This is message recently sent to me from my friend Deanne Bednar, the consummate earth builder, from Michigan.
“It was a great pleasure to host the Midwest Permaculture Course, held in Columbiaville, MI…for an a tour & some hands-on building at the Strawbale Studio land this summer, 2009.
Permaculture here includes: planting black currents, paw paws & sun root (aka Jerusalem Artichoke) at the edges of the woods surrounding the garden. The Zandala garden is coming into fullness (Mandala +Lasagna). We did sheet & tarp mulching, put in oat & buckwheat cover crops, garlic bulbs & “bulbuls”, a winter garden in the greenhouse, and made an herb spiral.
Foraging has given us infinite salads with nibbles of mallow buds, dandelion, comfrey, plantain, violet, along with the perennials ~ lovage, comfrey, chives, nodding onions, oregano (which has taken over the lawn), lemon balm, catnip, and now, in the fall, dried apples, raspberry leafs, wild grape wine and vinegar, fermenting experiments with crab apples, lambs quarter seeds for gruel, acorn flour, stag horn sumac berries for seasoning, nettle leaves ~ dried, tinctured, vinegared ~ tinctures of solomon seal, echinacea + more! Interns & I have been enthusiastically exploring the “Wild Fermenting” Book, by Sandor Katz and doing Kefir, Kombucha, sourdough, dosa, Injira, mead, wine, cheeses + !
We are easily eating at least 80% local! CSA, eggs, goats milk, honey & maple syrup, grains, beans makes food a “nearby & neighborly” experience !
Young farmers are sprouting up around here, studying permaculture, doing gardens, greenhouses, the farmers market & leading the inspiring way… while established farms like 3 Roods, grow food / share information from a deep established base. A time of great collaboration & hope.
Building projects included thatching a new wood shed & the doing the stemwalls and thatched roof of the Oxford Kid’s Cottage. A new earth oven was initiated by intern Sam Runner, and we co-taught a great earth oven class.
Thanks for the forum!”