Incredible opportunity in Ozark County, Missouri. If interested and you fit the bill, please respond directly to christinagerue (at) gmail (dot) com.

Hey there, we have been working with clay and straw in south central Missouri for the last few years. We’re in the process of building a timber framed straw bale house. We’ve mainly used slip straw (aka light straw clay) to infill stud framing with success on a sauna, “solar shed” end composting toilet. I love this technique for its ease, light and functional application and final beauty.

As far as working with cob- we were definitely excited to try that (coming from Pacific Northwest/Vancouver island), but some good reading from Sigi Koko and the Natural Building forums on Facebook steered us toward a higher insulative material (instead of the thermal mass provided by cob). Straw acting as an insulator in our cool climate.

The clay dirt we work with is beautiful! I’ll see if I can attach some pics of the plaster finish on this Saturday morning.

Love to hear of all of your biodiversity! I enjoy seeing all of the different pollen colors they bring in!

We don't catch catch them as in off of a branch or something - we set up swarm boxes (a la horizontalhive(dot)com) and use natural lures like propolis and lemongrass. Dr Leo has a lot of the advice and even swarm box plans on his website if anyone is interested in reading more. it's our third year successfully catching swarms and working with bioregionally adapted honeybee genetics. We love and have learned a lot from his natural beekeeping ethos. Natural selection at work creating strong colonies instead of propping them up!

very cool! thanks for sharing your process with us. how is it holding up after 6 months? would you change any of this technique? it's breathing well?

i also enjoyed looking at photos of your cob build on the other post! we're building a straw bale house and it's great to see other owner-builder processes :)

things that come to mind that would do well in a once a year flooding understory are things that don't mind having their feet wet. do you have a patch of wild ramps? if so, you could tend and expand it. other things in the allium family (wild onions, chives, leeks, garlic bulbs) may also do well.

nettles are a big one that have delicious and nutritious greens that can be cut a couple times a year for soups and tea. their leaves are some of the most densely packed nutrient rich medicines around!

meadowsweet may do well with all the moisture - a famous strewing herb, it also has various medicinal components (can take a fever down) and is absolutely beautiful. good pollinator as well. Jerusalem artichokes also do well in just about any environment and will keep you in tubers for a lifetime!

our paths are full of plantain and clover. we didn't have any plantain when we moved here so we went down to the road and transplanted some. plantain is such an easy plant and doesn't mind being stepped on. in shady spots it keeps its growth small and if given nice soil it will grow very large! a must have plant for bites, stings, inflammation of all kinds, bruises, burns, etc. simply chew it up and put the poultice on the spot. for stings or bites if swelling is bad, you can change out the poultice after it gets warm. will take care of the swelling and pain.

clover makes an amazing nitrogen fixing, pollinator friendly option. the blossoms can be dried and make a great addition to teas. it's one of our best blood cleansing herbs, which i think we can all benefit from. gentle in its action, its a great plant to have around and doesn't mind a little foot traffic or mowing. it's beautiful too. yarrow, dandelion, native grasses kept low also all come to mind. for our paths things have shown up in them and if they like it, they stay.

here in the ozarks my favorites would have to be persimmons and pawpaws! going on a creek stomping expedition to find these hillbilly bananas is a tropical adventure come fall. i look forward to it every year :)

in our 5th year living here as well we have a growing mental map of where the best fruit trees are as well. many times you'll see us pull over on the side of the road to pick up bowls of persimmons.

Eon MacNeill wrote:I tasted wild Aronia berries last fall and they were terrible. Reading permies I thought they would be a dream plant because of their ability to grow in wet shade, fix nitrogen, and produce edible, nutritious fruit —- but the edible fruit part is extremely questionable to me now. Are the cultivated varieties insanely superior, or are these another berry kind of like sea buckthorn that is barely palatable at the best of times?

Eon, aronia is one of my favorite plants here in our forest gardens. it's beautiful and no fuss! we don't eat the berries raw, but incorporate them into smoothies (with sweeter things already included), cook them up with a bit of sugar and make a syrup (amazing!), freeze the juice for additions into drinks all year round. I would also like to brew with them. the thing about aronias aka chokeberries is that they'll never be a blueberry or some delicious fruit that you can eat raw right off the bush. but that's not what we grow them for. any google search of their nutritional qualities will far and away make it worth your while in growing them. again, see above at how easy they are to grow! finding creative ways to add them to things - i forgot to mention aronia infused apple cider vinegar! or aronia sauce for wild meats! - is a small token of our appreciation for this easy peasy amazing native shrub!

we caught 5 feral honeybee swarms this year and have integrated them into our forest gardens nicely. on about 1 acre in the heart of what we're actively managing, we put them in different niches. it's cool to see how the different colonies behave in slightly different settings. 1 is in the forest at the edge of our forest gardens. 1 is in an understory of a 25 ft tall native persimmon patch (that we're grafting various persimmon varieties onto). 1 is next to our gazebo where we hang out a lot in the heat of the day so we can have great observation of that hive. they get a lot of afternoon sun so they've been bearding often. another is near a natural building we are completing so we're also near that one a lot. and finally the other is near a couple delightful heritage smelly roses. i check on that one when i go to smell my roses.

it adds another layer to the forest gardens that are really delightful. catching feral swarms also expands the bounds of our community. each hive goes by the name of where we caught it - Lick Creek for example- further integrating us into our bioregion.

we do a lot of natural building here with earthen plasters as well and we've noticed that mason bees really enjoy drilling holes in the rough plaster coats (prior to the fine finish coats). it's something we didn't expect would happen as a result of natural building. again, another interesting, if unintentional, layer of biodiversity and habitat creation.

i'm with tereza. i think starting off planting no fuss useful plants is a great start. for me what comes to mind is things that have done well here without much care on our part. aronia melanocarpa is an all-star. highly nutritious berries, not too much of a deer attractant, beautiful foliage (could be a landscaping plant). start with the no fuss plants/ natives that you value and move from there.

to answer your question how to plan what goes where i'll say don't worry about it too much. shrubs and understory plants are really flexible. if you think about the trees as the bones and plan for adequate spacing on those, the understory, shrubs, vines, etc can be cut down, moved, trimmed, pruned, etc if need be.

something i've also noticed in our 4 year old food forest is that plants will find the niches they like. we've planted dozens of indigo bush (Amorpha fruticosa) and in some spots they're leggier (more shade, poorer soil) than others, but it doesn't really matter. we chop and drop their foliage after they provide their abundant dazzling function as insectaries and trim them up how we like based on the other plants around them. vines also climb on them. furthermore, some patches of nettles, mints, medicines, etc do better than others. we have 4 different plantings of spearmint and a couple of them flourish while others are in shade and don't expand much.

i think it's cool to vary plantings and observe the habitats different things like. you can really get to know a plant when you see how it performs under all different types of conditions.

In the humid, blazing hot summer days of the Ozarks I feel ya on this inquiry! Hard!

I usually prefer to work in the morning/evening hours and leave the hottest parts of the day for a siesta or cool spring fed creek dip, but I have found a few things that I prefer in the hottest months..

Natural material clothing! Linen and hemp to be exact. On ebay or other thrifting sites you can buy these clothing items used/basically new at great prices. I do find the 100% hemp or linen items to be the best.

Linen has hollow fibers which means that it is light while also being strong. Linen is the strongest natural fiber so the clothing will last you a long time as well. Both of these fibers also dry really fast (after absorbing 30% of their weight in water without noticeable side effects) if you do get really sweaty. That's a must because, let's face it, we're basically drenched in these conditions with our natural AC we've got going on. I just find that the natural fibers feel great, breathe well and can't be beat! Oh and of course always wearing a sun hat, drinking cool mint/lemon balm/tulsi teas, eating cucumbers and sometimes a wet washcloth on neck or head.

Hope this helps.

I'd have to chime in with the Fat Max (I use 25 '). I put a hurt on any tool I use and often work alone, so having a 10+ foot standout is paramount. Nothing more frustrating than having to walk back and forth trying to get a measurement... Mine tend to wear out (the first 8 feet or so become hard to read) after a year or two, but i get A LOT of use out of these tapes. Easy to read, sturdy. As with most tools the cheapest isn't always the best, although having a few tapes around for odd jobs is always handy.

Tyler Ludens wrote:I can send you Chinese Water Chestnut and Louisiana Iris.  I would love some Blackberries in exchange.

Yay! That's fantastic! Let's do it. I'll send you a purple mooseage and we can exchange addresses. Thanks!

Carson Albright wrote:Did you seal the pond?  
I used to do aquatic plants within an aquarium, I know wisteria and peace-lilly does well in this type of setup.  However, peace lilly is poisonous to cats.  I had the roots of a wisteria plant growing out of my aquarium and it would take off.  Attempted to get it to flower, had a few buds, but never bloomed like I had wished it would.  Never grown food out of an aquarium, heard of a few people who had, but I think they had an aquaponics system set up where the water would flood the roots of what they were growing for a period of time and then go back into the pond.  

No we did not seal the pond. I don't think it is necessary for our purposes and we haven't had an issue. We'll see how it does with time. Thank you for your suggestions. We are getting a wisteria this year from a neighbor and may put it on a high arch near the driveway to make the most of those beautiful blooms!

My partner and I are basically finished building this tiny pocket pond! You can see an earlier postwe made last year when we were wondering if we'd need to seal it.

In this post I am requesting aquatic plant suggestions for this small pond and will walk through what we did!



To start, I am hoping to fill this pond with a myriad of aquatic plants, ones that are edible for humans, beneficial for cleaning the pond and keeping the algae to a minimum/shading parts of the pond and ones that are good habitat for fish, beautiful, etc. Please tell me about pond plant that you love and/or want to trade. We have a lot of plants on our homestead and would like to trade them for some pond plants. Currently we have thornless blackberries (Chester, Triple Crown), boysenberries, Jerusalem Artichokes, Heritage Raspberries, loganberries, to name a few things.

What we did:

We chose a site that is nestled right in between a budding food forest in its 2nd year and our high tunnel. The spot already had a low indent in the soil and it seemed like a perfect choice. We dug out the pond and all of the rocks you see around the edge of the pond are from the hole we dug (it's rocky in the Ozarks!). We then lined the pond with chicken wire and made a concrete mix of 1 part cement and 1.5 fine sand to make a thick icing consistency paste. The bowl of the pond was finished by last year and we got some minnows from our creek and put them in there. I spotted all 5 minnows yesterday and we'll see if they reproduce. I would also like to put more fish in there.

The pond is 3 ft deep in the deepest area, and is 7 x 10 ft roughly in a kidney bean shape. It has a water shelf that is 1.5 ft deep and I was thinking I could put cinder blocks in the deepst part of the pond to act as a plant stand for the floating plants.

I had to go over certain spots with the cement mix to shore up any leaks. At this point the pond is all ready to go and I'm looking for plants to put in it! It is in a spot that had a ton of yarrow and yarrow is coming up all around the berm of the pond. I also sowed echinacea, our native wild skullcap, agastache, clover and we planted a lingonberry in the berm. Aronias and wild false indigo are in a hedge to the north of the pond and the food forest mentioned earlier is to the northwest. It has a paw paw, asparagus, hazelnuts, blueberries, agastache, currants, serviceberries, mulberries, apple, nettle, yaupon, walking onion and strawberries. to the west we have raspberries, lavender, wild false indigo and the south is the high tunnel. I think this spot will fill in nicely in coming years and we've already noticed our animals love drinking from the pond and I've seen a couple frogs. We're hoping it becomes a little haven for LIFE in the midst of our gardens.

I definitely want to put some water lily and water hyacinth in the pond and am looking for other beautiful and edible plants like American water lotus. Looking forward to hearing your other suggestions! Thanks!

Also, we're hosting an internship this summer on our permaculture homestead. Check out our post!

Hey Dave! Great to hear from you. Thanks for connecting with us and we look forward to talking more with you :)

Also, for others reading,  I realize we left out the # of interns we are looking for.

Ideally we would have at least 3 interns and up to 5! We are hoping to have a great group of interns that can make a mini community here! We would love interns to spend a few months here, but we will also have weekend or shorter stay opportunities that will be listed as they occur!

www.ozarkmountainjewel.com

May through November 2019

• Natural Building
• Permaculture/Holistic Living
• Perennial Agriculture/Food Forests

Mountain Jewel is a permaculture homestead in the heart of the Ozarks. Located 15 minutes outside of Gainesville, Missouri on 18 acres, we focus on perennial agriculture, Herbalism, natural building and bioregional living. As a Center for Earth Connection, we seek to observe and align with natural rhythms, making sustainable use of the resources around us while honoring and getting to know the wilds.

At a 2019 internship at Mountain Jewel, there will be a heavy focus on Natural Building as we are building a Passive Solar Post & Beam Straw Bale Infill house!

We also will be tending and expanding perennial gardens and food forests which includes sharing host of practical skills & information on edible landscaping and useful Permaculture & medicinal plants. We currently have 2.5 acres of Food forests, 2 high tunnels, and .5 acre of intensive perennial and annual garden production. Mountain Jewel is completely off grid (save propane used for cooking) using Solar Power and our water comes from a 250 ft well on the property (soon to include more rainwater harvesting as well.)

Garlic harvest

What can an intern expect?

As in intern you will have an amazing opportunity to engage in the intimate process of building a natural home & creating and tending food forests.

You will learn mostly by doing, although there will also be some structured “classroom” time. The process is messy at times, involves plenty of consideration and creativity and a lot of physical labor, which can be taxing emotionally as well (especially in the beginning as you familiarize yourself to new surroundings and experiences.)

Through hands-on skill building in a variety of natural building methods and Permaculture principles, you can expect to receive a good introduction to a wide range of practical topics.

Throughout the season we will be going working on different aspects of the build. Starting with site prep and foundation, we will continue with framing, roofing, raising straw bale walls, plastering, laying floors, plumbing, wiring solar systems, plumbing solar hot water, building a rocket mass heater, etc…

In addition to the building, we also tend annual & perennial gardens, high tunnels and food forests, which account for much of our diet. Other opportunities for learning may include rain-water catchment and irrigation systems, grafting, layering and other propagation methods, seeding, general gardening tasks, pruning, fertilizing and more.

On top of this, there is also the reality that you will become an integral part of an organic Permaculture homestead in the country.

Early summer garden

 With 3 acres of our land open for food forests, high tunnels, outbuildings and gardens, the rest of the land (15 acres) is mature forest which has choice wild edibles and provides respite, recreation and beauty throughout the year (and ticks during the warm months!). Some of our diet is also obtained through foraging and wildcrafting and you are welcome and encouraged to join us in our wild forays where we teach ethical, safe and sustainable harvesting methods.

Wren making a cleaver’s tincture

As we ask for your help 5 out of the 7 days of the week (not necessarily Mon-Fri), this also leaves 2 days a week for rest and exploration of the surrounding areas, much of which is the Mark Twain Natural Forest and includes stellar waterways like Bryant Creek and the Norfork, a world class destination. Our property has a creek of its own and we take dips down there often!

Our western edge

What do we expect?

In opening up our homestead to interns we are seeking to share our experience in hopes of equipping, inspiring and empowering others to participate in meaningful practical ecological ways of living.

Mountain Jewel is foremost a Center for Earth connection and we provide an holistic haven and skill building opportunity for modern humans to reconnect with that which is essential, Nature. Our homestead is dedicated to living in alignment with these natural rhythms and it is these skills we want to pass on.

We foster a culture of respect from ALL participants including ourselves, each other, the wild, the site and the process of learning. This means respecting boundaries, personal space and guidelines we outline as a collective (depending on expressed & present needs.)

Sunset on Ozark Mountains surrounding our homestead

We encourage applicants who are engaged, interested, motivated, self directed, passionate and ready to learn. We see this internship as a relationship between you and us, other interns, the process itself, and most importantly, the land. At Mountain Jewel, interns are crucial members of the team and as such we ask that interns take active interest and initiative to facilitate their learning process, express their needs and desires, and support the collective.

This internship will require a lot of physical work and we want you to know that ahead of time. If the workload is ever too much, please express this to you as we seek to create a healthy work culture. During work hours, we invite your full presence and participation.

Mountain Jewel inspired art by https://lauraleesart.com/

What time frame?

We would prefer interns to stay from 1-3+ months throughout May- November as we feel this gives a richer depth of experience. It takes time to build relationships to place, process and people, as well as taking into account the skill building process. Seeing the building and gardening process through time is a much more grounded way to build skills and experiences. As we are a family run homestead, we are open to various possibilities and opportunities, and if a situation isn’t working for either party that will be discussed.  In these cases, if possible, we practice the Art of Council communication technique to gain clarity and hopefully resolution before going our separate ways. We are all here to learn from and with one another and see these connections as  opportunities to do just this. We have a no tolerance policy for any forms of abuse and will not tolerate drug use.

For all potential interns there will be a 2-week trial period to see if the experience is a good fit for all. It will include orientation, training, check-ins and some hands-on tasks. At the end of this, there will be a process where we clarify next steps and make sure all parties are on board. It is our goal to hold space for interns to have a great experience learning more about themselves, the earth and all that we have to share on this homestead.

Lodging and Food
Lodging

Lodging at Mountain Jewel is simple and rustic. We cannot offer any indoor lodging during the summer months, but offer shaded tent platforms in the woods, running water and a covered outdoor kitchen space for simple food preparation (including a double burner propane range, large sink, shelves, food storage, counter space and table.) While we have a couple extra tents we can loan out, we encourage you to bring a tent that will be your shelter, a sleeping pad or mattress, hammock (with mosquito netting and a tarp) and/or build a shelter (if you know how to adequately do this) once you reach the land.

We live close to nature and ticks, spiders, and other insects inhabit our space with us and the transition to such a lifestyle can take some getting used to. Come mentally prepared and see it as an opportunity to challenge yourself and strip off layers of modern conditioning. It gets hot in the summer and at times this can be oppressive, but we balance this with early morning starts, frequent creek dips, and midday siestas. As mentioned, we do have a creek on the property and this aids a lot in our self care.

