Gardening Eden

The Vortex Sanctuary Garden, organized by Brynna Bird Between a mountain and the sea, beside a meadow and beneath the madrona trees, a garden is ta… Brynna Bird needs your support for The Vortex Sanctuary Garden

Very good to know! 😍🥚

Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs https://www.sparklestosprinkles.com/instant-pot-hard-boiled-eggs

Air Fryer Hard Boiled Eggs
https://www.sparklestosprinkles.com/air-fryer-hard-boiled-eggs

Instant Pot Korean Sauna Eggs (these have a delicious nutty taste)
https://www.sparklestosprinkles.com/instant-pot-korean-sauna-eggs

🌱🌱🌱

As with most things gardening - it depends on where you live. I still find this type of wisdom interesting. Stay observant, and nature will help guide you ♥

It definitely is

Sea-farmed supercrop: how seaw**d could transform the way we live From high-protein food to plastics and fuel, Swedish scientists are attempting to tap the marine plant’s huge potential

How To Correctly Prune A Fruit Tree

Don't Throw Away your Tea Bags. Here are 9 Reasons why you Should Plant them Instead Did you know they are also good around plants too? Here are 9 reasons why you should plant your leftover tea bags!

6 Reasons To Start A No Dig Garden + How To Get Started Now is the season to stop treating your backyard garden as a mini-farm and end the backbreaking work of digging once and for all. Not only will your gardening "work" be more fun, you'll end

Lemon balm grows easily and freely, and some may see it as a pain if it's not where they intended it to grow. 😒 🌿

However, this herb is so incredibly useful and beneficial! Don't cast it off - it's wonderful for sleep and relaxation, helps digestion, and can ease headaches and other pains. 🌿

Learn how to make a lemon balm tincture to benefit your life with naturally grown herbs! --->> https://www.growforagecookferment.com/lemon-balm-tincture/

26 Drought Tolerant Plants You Will Never Have To Water Isn’t that the goal, to be completely low maintenance and look great while you’re at it? It’s no longer function, style, fashion, or trend. If we want to have beautiful blooming backyards, choosing…

Building A Hügelkultur Raised Bed - From Start To Finish Hügelkultur raised beds are one of the best ways to grow an abundant edible garden. This guide, with photos, will walk you through making one.

Why not use Compost To Heat your home?
Instead of burning wood for heat, some Europeans now build a compost pile over plastic water lines that extract heat from the decomposing plant material. Temperatures can get as high as 149 degrees. With a circulating pump as the only moving part, the compost heater lasts an average of 12 to 16 mos. – and occasionally up to 24 mos. – providing heat and up to 80 percent of the hot water for a 1,500 sq. ft. home.

The Complete Compost Gardening Guide: http://amzn.to/1qhk6T4

This patch of beauty is a very common plant that you've likely seen around. Purple dead nettle is an extremely useful edible and medicinal plant that is considered to be a "w**d." 🌿

This "w**d" is not one you want to pass by or get rid of - trust me! 💜
Learn all about purple dead nettle here: https://www.growforagecookferment.com/foraging-purple-dead-nettle/

Forsythia has bright yellow flower blooms that look like shooting stars coming from an otherwise nondescript shrub. They're an absolutely beautiful and welcome sight of spring's beginning! ⭐️ 🌼 What you may not know is that forsythia blossoms are edible and delicious. Make this tasty forsythia flower honey syrup to celebrate spring! ☀️
Recipe --->> https://www.growforagecookferment.com/forsythia-syrup/

This syrup is amazingly delicious, and only takes about a cup of forsythia blossoms, which are easy to harvest. I use honey in this recipe instead of sugar, and it pairs perfectly with the flavor of forsythia flowers. It's delicious drizzled on pancakes or stirred into tea, just the taste of sunshine everyone needs after a long winter! ☀️ 🌼 ⭐️

Bench Grafting Apple Trees with Whip & Tongue and Bark Grafts Delton Curtis demonstrates bench grafting apple trees with whip & tongue and bark grafts.

Harvesting garlic.

Infographic via TheSpruce.

