The Garden Desk

At Tall Trees I sit at a desk in the garden. I believe desks belong in the garden or at least with nature. A desk is a place of study and contemplation. What better place to study and contemplate than nature. The Earth is our mother teacher, the master designer, our true being. We are endowed to the Earth with gracefulness. Our hearts and breath beat with the pulse of the river and are carried by the wind.

Gardens at Tall Trees

Tall Trees Community Farm

Foraging for wild plants at the farm is a beutiful way to eat. Working all day with soil, plants, and animals inspires me to relate to them for health and life energy. We share our relationships with moon, sun, stars, and earth. Passing our stories from one to another. Learning all the time that there is more to listen for. There is more to say. We are alive.


Dinner included the infamous garlic mustard, young dandelion greens, wild carrot root, burdock root, and a mix of very young shoots: dnadelion, plaintain, wintercress, miners lettuce, and various flowers of these plants too.

Foragers harvest

On Saturday morning I walked about for an hour or so and harvested some food in Lansing. It is always amazing to me that all of this food and these beautiful plants are not respected more... I harvested Garlic Mustard, Burdock Stems, Chives, Yarrow, Wintercress, and Lemon Balm.

Compost

There are spirits that dwell in the compost and the soil. There are spirits that are calling out to you in the land. There is a great deal of respect that is owed to the soil. When we make compost, we are using a very powerful force that should be revered by all. Compost is not just a cheap easy way to fertilize our gardens and farms, rather it is a life force with tremendous value to the future of humans living on this earth with such high populations. Compost is a natural design that serves as a model of how human relationships with soil, plants, and animals can provide everything we need without compromising ecological principles.

Lambs Quarter or Forever Spinach as I like to call it.

The past few days have been perfect for lambs quarter to germinate. I have found little sprouted batches of this spinach relative in my backyard garden at the Fairview house. Its perfect to eat when the plant is under a foot, but I pick the leaves all year long. The seed can be made into a flour/meal and the leaf can be used such as spinach. I even let some plants set seed in the garden for early spring sprouts like these here. Lambs quarter seed can stay viable for 50 plus years in the soil. I imagine the Michigan seed bank of Lambs Quarter is astounding in age and quantity. I know where I'm getting my next meal from....

Asparagus Guild

The Asparagus guild is growing at the student Organic Farm's Edible Forest Garden. The asparagus has been prolific in its second season and I have been munching off of it for the past few weeks. The asparagus guild includes: asparagus, dandelion and rye grass.

In the edible forest garden a guild is like a ecosystem. In a guild plants have an relationship with other plants, insects, humans, soil, water, air, microorganisms, fungus, and bacteria. Guilds are planted to mimic the beneficial qualities that ecological diversity and symbiosis have in natural ecosystems. Some gardeners refer to this as companion planting. It is a practice that has been utilized for centuries and has long been forgotten in the monoculture of today's big agriculture industry.