Food

Many but not all meals will be shared, and we expect interns to be able take part in food preparation on a rotating schedule. We have yet to work out details, but what has worked best in our experiences has been setting up basic meal plans and going through a rotation where each team member takes their turn in preparation of meals based on what’s seasonally available.

We will offer simple whole foods and seek to eat a balanced diet. We strive for sourcing 100% organic food where we can’t meet these needs ourselves. We eat meat occasionally (wild and locally grass fed from a nearby farms), eggs (don’t have chickens anymore but will source locally) and may source local dairy (depending on refrigeration options at the time). 

During the summer, we will have abundant greens and other produce as well as fruits grown on our homestead. Sometimes we fish and often we go mushroom hunting. We buy bulk grains, beans, oil and other staples.  

*SORRY, but we may not be able to accommodate certain special diets or allergies. Contact us if this is a concern.

As this is a work exchange there will be no stipend offered. In exchange for 6 hours of work a day 5 days a week, you will have access to bulk food staples, fresh garden produce, one healthy shared group meal a day.

Shiitakes we grew on oak logs

Transportation

A personal vehicle is recommended but not necessary. We are located 1.5 hours from Springfield, MO, 45 minutes from West Plains, MO, Ava, MO and Mountain Home, AR and frequent these cities biweekly for bulk food runs at the health food stores and other sundries (these towns have a lot of options.) We live 15 minutes from the very small town of Gainesville which has basic amenities (post office, small conventional grocery, library, and gas stations, etc.) You are welcome to come along for these journeys.

Ini with a harvest of wild Paw Paws

To Apply

Answer the following questions and send us at least 500 words to mountainjewelbotanicals@gmail.com on why you want to do this and your current related knowledge and experience (it’s fine if you have no experience). Tell us a bit about yourself. You can share blogs, social media sites, etc.

Name, Age, Current location, time availability and desired length of stay, special needs/allergies/other considerations, do you have your own camping gear, vehicle or pets, one thing that scares you about this and one thing that excites you, what you’re hoping to get out of it and what aspects you’re most looking forward to. We look forward to hearing from you!

You can learn more about us at Mountain Jewel by checking out our blog at https://steempeak.com/@mountainjewel or http://instagram.com/_mountainjewel_

Hey permies,

My partner and I are building a pocket pond within a food forest landscape to catch and store water (partially from the High Tunnel that’s up slope from it) that we can use, provide habitat for aquatic life and plants and be a cool landscape feature. We live in the Ozarks (zone 6b) and made the pond quite deep- 4 ft at its deepest with sloping sides.


It’s our first time building a pond and we’re finishing up the concrete work now (ratio 1.5 sand to 1 cement) and wondering if we need to seal it.

I am not so concerned with the slow seep porosity of concrete, but more curious about the leaching of lime from the concrete into the water making it more alkaline (is this true) and also the lifetime of the concrete- will it last longer if we seal it?

Have you built a pond and used concrete? Did you use a sealant? Thanks for your help!

Also, the slower method allows for the more resilient (and cheaper) option of propagating plants from your plantings. We're already happy to see our nodding onions and comfrey exploding in numbers in a short time. Took quince rootstock cutting this year so we can get more Asian pears planted on the cheap, and when we're ready.

I can relate to The slow method. My partner and I are establishing a food forest on our homestead and are happy to be taking it days (relatively). It's already proven Well worth the time Waiting, observing and focusing on chunks at a time.

"Rather than use a bulldozer, backhoe, or hydraulic hammer, I use hand tools and small power equipment.." 100% agree with this. Can't tell you how many Herbs and shrubs Ive found while I Had my feet on the ground. It's
Harder to find gems with heavy machinery.

I can also relate to the desire to "get it established" quickly, but also appreciate the feedback through watching what works and doesn't. This year's drought has taught me a lot! Plenty more goumis and Asian pears to plant after seeing their success.

What a great thread! I especially loved the insight into the French "culture en hautain".

We are creating food forests on our Ozark homestead mimicking what is already taking place here as well as implementing ideas found from around the world.

This year, as I was observing patterns already taking place on the land, I noticed a niche wherein a wild grape variety was very successfully trellising on a native dogwood. In this expanded guild, we also have

native persimmons (that were already here, they are like a "weed" on our land) which we plan to graft onto with select cultivars

canby raspberries, asparagus, aronia, comfrey mugwort, holy basil, mint we planted this year

select annuals like squash which we use to fill in the existing space

I got a good harvest from these grapes this year and in future years, once the other things we've planted start to make the planting denser, it's okay with me if things start to phase out or if I need to prune. To me, that's a part of a living food forest, different stories taking more of a central focus as it grows and matures and based on what the cultivator wants.

