We’ve been slowly terracing the hill behind our house over the past 7 years in order to turn an unproductive hillside into prime gardening space. In order to build soil and improve water holding capacity, while using resources available to us on site, we’ve used a process called hugelculture. Simply put, hugelculture takes a mound of old wood, covers it with other materials that will compost in place, and lets it all break down over a long period of time, while still growing plants on the surface layers of soil.
October 7 1-4pm we’ll be offering a workshop on Hugel Terracing
The first section of workshop we will talk about the process and look at the different terrace beds we have built over the years. See for yourself how well the process has worked, and learn from our mistakes. We’ll talk about other ways that the same process could be applied to other terrain (like flat ground) and with other building materials (wood chips, spent hay, mushroom spawn…)
The second portion of the workshop we will build some new terraces. This will involve digging holes, setting posts, moving logs and brush, so come prepared for physical work (sturdy shoes, gloves, whatever you need to stay dry and comfortable)
Pre-registration for this workshop is required. We will cancel the workshop if we don’t meet a minimum of participants. $10-$20 sliding scale fee for participation. To register email peaceofearthfarm@myfairpoint.net or call 802-755-6336
September 9, 1-4pm All are welcome to stop by for our 5th annual open farm and tasting event.
We love to hear where the produce is ending up. An elderly woman who wants enough cucumbers to make a small batch of pickles. Kids who love the snap peas. For many people this may be their only source of fresh vegetables for the week, no matter how small.
We are happy to have a new tiny green house for starting plants in, just outside the house. Though we have two larger hoop houses, they are both a good distance from the house and we’ve never felt justified in heating them. We’ve always started our earliest plants inside the house under lights, until the weather gets warm enough to put the least temperature sensitive starts (like onions, lettuce, spinach) out into the hoop house. We really feel like natural sunlight produces much better, stockier plants than those under lights, so we are happy to be able to get them out in the sun early now.
We originally planned to put in a wood stove, with the pipe coming out through the solid end wall. My parents offered us a quartz electric heater for free, so we decided to give that a try instead. We’ve also added some barrels filled with water to store and release solar heat overnight. They seem to help keep the heat more even. The little electric heater is just used at night to keep temps above freezing. We’ll see how our electric bill is affected, and maybe switch it out for a wood stove next year if necessary.
We’ve even have nifty ski pole window props!
We first started growing Shiitake and Oyster mushrooms on logs in the spring of 2015. This past summer we finally tasted our first home grown mushrooms. We are pleased to have had some success, but also know that there is much more to learn. By far our biggest fungal project has been inoculating birch logs with Shiitake spawn, we now have 200 logs. We had tried three strains of Shiitake (Jupiter, West Wind, and Miss Happiness), and so far only the West Wind has fruited well. Jupiter and Miss Happiness are cold weather strains, meaning they should want to send out mushrooms in the Spring and Fall when cued by appropriate temperatures. So far we only harvested a few in the late fall, though they were nice and big. Some of the logs have Turkey Tails growing on their ends, so they may have been taken over by other spawn. We’ll wait and see if these logs produce in the year ahead, perhaps they are slow due to the dry summer conditions. In general we are learning that we probably need to intentionally water our logs on a regular basis and can’t rely solely on the rain.
Hopefully this coming season with twice as many logs fruiting we can start to sell them. We’ve now established that the Shiitakes will grow on Birch, the follow up question is how many years will they keep producing? We also realized how much humidity plays a role in the size and quality of the Shiitake that fruit. Our first mushrooms picked during a hot and dry period were cracked and smaller (but still delicious).
In 2015 we had inoculated some stumps with Oyster mushroom spawn as well. For the oysters we just used the stacked cookie method (layering sawdust spawn between chunks of log). This was pretty quick and easy to do, but it felt like it used a lot of spawn compared to the drill and fill method used for the Shiitakes. The cookie method also seemed to allow the spawn to dry out more easily. A few of our Oyster logs did fruit in the spring, but the dry conditions limited growth. Little black beetles also proved to be a challenge. It appears nearly impossible to grow outdoor Oysters without a beetle infestation. We’ll keep watching to see what our little cluster of logs does, but we don’t have plans to gear up in outdoor Oyster production.
The asparagus beds were full of grass and in need of a real overhaul, so we weeded, laid down cardboard, and covered between the rows with wood chips, and around the plants with hay mulch. We didn’t finish this until September, so we won’t have results on the Stropharia production until next year. Our hope is that they will produce in clusters and eventually spread out through all of the asparagus planting on their own or with our help. If nothing else, the asparagus should be a little happier.
Garlic varieties were rated on heat and flavor. Here the averaged results for heat and flavor, from highest score to lowest:
