The Log Blog

Melissa has joined our farm and forest for the season. She will garden our earth, and type us poems. "Following her on the deer trail, past all the footprints from last week, side by side with the spring, she hopped, and I cautiously stepped to the other side, in and around the kissing spring, we snipped tiny tufts of watercress."

This week’s winter greens box will include…

*Watercress!

*A mix of tender salad greens: sorrel, claytonia, tatsoi, mizuna, mache and more.

*Blossoms and shoots from Raab and other mustard greens.

*Small bunches of kale/chard/or bok choy.

*Rosemary Sprig and remaining autumn garlic.

*Potatoes from Driftless Organics.

Sometime in the last couple weeks all the plants in the greenhouse got to talking.  They discussed the ratio of sunlight to darkness, mixed with soil temperature and daytime highs.  And from this conversation, they lept into BLOSSOM!  All the mustard greens and brassicas that have quietly persevered the winter have now decided to send forth shoots of soft seeds, full of sugars.  The greenhouse is now charged with fertility, and as tastey as can be.  Each blossom and shoot are like tiny broccollis, but so much more tender.

And in the forest, the watercress peeks above the spring water now; the mint has sent up its tips, the sap is about to run.

We started these seeds on January 9th, and transplanted them into the greenhouse yesterday. They will be bright red mustard leaves, lettuce leaves, and endive by mid-late April.

This is a "hanging gutter" of arugala sprouting toward the February sunshine.

Here is a stack of fire wood (white elm) ready to be delivered to a forest member for February and March.

"If this salad were a beauty contestant, it'd win the Miss America Pagent." -Casey Peterson

This is Driftless Farm and Forest’s first winter attempting a “Greens Share” for 10+ families.  We know the general performance standards of our passive-solar, whole tree greenhouse, but can’t predict the temperatures from week to week.  Currently we use low or no suplemental heat source, so our winter yields vary greatly depending on temps.  Thus far, we’ve had some vibrant success with the season extension, as shown here.

Stunning in the snow with no extra heat source.

This week’s box included salad mix, arugala, rosemary sprigs, large bunches of mixed mustard greens, watercress, and a few lbs of beets sourced from a regional  farm, Driftless Organics(despite our names, we are unrelated).

Many of our forest members have chosen the Winter Greens Option as one of their forest benefits.  This doesn’t sirprise me.  As we continue to develop this Community Supported Forestry (CSF) model, we will continue to involve food production where it fits.  People love food!

Agriculture can weave amidst the needs of a sustainably managed forest.  A blend of permaculture and annual production; a nectar flow for bees that starts in early spring with the red maples, moves to the locust and honey suckle, boosts the squash and strawberry yields, and ends with late summer green manure crops like alfalfa; erosion control; windbreaks; leaf mulch; and whole tree timber for farm infrastructure.  I’ve been wondering what becomes of my status as “farmer” now that we are developing such a forest model.  It’s an identity shift that may bring me right back home again.

Volunteer, Casey Peterson, washes and packs watercress while occasionally making poetry about the process.

Wire hoops supporting a "blanket" of white row cover; a "blanket" of green arugula supporting our wirey hunger!

We packed the beautiful boxes as the temperature dropped.  Today, the 4rth, it is snowy and 20 degrees outside.  What will our next veggie box look like?  We’ll see what the low hoops do to preserve our arugala, and how quickly our new planting of mache and mustards germinate.

A Driftless Farm and Forest Winter Greens Box

My most recent dream involves a winter-foods share that works within the CSF model.  Summer gardens would grow storage crops, and winter months would slowly yield all this color and life.

Roald’s word games have amused me for 5 years now.  This morning’s coinage won me over immediately.  We’d like the nation to take on a “No Child Left Inside” Policy.  Forget the standardized tests– what about the kids ignorant of nature?  There is a societal damage done to body, psyche and soul when we raise our kids afraid of nature.

No Fear Here!

This new CSF “motto” also makes me think of our latest CSF member, Barb Huning.  She has joined our forest as founder of “Nature Centered Counseling and Education”.  She specializes in eco-psychology and shares with me her calling to heal the rift between our species and the rest of the natural world.  “We are so afraid of wilderness,” she notes, “and uncomfortable with the apparent chaos of Nature.”  And in our need to separate from nature, and control our environs, we create a chaotic psycho-spiritual interior that is destroying us.

As one who dances with depression myself, I have spent a lot of time  considering the effects of modernity on the psyche.  Living on Driftless Farm, I note the difference in frequency between the forest surrounding me, and the urban world of my past, and my peers.  I flutter away from the rhythm of the wisdom humming in these woods– and log onto this blog!  Or bounce my baby while answering the phone while making a web-banking transfer while listening to the radio.  Given that living amidst the forest still doesn’t slow me down enough to listen to its truth, I am inspired by Barb’s plans to integrate her eco-psychology training with our infrastructure and wilderness.  Check out her personal blog if this stuff interests you: