July Harvest

    Aria harvesting St. John's Wort

With the hot days of July comes Earthstar Farms’ busiest time of year. It is harvest time for many of the different flowers that grow on the land here. Some of our medicinal flowers are cultivated, but our biggest flower harvests come from wild-crafted varieties such as Hypericum perforatum (St John’s Wort), Monarda fistulosa (Bee Balm) and Achillea millefolium (Yarrow) that grow wild in mountain meadows.

Due to the two heavy snowfalls in late spring, this is a bumper year for St. John’s Wort. For two weeks the big east-facing meadow at Earthstar Farms is covered in big swathes of golden-yellow flowers. There are literally millions and millions of flowers. This provides a bounty for bees, local pollinators and Colorado herbalists. Every year we welcome volunteers to assist with this golden harvest. We also share the harvest with local herb shops and herb schools via a pick-your-own program. This influx of enthusiastic herb lovers makes this harvest time feel quite festive. That is the nature of Hypericum – sunny! It is a wonderful herb for assisting people who struggle with depression, SAD and other nerve related ailments. It is lovely to harvest as well. The down side of Hypericum is that it is listed as an invasive, noxious weed that can spread aggressively, pushing out native plants. It is not popular with Boulder County, and it is currently illegal to sell the seeds or plants. As harvesters we do our bit to help stem the spread of this ‘weed’ by picking the flowers, thus taking away potential seeds.

Some of the other medicinal flowers that we harvest in July are Bee Balm and Yarrow (as mentioned above), plus our cultivated Calendula, California Poppy, Red Clover, Chamomile, Passionflower, Elder flower and Clary Sage. Very soon the Lavender, Hyssop and Feverfew will be ready to harvest as well. This list does not include the herbal leaf medicine that we harvest as well (such as nettles, comfrey, mints, etc…). So July is a time for us growers to practice pacing ourselves and prioritizing our work – otherwise burnout can happen. This is one of my challenges, but I am learning. Cold watermelon is good medicine after a big harvest morning!

So bear with us if our blog posts are not quite as regular as they were in the spring. We are busy harvesting our herbs, juggling our work schedules and counting our blessings. We will be back blogging with more posts as soon as we can.  Have a beautiful summer!

                        Monarda flowers

                 California Poppy flowers

                       Calendula flowers

                       Lavender flowers

Lessons From May Snowstorm

Being a gardener in the Rocky Mountains is many things, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but it is surely always a learning adventure.

Mother Nature gives us many glorious reminders that we humans are never really in control. The recent big snowstorm of May 18th and 19th was a perfect example. After getting all our spring vegetables and herbs planted, surviving an earlier spring snowstorm and being past the so-called last frost date of May 15th, Ben and I were ready for the warm days of early summer. Not so fast my pretties… Instead on Thursday we had a storm with heavy snowfall, accumulating up to 18 inches and below freezing overnight temperatures. Ben and I did what we could, bundling up to move valuable potted outdoor plants into the greenhouse, setting up the greenhouse heater and shaking all our leafed-out trees of the heavy wet snow. But the biggest and best thing that I did, after a few snowy hours, was to just let go…  I stopped worrying and instead slowed down to witness the beauty and resilience of the moment. Within this place of acceptance I witnessed the following:

A small bird standing in the snow, delicately plucking and eating the seeds off an almost snow-submerged dandelion head.

       Green leafed fruit trees in 12" snow

How agile certain trees can be, bending nearly 180 degrees so that the heavy snow could slide off. Ponderosa pine trees are the masters of this skill, but our fruit trees did surprisingly well, though we did lose some branches. Today, three days after the storm, the trees look bright green and are upright once again. It is an unusual sight to see fully leafed, bright green trees in deep snow.

That some trees are more agile than others. My one grafted apple tree, with four different apple varieties, lost all of its big lateral branches. This shows that the grafted joints are less flexible and structurally weaker than those on a regular, un-grafted tree. Good to know.

    Broken grafted multi-apple variety tree

How resilient hummingbirds are. They continued drinking the sugar water from the feeders throughout the snowstorm from dawn to dusk. They would sit at the feeder all fluffed up and shaking while drinking. I watched one male hummingbird fly through the storm dodging big snowflakes like a superb aerial dancer. We periodically brought the feeders inside to de-snow them while the little birds buzzed impatiently in the space left vacant. Without a microgram of fat on them, these tiny birds somehow managed to survive the long cold night and were back at the feeder the next day.

