Weeding the garden today revealed a lot of edible wild spring greens: wood sorrel, violets, chickweed, dandelion, lambsquarters, wild onions, pokeweed, and more. Weeds are food!
Happy Earth Day
Remember the three ethics of Permaculture this Earth Day and every day: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Shares. And, always, Do Less Harm.
Mountain Mushroom Festival
Come out and learn how to identify the delectable wild morel mushroom, how to grow them at home, cook them up, or just enjoy the music, dancing, and a 6-foot tall walking mushroom at this year's Mountain Mushroom Festival in our very own town of Irvine, KY!
For more info, visit mountainmushroomfestival.org or Facebook.com/Mountainmushroomfestival.
Greener grasses
The Sanctuary pigs are glad that Spring is here and so are greener pastures. Thanks to a generous donor, the pigs have a new field to explore, root around, and of course, make new mud holes!
Meet Muddy, Buddy & Cassidy
These three ducks were all abandoned by thoughtless folks in a park in Illinois.
Winter soon came and all the wild ducks left for greener pastures while these guys watched the food disappear and the park's pond freeze to a mere puddle. A couple of compassionate individuals stepped in and arranged their rescue and transport to the sanctuary.
They are an inseparable trio, and Cassidy and Buddy can't help but be charmed by Muddy's chronic muddiness!
Creating a food forest
Perennial crops are an important component to low-maintenance, regenerative food systems.
We've planted a variety of fruit and nut-bearing trees that will sustain us and our community well into the future: persimmon, heart nut, aronia and elderberries, butternut, and wild plum, to name a few.
Food forests are layered systems which mimic forest canopies; our trees have wild blackberries as their neighbors and wild herbs and medicinals will flourish amongst the leaves the trees drop every Autumn.
The path from our homestead to classroom will certainly be a delicious hike!
Registration open for 2016 classes
We are very excited to announce that registration has opened for the next Vegan Permaculture Design Course, Restoration Agriculture with Mark Shepard, and Mushroom Cultivation with the folks at Fungi Ally.
Check out the links below or look under the "Events" section of our website for all the great upcoming classes.
Vegan Permaculture Design Certificate Course: October 1-13
Mushroom Cultivation Course: October 16-17
Restoration Agriculture Course: October 17-19
Our second anniversary
Wild Earth is two today! From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for believing in our mission, donating your time and money and otherwise supporting our farm and sanctuary.
We've had a busy 2 years, and we have a lot more on the horizon.
Bean harvest
Beans are an important staple in our diet--that's why we knew we needed to grow our own!
We had a beautiful harvest of dry beans ranging in color from speckled brown to bright purple, many of them local Appalachian heirloom varieties, saved for generations in our community.
Find out more at heirlooms.org.
Local homeschool group explores Wild Earth
A recent field trip of families from our local homeschool group converged on the farm for an afternoon of permaculture fun.
A "web of life" activity reinforced the idea that all species are connected and removing one animal or plant ultimately affects the entire ecosystem.
The day wrapped up with a tour of our gardens, composting and rainwater harvesting systems, and some potbelly pig cuddling!