MORE FAMILIES ARE PLANTING FOOD FORESTS

If you’ve ever wandered back roads in a developing, tropical country, you know that many of the locals grow much of their own food. You might also have noticed that their food gardens aren’t comprised entirely of small annual vegetables planted in straight rows like ours are. They are typically wild-looking plantings of edible trees, shrubs, vines, and ground covers all mingling effortlessly together, as if Mother Nature had planted the garden according to her own design. These are literally forests of food.

Forest gardening has been the standard for millennia in many tropical regions, but it’s possible in more temperate climes as well. A British chap by the name of Robert Hart first popularized the concept among European and North American gardeners with the publication of his book Forest Gardening: Cultivating an Edible Landscape in the 1980s. Food forests have also figured prominently in the permaculture movement, an approach to designing agricultural systems that mimic natural ecosystems.

Why Food Forests?
Food forests are like the ultimate organic garden. Does a forest need tilling, w**ding, fertilizer, or irrigation? Nope. And that’s the goal.

Because they’re mostly perennial crops, there’s no need to till. Not tilling preserves the natural soil structure, preventing the loss of topsoil and allowing all the little microbes and soil critters to do their jobs, cycling nutrients and maintaining fertility. The deep roots of trees and shrubs make them much more drought tolerant than annual vegetables, and they shade the smaller plants below, keeping everything lush and moist in a self-maintaining—in other words, a highly sustainable—system.

Step 1: CHOOSE PLANTS
The first step in establishing a food forest is to choose your plants. The largest plants will reach into the sun, so most common fruiting trees and shrubs are fair game. The smaller plants generally need to be more shade tolerant, as they will be in the under story. But you can leave sunny patches here and there—like little forest clearings—to accommodate species that need more light (though see Step 3 for a trick to make the most of the available sunlight).

Winter is the ideal time to get started, because most edible trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous plants can be purchased and planted while dormant, which is better for the plants—and for your bank account. That’s because at this time of year they are sold in “bare root” form—meaning without soil or a pot—which gives the roots a more natural structure and costs less for nurseries to produce. Bare root plants are typically ordered in January or February, for planting in early March, or as soon as the ground thaws in your area. Naturally, you’ll want to stick with species that are well-adapted to your region.

CANOPY: This layer is primarily for large nut trees that require full sun throughout the day, such as pecans, walnuts, and chestnuts, all of which mature to a height of 50 feet or more.

UNDER STORY TREES: This layer is for smaller nut trees, like filberts, and the majority of fruit trees. The most shade tolerant fruit trees include native North American species like black mulberry, American persimmon and pawpaw, though many other fruit trees will produce a respectable crop in partial shade.

Vines: Grapes, kiwis, and passion fruit are the most well-known edible vines, though there are many other more obscure specimens to consider, some of which are quite shade tolerant, such as akebia (edible fruit), chayote (a perennial squash), and groundnuts (perennial root crop). Kolomitka kiwi, a close relative of the fuzzy kiwis found in supermarkets, is among the most shade-tolerant vines.

SHRUBS: A large number of fruiting shrubs thrive in partial shade, including gooseberries, currants, service berries, huckleberry, elderberry, aronia, and honey berry, along with the “super foods” sea berry and goji. Blackberry and Blueberry bushes will work well here in the U.S.

HERBACEOUS PLANTS: This category includes not only plants commonly thought of as herbs—rosemary, thyme, oregano, lavender, mint and sage are a few of the top perennial culinary herbs to consider for your forest garden—but is a catch-all term for all leafy plants that go dormant below ground in winter and re-sprout from their roots in spring. This layer is where perennial vegetables, like artichokes, rhubarb, asparagus and “tree collards” fit in.

GROUND COVERS: These are perennial plants that spread horizontally to colonize the ground plane. Edible examples include alpine strawberries (a shade tolerant delicacy), sorrel (a French salad green), nasturtiums (has edible flowers and leaves), and watercress (requires wet soil), all of which tolerate part shade.

RHIZOSPERE: This refers to root crops. It’s a bit misleading to call it a separate layer, since the top portion of a root crop may be a vine, shrub, ground cover or herb, but it’s Hart’s way of reminding us to consider the food-producing potential of every possible ecological niche. Most common root crops are sun-loving annuals, however so you’ll have to look to more obscure species, such as the fabled Andean root vegetables oca, ulluco, yacon, and mashua, for shade-tolerant varieties.

Step 2: PREPARE THE GROUND
Choose an open, sunny location for your forest garden. It can be as small as 100 square feet—a single fruit tree and an assortment of understory plants—or multiple acres. At the larger, commercial-scale end of the spectrum, forest gardening is often referred to as agroforestry. A number of tropical crops, including coffee and chocolate, are grown commercially in this way, though commercial agroforestry is uncommon in North America (other than in the context of timber plantations).

Unlike preparing for a conventional vegetable garden, there is no need to till the earth and form it into beds in preparation for a forest garden. Instead, dig a hole for each individual plant, just as if you were planting ornamental shrubs and trees. However, if the soil quality is poor, you may wish to “top-dress” the entire planting area with several inches of compost prior to planting.

One situation in which raised beds are desirable in a food forest is where drainage is poor. But rather than make the effort to construct conventional raised beds from wood, you may opt to sculpt the earth into low, broad mounds at the location of each tree. Smaller plants may then be positioned along the slopes of the mounds. A variation on this approach is to sculpt the earth into long linear “swales,” which consist of a raised berm (to provide a well-drained planting location) and a broad, shallow ditch (to collect rainwater runoff and force it to percolate into the soil beneath the planting berm).

You will need to eliminate any w**ds, grass or other existing vegetation prior to planting. This can be done manually, or by smothering them under a “sheet mulch,” a permaculture tactic in which sheets of cardboard are overlaid with several inches of mulch on top of the vegetation, starving the plants for light and causing them to compost in place. Compost may be added as a layer between the cardboard and the mulch to add extra nutrients. Permaculturists often employ sheet mulching in conjunction with swales to enhance the area prior to planting.

When you’re ready to plant, simply brush aside the mulch and cut holes in the cardboard just big enough to dig a planting hole at the location of each plant. Then slide the mulch back around the newly installed plant. Maintaining a deep mulch is the key to preventing w**ds, conserving soil moisture and boosting organic matter—all things that will help your food forest be self-maintaining and self-sufficient
Step 3: PLANT
The next step is to arrange your plants in the landscape. Position the tallest species (i.e. the ‘canopy’ plants) at the northern end of the planting area, with progressively smaller plants toward the southern end. This way the taller plants will cast less shade on the smaller ones, especially at the beginning and end of the growing season when the days are shorter and the sun hangs lower in the sky.

Of course, truly shade tolerant plants may be interspersed throughout the understory of the forest garden. You might even consider cultivating mushrooms in the shadiest zones once the large trees have matured. Edible vines may be planted on any accessible fences, arbors, or walls, and you can also train vines up trees, just like Mother Nature does—just be sure the tree is significantly larger than the vine to avoid the tree getting smothered.

The edges of the food forest are suitable for sun-loving annual vegetables, if you wish to include them. Also, keep in mind that it takes decades for large tree to reach their mature size, so in the early years of a food forest there is ample sunlight. Plant sun-loving species in the open spaces between trees and then replace them with more shade-tolerant plants as the forest matures. Good info by Modern Farmer

Good Healthy HEIRLOOM SEEDS will make all the difference when you want to get a good start on your Food Forest. At THE SEED GUY, we have a great Heirloom Seed package that has 60 Heirloom Seed Varieties, 34,000 total Seeds, all Non GMO and Sale Priced Now at $69

You get 49 Veggie varieties and 11 Herb Seed varieties. You would definitely be able to Feed Your Family with this Seed package, and you can store the Seeds you don't use right away in the 10 x 14 silver mylar bag we provide. All Heirloom Seeds are Small Farm-Grown, we hand count and package to make sure you get the best germination, and they are fresh from the New 2021 Harvest.

You can see Seed varieties and Order this Seed package on our website at https://theseedguy.net/seed-packages/50-60-variety-heirloom-seed-package.html

You can Call Us 7 days a week, and up to 10:00 pm each night, to ask questions or to place an Order at 918-352-8800

***FYI--We still have good stock in our Heirloom Seeds, but we got behind from so many orders, so just had to shut sales down for a few days to catch up on packaging and shipping. Linda will post more of our 60 Variety Heirloom Seed package for sale on Friday March 18th at 9;00. Thank you.
🙂

Click LIKE at the top of our page, and you will be able to see more of our great Gardening Articles, New Seed Offerings, and Healthy Juice Recipes. Thank you and God Bless You and Your Family. https://www.facebook.com/theseedguy

How to Make a Wild Yeast Starter Learn how to make a wild yeast starter for home brewing and natural sodas! From the book The New Wildcrafted Cuisine by Pascal Baudar.

