Tag Archives: soil building

Florida weather

No Name Storm ? Again?

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Another No Name storm at Blue Hen Farm last week. No one was hurt, but the ducks decided to move their nest! With the help of friends we were back to normal by the dawn of the new day! Don’t let the Florida weather get you down…

As we stacked branches for burning and moved heavy logs it occurred to me that perhaps we should not be in such a hurry to “clean up the forest”. This is how nature builds soil. We should take a lesson from the forest floor and build our “social soil” in natural layers, as well. Let’s stay connected to nature and take heed of the lesson right in front of us.

On the way to deliver my grandson to school, we noticed that the state park folks have cleared a large section of the forest …cut down all the trees and put up little signs (as if anticipating negative feedback) that announce “Habitat Restoration”. We are surely proud of the way we can step in and improve on natural processes. It’s also handy that we can strip mine the woods and make a little profit for our trouble.

Soil building…the hardest part of community.

Happy Homesteading,

T.

Fairhaven, Learn, Soil Building

Social Soil Building – How’s Your Roots?

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The very hardest part of any building project is soil-building…laying the foundation. The reality is that if you don’t have a strong and healthy foundation, the project will not be successful in the long run.  Of course, it may succeed short term, but that can be deceiving.

It’s easy to assume that a project will keep going indefinitely when it is in fact losing momentum and running down…falling apart. (Take our planet for example!) To continue, we have to find a way to infuse energy back into the project, nitrogen back into the soil, health back into the system.

We know that organic patterns have counterparts in society. And patterns that we see in society have their counterparts in nature.  What does this mean for us?    Is it possible to study what happens in the garden to solve our social problems?  It’s an interesting idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The image above shows the roots of a cover crop. The little white nodes are nitrogen. The plants are putting nitrogen back into the soil so that the soil is healthier for the next crop.  Once the cover develops the nitrogen nodes, the greens are cut off at the soil line, or turned in lightly, and the next crop is planted.  The crops are rotated; each is there for a season and then is grown again in another space.

How does soil building apply to our lives?  What is social soil building?  Perhaps it means that as we grow, we should maintain our roots to benefit the next generation.  As we mature, we should develop valuable resources for others to use for their own healthy growth.  It could mean that we should move between spaces, but purposefully.

The key to building healthy soil is diversity. If you think about a healthy community, you realize that it is not a group of people who all think alike.   A healthy community is a group in which everyone has different interests, different skills, and different perspectives, each contributing something of value, each putting valuable nitrogen back into the soil for the next crop.

How do we go about getting started?  That’s another story…

Happy Homesteading,

T.

Fairhaven, Kitchen, Soil Building

Tea @ 3:00 Event

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Register for the “Tea @ 3:00” Event on Tuesday, September 4th.    Bring your favorite Tea Pot with Cozy (if you have one). We’ll have a selection of our own herb teas, hot and cold, for you to sample…and some tea cakes…you get the idea…

Here is a flick about one of our teas…

Sign up for the Tea @ 3:00 Event below. See you then!

Happy Homesteading,
T.

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