Excited by this concept of planting vines amongst trees, we also planted Ken's Red Hardy Kiwi amongst our 16-25 ft tall existing native persimmons. We may not get as great of yields as we might if the kiwis were trellised with full sun, but it mimics what the Chinese have done with the hardy kiwi (harvest it from the understory) and so it seems worth the trial. Doing this also keeps the food forest growing and diverse and not the arbored trellised areas which are basically tended as monocrops.

Hey guys,

This is a big topic on our homestead. I think for us it comes down to 1) what grows well and abundantly in our climate 2) how can we each year put more perennial fruits and veggies in the ground to reduce future workload and increase future harvests 3) what are friends/community members/other permies etc growing in the area- who says each of us has to produce everything?

1. in our zone 6b and humid hot hot summers sweet potatoes do really well. They're high in vitamins and so tasty. Peruvian potatoes are another easy crop that are another good security crop. Greens tend to be a bit easier to get an abundance of. One of my favorite methods is to either let them go to seed in their area or save the seed and sow generously in edges and "understories" where I'm waiting for berries or fruit trees to take off. If you don't care about pure varieties, you can also let reseeded tomatoes do their thing. Even this reduced workload frees up time for other food endeavors.
2. Perennialize the landscape. Yes the returns take a while, but you're really putting one in the bank for your future self (and others) when doing this. Annual gardening is just so much more work in the long run! Fruits, veggies, nuts! The possibilities are endless! Cardboard and mulch!
3. Share the load. We have about 2 acres cleared, the rest are forest. Our good friends have pasture and goats. We tried goats this year and they don't really fit in our budding food forest. But who says we have to have the meat, milk, potatoes, veggies, etc? That abundance of squash someone mentioned earlier can be traded. Trade the abundances (even plan for them; you grow x, I'll grow y..). Truly I believe that we are stronger and more diverse together. Variety is the spice of life and it's good to get together, potluck and talk about future gleaning plans. We don't have to do it alone.

Guy Zindel wrote:Pretty much what I was thinking, my biggest concern was basically would it screw them up to not go totally dormant. Thoughts?

Guy, they're hardy zone 2-8 so if you're concerned about dormancy needs (I read that they need at least 300 chill hours), it seems these guys are very versatile. You could always put it in a garage, unheated polytunnel or colder section of the house to give it a lower temp to mimic zone 8, but still allow it to be babyed a bit.

Thanks for all the responses! Yes I agree garden herbs do count! As do "reseeding cold hardy annuals", I'd say. Along those lines mizuno, kale and arugula come in strong on our homestead.

I was interested to see currant listed twice (we have a few varieties in their first year so no fruit yet). Are you all still having fruit on at this time of year?

Guy Zindel wrote:I'm at 5400' in a northern Utah valley that routinely sees 4-6 feet of snow on the ground.  My hope is it will get a chance to develop more fully during the next 4 months.

Sounds like it could use some babying to get those roots strong for next year. Couldn't hurt to bring it inside.

Wandering around our land today and wanted to highlight and share some easy perennials (most not even a year old) growing on our homestead in late fall (in zone 6b). These all required little care and yielded well this year!



In case you can't watch the vid, we profiled Watercress, Sunroot, Skirret, Nettles & Erba Stella.

What are some of your favorite perennials up and active now that are easy and productive?

Hi Luna, Have you and your sister bought land? My partner and I recently moved to the area and are in the process of buying land near Ava, while we stay in Cabool at a friend's place. We have experience with straw bale. Drop us a line if that sounds up your alley. Blessings,
Wren

Hey Deb, Ini and I are coming into your neck of the woods soon- we can bring a kombucha scoby!

~Wren

Also as I read out loud the full description to my partner, we both got pretty excited! What a piece of land~ and some kindred spirits in a place where I imagined I'd have to have mainly plant friends... Haha! We are both permaculture lovers, having wwoofed, interned, natural built extensively... Rainbowbridgetotheheart(dot)com is where we've shared some writings to give you an Internet peek of us hope to hear from you!

Hi Deb, curious as to the follow up of this inquiry- did you decide to parcel off some of your land in this way?

My partner and I are interested in 2-5~ acres in So. Missouri so this post caught my eye. Please email me if you have some land you'd like to sell! Thanks! Lunagrow(at]gmail

...