How to Make Calendula Cream: Homemade Skin Care Recipe Learn how to make calendula cream, a homemade cream recipe with skin benefits. It can also be used as an all purpose body butter or lotion.

Zucchini flour.

Might be old news to some, but you never know right. With rising concerns on wheat costs just thought I’d share it.

There’s probably fancier ways of doing this out there, but here’s how I learned. Easy peasy. Nothing to it.

We love and make tons of zucchini flour every year. You may have heard it called Amish flour or troops flour before. It’s a Staple in Amish and Mennonite household for generations here. It was also embraced in the 1940’s during rationing.

You let your zucchini grow, oversized is actually better. Large to extra large. Marrow sized. I peel mine with a carrot peeler, into thin even strips for less drying time. Or slide it through a mandolin for speed of prep.

Run it through the electronic dehydrator or just thread it. . No large seeds if possible for finer texture. Everything else is fine. It must be absolutely dry. It’s essential. If in doubt always dry it more, any moisture will ruin it during storage

Then run it through a food processor or hand grinder until you have a powdered consistency. It will be a marbled green looking power. Texture is similar to a good quality whole wheat flour. That is zucchini flour. Three large zucchini is about four or five cups for me finished.

It can be used to replace 1/3 of flour in most recipes without any change to the finished products, acts as a thickening agent for gravies, great for breading fish but we really tend use ours for tortillas and bannock since those are our quick go to breads. It also makes great dumplings and brownies.

Store in air tight jars , or we often vac pac ours

For us, we still purchase grains from a local family owned grist mill. So this is free, sustainable, easily produced on site and it has a mild taste. Most people wouldn’t pickup on it. It cuts our flour usage by a third . You can do the same with sweet and regular potato, other squash acorns, and pumpkin. I just find myself zucchini is the least flavoured. Plus we get overloaded by the darn things.
Shared

Yay!

Zucchini flour.

Might be old news to some, but you never know right. With rising concerns on wheat costs just thought I’d share it.

There’s probably fancier ways of doing this out there, but here’s how I learned. Easy peasy. Nothing to it.

We love and make tons of zucchini flour every year. You may have heard it called Amish flour or troops flour before. It’s a Staple in Amish and Mennonite household for generations here. It was also embraced in the 1940’s during rationing.

You let your zucchini grow, oversized is actually better. Large to extra large. Marrow sized. I peel mine with a carrot peeler, into thin even strips for less drying time. Or slide it through a mandolin for speed of prep.

Run it through the electronic dehydrator or just thread it. . No large seeds if possible for finer texture. Everything else is fine. It must be absolutely dry. It’s essential. If in doubt always dry it more, any moisture will ruin it during storage

Then run it through a food processor or hand grinder until you have a powdered consistency. It will be a marbled green looking power. Texture is similar to a good quality whole wheat flour. That is zucchini flour. Three large zucchini is about four or five cups for me finished.

It can be used to replace 1/3 of flour in most recipes without any change to the finished products, acts as a thickening agent for gravies, great for breading fish but we really tend use ours for tortillas and bannock since those are our quick go to breads. It also makes great dumplings and brownies.

Store in air tight jars , or we often vac pac ours

For us, we still purchase grains from a local family owned grist mill. So this is free, sustainable, easily produced on site and it has a mild taste. Most people wouldn’t pickup on it. It cuts our flour usage by a third . You can do the same with sweet and regular potato, other squash acorns, and pumpkin. I just find myself zucchini is the least flavoured. Plus we get overloaded by the darn things.
Shared

It’s been a while since I’ve been here… it’s been a heck of a few years- funny - I typed that as tears at first:)… kinda perfect - but I was working on something… and it’s happening now:)…
I’m buying in to a small sustainable multigenerational intentional teaching community… and doing the work - with the most magical crew and I’m overjoyed with gratitude… you’re going to hear a lot from me soon and in the regular - Time to Rise🧡
Greenhouse build starts next week!
And thanks to the being that posted this pic- epic inspiration 🧡