing season after season with good care. We have strawberries, asparagus, rhubarb, forest grown mushrooms, ramps (wild leek), goji berries, bluberries, black and red raspberries, honeyberries, aronia berry, currants, figs, apples, mulberries, peaches, cherries, european and asian pears, hardy almonds, hardy pecans, hazelnuts, che berry, black walnut, sugar maples, and cranberries. Most of the fruit trees were planted in 2014 as a part of our crowd-funding campaign and are just beginning to bear fruit. We are excited to begin reaping and sharing the perennial harvests.
We also grow a variety of annual and perennial medicinal herbs such as nettle, dandelion, lavender, st.johns wort, chamomile, echinacea, evening primrose, nasturtium, calendula, black cohosh, blue cohosh, goldenseal, yarrow, lemon balm, mints, ashwaganda, arnica, angelica, elderberry and much more.
The bulk of what we produce is available as freshly picked product, but we also preserve our harvests into value-added products such as syrups, jams, herbal teas, medicinal salves and tinctures.