Best,

Wren

Thank you Dan Grubbs for your Warm Welcome! We look forward to connecting with the local groups and are so appreciative of your note! Glad to hear there are many more likeminded folks in the region bless you

Greetings permie friends,

After many years of working on other people's projects (at ecovillages, intentional communities, small city and rural homesteads and production farms), my partner and I are excited (and needing!) to start on our own.
We're both late 20s, green thumbed, open minded and open hearted children of Gaia. We're looking for some land to start building soil, making medicinal herb gardens, harvesting water, growing food, building structures, food forests etc. We are not interested in leasing or renting land (we want some purchase, literally!)

Here are some of the desired qualities for our future land:

2-5 acres
Near wilderness land/ nat'l forest
Southern Missouri
Old farmland OK
Open to varying soil conditions as we are willing to remediating and regenerating degraded or overworked land
Unrestricted
Water: perennial spring obviously most desired but will consider land that has annual or seep springs, too

We have $7,500 upfront cash and would like to buy the land this June and move in to start our projects. Please no land that has a ton of junk left on it.

We have a friend that lives in Cabool that we'll be visiting in the next month.

Do you have land you'd like to be worked and loved that you could sell to us? We are very excited about grounding future possibilities which have been building up in us for some time.

Please be in touch!

Love,

Wren & Ini

Hi Elizabeth, my partner and I are looking for land for homesteading/permaculture as well and the ozarks are an option. I'd love to connect with you in a private message and share more details. Please email me at lunagrow(at]gmail.com

We're both in our late 20s, have interned on many farms and intentional communities, have passion for food and tending Mother Earth well. Love to chat more! Thanks & blessings, Wren

Greetings Permies!

My partner and I have been traveling, wwoofing, apprenticing, seed-starting, planting, harvesting, natural building, general permacultlary etc for the past 5 years or so on a myriad of different farms & land-based operations. The time has come - we are ready to delve into our own projects & care of the earth. We would like to be within 1 hrs (up to 1.5 hours) drive of Asheville, NC to give ourselves awesome larger community/ market opportunities. Some sloping land is ok, but we also need existing flat land for house-building, green/hoop-houses & row-cropping.

We would like to spend $5-7000 dollars on this land and be on it this year. Non-restricted access. Not near/in subdivisions.

We want streams from pure sources (and non-toxic neighbors/businesses, if possible). A spring fed or otherwise healthy pond would be awesome but is not a must. Streams/springs are a must.

Being off-grid is an option for us, so it isn't necessary that this land be connected to city-water & electric. That being said, land abutting the Pisgah or Nantahala forests is an option for us.

Neighbors in love with their land and open for collaboration would be nice~ complementary businesses, produce exchange, skill exchange, etc. We have taken part in many ecovillage/intentional community experiments and are choosing to not jump into one of those, but create on the land with total freedom and hopefully have some good neighbors with similarly-minded pursuits. We want community, but not in our back pocket.

2 acres minimum and 15 sounds like the perfect number. 25 is the tops.

We would love some forest on the land, but not all-forest as we need full-sunlight for greenhouse, passive solar house, possible solar panels, other gardens/food forests, etc. In the some-forest we plan to leave sections "wild" & "to themselves & their current residents" and have others with wildcrafting opportunities, mushroom cultivation, etc.

If you know of some land like this in your area, or perhaps you have a parcel you would like to section off for such an opportunity, please contact us. We have $5-7000 to spend on the land right now, and, we're not looking to rent/lease or create any work trade agreements for the land (although we are open to barter/alternative exchange in the neighborhood for goods/services). We don't want rules on the land or someone hanging over our heads, so if you want to section off a piece of the land, understand that we want unrestricted access of our parcel. Perhaps this money will be able to buy us a couple of acres, or perhaps 15- we're open to either option right now. Wild land/ protected land nearby is a must. We don't want to be near golf courses, big businesses, or even very close to town where a lot of noise/light pollution leaks over, etc. That's why I suggest land abutting one of the national forests as ideal.

Land that hasn't had years of soil-depletion is ideal. Loamy/sandy/clay ideal with good drainage. We are open to taking part in healing land, but obviously if it's in a fertile valley we won't object!

Existing structures are OK, but not a must. If there is a good barn/shed on-site we count that as a plus.

We plan to focus on specific crops, try out some seed varieties not popular in North America that we recently picked up in Peru (so moderately high altitude is possible for this experimentation), have goats/sheep/alapaca/chickens/ducks, build natural/recycled material structures, food forests, mushroom cultivation, water collection, value-added products, & other experiments along the way.

Thanks for reading! If you have a lead, please be in touch. Please send us pictures, details, your history on/of the land and any other pertinent information (size, topography, coordinates, existing structures, and other sundry details). Private message me to connect via email.

Bright Blessings! Wren & Ini

Greetings Permies!

