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Growing Yardlong Beans: Easy Gardening Success
This year in growing the yardlongs we are “staying on top of” our bean harvest, enjoying faster prep time in the kitchen and delicious homegrown meals. We will be saving these seeds and growing them again!
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Building a Duck Coop for (Basically) Free
Learning how to build (especially incorporating waste stream salvage) has been an amazingly empowering process for us both. Before moving here we had a little building experience, but out of necessity we have learned a lot in a few short years. If building is intimidating for you fear not! It usually involves hard work and learning new things, but the results are so rewarding.
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Growing Pawpaws from Seed
When growing out from seed, fruit quality can be expected to be similar to that of the fruit from which it came. A Susquehanna fruit will yield seeds with a high quality fruit, although not identical to its parent. Choosing seeds from selected cultivars means you can grow high quality fruit without the fuss of grafting and increase genetic diversity. For pollination purposes it can be helpful to have a wider variety of individuals too.
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Seeding the Permaculture Nursery at Mountain Jewel
This year at Mountain Jewel we have been busy planting seeds for the future. In air prune beds we have planted a variety of hybrid Chestnuts (Chinese x Japanese x American x European), Select Chinese Chestnuts, Persimmons, Select Pawpaws and English Lime. All of these plants thrive in our bioregion. These trees will be available fall 2020 to purchase through our website. We offer shipping and local pickup.
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Blackberry Culture: It’s the Jam
Now is the perfect time to establish a berry patch and we are offering a trilogy of bare root blackberry plants (3 for $20, Chester or Triple Crown Variety) for those wanted to get their blackberry game on.
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How to Plant Bare Root Trees
The most economical and successful way to plant trees is to obtain bare root stock. This means the tree was lifted or dug from a field or nursery bed during the dormant season. The trees are shipped without soil or medium and are thus feasible to send through the mail. Bare root trees are ideally planted in the fall to reduce the shock and stress of being uprooted and moved.
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Tour of our 3 Year Old Permaculture Gardens
Summer 2019 we took a stroll through our permaculture gardens and brought you with us!
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Why We’ve Chosen Perennial Agriculture
Why Perennial Agriculture? You hear us talk about perennials, edible landscapes and food forests a lot. Why have we chosen to focus on perennial agriculture? Through this missive I hope to clarify our motivations.
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Articles
Homesteading Life Creating a permaculture homestead was a longstanding dream both of us had before we even met. Here are some reflective and inspiring articles about our motivations, what keeps us going and things we might’ve done differently in hindsight. Our Journey to Becoming Homesteaders Why We Homestead | Through Thick & Thin My 18 Year Old Self Asks, What Kind Of Life Is That? Vision & Dreams Behind Mountain Jewel 150 Years | 7 Generations Thinking: Inheriting Things From Strangers Homesteading Year 2 on the Land (Moldy Yurt, Reality TV, Solar Power, Getting Grants to Plant Trees, Goats, High Tunnel and More!) Why Did We Choose This Life &…
