Farm LIfe - December 2021

See what we are doing as we are moving towards the end of the Year

We depart from 2021 in gratitude for the lessons learned from challenges and the pleasurable moments we’ve experienced through the magic of nature, abundance, and each other this year.

Here’s to looking forward to continued adventure, and we hope your new year will be filled with adventure, learning, abundance and deepened community!

All our interactions with all of you have been a pleasure this year, and we’re looking forward to building ever deeper and wider beneficial relationships in the next.

Lots of love and light to those who have struggled or are midst of struggles.

We continue to create a vision for the coming year.

We planted 50 more useful trees this year, and we plan to plant the next phase of our agroforestry system next year.

We piled some wood chips here in preparation for making a new bed next year, but meanwhile, food decided to volunteer. The squash really loved this environment and spread all over this area, providing us with dozens of squash. The cassava (lower left) also produced a lot of food. Next year, we’ll plant plenty of these two in fresh wood chips. A couple of bananas grew where they had been left by accident, and flourished so we planted a few more.

We’ve also continued to explore new crops and document which ones already here are really thriving here. This will determine which ones we focus on in the future. We’re excited that some of our favorite adaptogenic herbs (tonic herbs with many different healing qualities) do really well here, and are looking forward to planting more next year. We’re learning from the system and continue to work with her in ways that produce more abundance for everything in the system.

One of our herb gardens. Ashwagandha, several types of medicinal basils and gingers, native flowers for pollinators.

We saw a healthy population of bumblebees on the farm for the first time. We had repeated sightings of hummingbirds for the first time. The butterfly population has been increasing every year. We feed multiple flocks of migrating birds as well. We had a bigger diversity and larger numbers of pollinators than we’ve ever seen, more birds, and more mammals. We also had more pests, but the predators have already started balancing the system. This means we’re doing permaculture right; supporting wildlife while producing abundance for ourselves in a balance that can be maintained.

Next year, we plan to continue to expand our wildflower plantings and continue to increase habitat for beneficial insects, like bumblebees.

Pollinator garden.

We have been hosting a farm volunteer, Colims Reserve, for the past month who is doing a project in Haiti to help feed his parents' village. He’s been here learning how to grow things, about compost toilets, irrigation, solar and simple construction. He likes to help others learn how to feed themselves and is using permaculture to improve conditions on the island. We believe in this young man and what he is trying to accomplish and would like to offer his website and an opportunity to contribute to his program.

He has a lot of info to take back to his village and the school there, but could use some funding to help keep the project going and expand it. We feel he and his project are worthy of your support.

We had some great events this fall including the Earthskills event, a Graduates Reunion, and a Winter Solstice celebration. Each was filled with a lot of passion for deeper and wider community building, with plans and projects to build and implement them.

We are starting a new webinar series this week December 29, on Wednesday evenings at 7 PM. There will be conversations and interviews with some of the best permaculture talent in Florida and elsewhere, on a wide variety of topics from gardening to neighborhood resilience and community building. See our website for details.

We’ve continued to add great material to the Online Permaculture Design Course, starting Jan 15, 2022. This is a great way to do the Permaculture Design Course if you can’t make an in person version or if you prefer to study on your own time, at home. We’ll have live Q and A sessions, community building opportunities, and special sessions with a variety of teachers.

We always look forward to our next In-Person Permaculture Design Course meeting on our farm and in St. Petersburg, which is starting on Feb 5th! Dive into designing your life to be regenerative and resilient, meet people of like mind, get connected to the permaculture network in Florida, and start your journey with the support of veteran designers.

We’re also planning some spring events in April and May, including a Women’s Convergence, another Earthskills event and potentially, a farm to table dinner. As is common for us, additional events are likely to be added to the calendar. :)