My partner and I have been traveling, wwoofing, apprenticing, seed-starting, planting, harvesting, natural building, general permacultlary etc for the past 5 years or so on a myriad of different farms & land-based operations. The time has come - we are ready to delve into our own projects & care of the earth. We would like to be within 1 hrs (up to 1.5 hours) drive of Asheville, NC to give ourselves awesome larger community/ market opportunities. Some sloping land is ok, but we also need existing flat land for house-building, green/hoop-houses & row-cropping.

We would like to spend $5-7000 dollars on this land and be on it this year. Non-restricted access. Not near/in subdivisions.

We want streams from pure sources (and non-toxic neighbors/businesses, if possible). A spring fed or otherwise healthy pond would be awesome but is not a must. Streams/springs are a must.

Being off-grid is an option for us, so it isn't necessary that this land be connected to city-water & electric. That being said, land abutting the Pisgah or Nantahala forests is an option for us.

Neighbors in love with their land and open for collaboration would be nice~ complementary businesses, produce exchange, skill exchange, etc. We have taken part in many ecovillage/intentional community experiments and are choosing to not jump into one of those, but create on the land with total freedom and hopefully have some good neighbors with similarly-minded pursuits. We want community, but not in our back pocket.

2 acres minimum and 15 sounds like the perfect number. 25 is the tops.

We would love some forest on the land, but not all-forest as we need full-sunlight for greenhouse, passive solar house, possible solar panels, other gardens/food forests, etc. In the some-forest we plan to leave sections "wild" & "to themselves & their current residents" and have others with wildcrafting opportunities, mushroom cultivation, etc.

If you know of some land like this in your area, or perhaps you have a parcel you would like to section off for such an opportunity, please contact us. We have $5-7000 to spend on the land right now, and, we're not looking to rent/lease or create any work trade agreements for the land (although we are open to barter/alternative exchange in the neighborhood for goods/services). We don't want rules on the land or someone hanging over our heads, so if you want to section off a piece of the land, understand that we want unrestricted access of our parcel. Perhaps this money will be able to buy us a couple of acres, or perhaps 15- we're open to either option right now. Wild land/ protected land nearby is a must. We don't want to be near golf courses, big businesses, or even very close to town where a lot of noise/light pollution leaks over, etc. That's why I suggest land abutting one of the national forests as ideal.

Land that hasn't had years of soil-depletion is ideal. Loamy/sandy/clay ideal with good drainage. We are open to taking part in healing land, but obviously if it's in a fertile valley we won't object!

Existing structures are OK, but not a must. If there is a good barn/shed on-site we count that as a plus.

We plan to focus on specific crops, try out some seed varieties not popular in North America that we recently picked up in Peru (so moderately high altitude is possible for this experimentation), have goats/sheep/alapaca/chickens/ducks, build natural/recycled material structures, food forests, mushroom cultivation, water collection, value-added products, & other experiments along the way.

Thanks for reading! If you have a lead, please be in touch. Please send us pictures, details, your history on/of the land and any other pertinent information (size, topography, coordinates, existing structures, and other sundry details). Private message me to connect via email.

Bright Blessings! Wren & Ini

Ellen,

This is Wren who previously emailed you about the opportunity. From my end, one thing that may help you narrow down on people is to explicitly state your vision and what you would like to see happen on the farm. For us (but perhaps not for the Right Person/People), the land seemed isolated. We are looking for community. Not to say community couldn't eventually gather in the area, but it's a lot to dive into as entrepreneurial young people. We appreciated your openminded and open hearted/handed offer, but it also seemed to us that you already had a vision you wanted implemented on the land (raising, grazing and selling cattle, etc) and also a vision for your neighbors as well. That isn't our trajectory and we didn't want to fit into your system until the land was turned over to us and then do what we wanted. To me, by stating what you specifically want (as you did to us in later emails, very clearly), you'll be able to better attract specific someone/s who are attracted to this vision. In fact, I have a hard time believing there isn't someone out there! I hope this helps.

Also, as a young person (27 yo) I really appreciate the dialogue you've opened up here. I've also witnessed one other older person with land on here (permies forum) who lives in NC offering a similar thing to young folks. The difficulties you articulate are real and I appreciate the conversation you've opened. And again, good luck finding the right person. Be specific! You'll have better luck weeding-out and attracting.

<3 Wren

how's the process going?

my partner and i are moving to living roots ecovillage in southern indiana (indianacommunity.org). there will be our cob house project and others going on this year (2014).

send me a private message to connect.

~wren

Yes, I just returned from Peru where they eat alpaca meat.

It is delicious!!!

Very powerful animal and the meat is lean and tasty.