             Tiny Bartlett pear fruits-to-be

Upon inspecting the fruit trees today, I was delighted to see that even after two big spring snowstorms, it looks like some of the blossoms and young fruit have survived(!) Now that is impressive. We have a dwarf Carmen Jewel sour cherry tree that gives us fruit every year without fail. It is the superstar of our small orchard, but the Bartlett pear tree’s tiny fruit look promising as well. Planting climate-favorable varieties matched for the environment is so important.

Yesterday when we still had twelve inches of snow on all the growing beds, I used the back of a rake to ‘peel’ layers of snow off certain beds. The snow curled off like big white carrot peels. Under all the snow the tiny calendula plants were bright green, upright and damage free. Even more surprising was the happy state of the young zucchini plants when I dug the snow away. The thick layer of snow proved to be a wonderful insulator for the young plants during the freezing nights.  The sweet grass, rhubarb, asparagus, nettles, raspberry canes… everything is fine. They all actually all look better now than before the storm.

                  Survivor zucchini plant

          Sweet grass after the big snow

Our small greenhouse was a godsend. On Thursday morning we quickly shook the snow off all the outdoor potted plants (including citrus, fig, lemon verbena, aloe, bay leaf, rosemary and white sage plants) and crammed them into the greenhouse along with all the tomato and pepper starts. Ben set up a heater and thermostat for 45°F, just to keep the plants from getting too cold. At this point the electricity was out (due to the storm) and we were using our solar powered, battery back up system.  This too was a godsend as the power was off for close to 24 hours (it was off for much longer for some of our neighbors and I felt for them). After two days in the greenhouse all the plants were good, although thirsty.

How quickly the robins and other birds find the first snow-free piece of land. After I cleared some of the growing beds, several hungry birds quickly swooped in, digging in the moist soil for food. 

So here I am feeling fortunate that we got off so lightly with this big snowstorm. Surely that is the final snow of the winter? How many times do I say that every spring? One thing that I have learned is that maybe you cannot predict what is coming next with Mother Nature, but that you can practice sustainability and resilience, and then let go…

                            Snowy Wildcat Gardens with Boulder Reservoir in the distance

Spring Sowing

      Will we get fruit this year?

Ben and I have been busy and completed our basic springtime garden chores by Mother’s Day. Yay! This year’s jobs included; repairing old garden beds and creating new ones, setting up the drying shed, starting vegetables from seed under a lamp, planning the season’s growing areas, planting annual herb seeds, taming eager weeds in perennial beds, enlivening the compost bins, setting up the watering system, spreading mulch, transplanting local volunteer herbs into new areas, and the annual organic paperwork. Each of these jobs requires a certain amount of connected focus, and a clear vision of how they all coalesce into a bountiful summer garden. As a cook, I liken it to putting together a multi-course fancy dinner for a crowd. Skillful timing and planning are key in a productive kitchen as well as in a dynamic garden.

Part of that planning includes building a healthy foundation for the growing season. This starts months before, during the previous fall season. We at Wildcat Gardens and Earthstar Farms believe in feeding and maintaining our soil. Having alive, nutrient-rich soil is a priority for organic growing. Earthstar Farms has three distinct growing designations on the roughly 190 acres that we harvest herbs on. Each of these zones or areas has a different soil maintenance program. The ‘inner’ garden beds are where we grow our cultivated herbs; these are annuals and certain perennials (Calendula, Clover, Raspberry, Sweet Grass, Echinacea, Nettles) that require fenced protection from the wildlife. These inner growing beds are our highest maintenance areas, where we layer the beds with hardwood leaves, compost, well-rotted horse manure, straw, and occasionally thick mineral-rich mud from our pond. What we call the ‘outer’ gardens are the open, non-fenced areas, and any plants growing there must be able to withstand hungry deer and inconsistent water.

         Tulips survive spring snow storm

These outer growing areas are further divided into two classifications known as cultivated and wild-crafted areas. The cultivated outer garden areas are where our tougher perennials and annuals grow (planted Lavender, Poppy, Sage, Hyssop). In these areas we add rotted horse manure and heavy wood mulch in the fall. Lastly, in the designated wild-crafted zones, we do nothing in order not to disturb the natural cycles of the ‘wild’ plants that live there (Yarrow, Monarda, Artemesia, Oregon grape root and others). Mother nature cares for the soil (and everything else) in these lovely meadow and forest zones. This is great for us, as these wild-crafted areas cover a large portion of Earthstar Farms. Our only work there is to respectfully harvest the herbs, and protect the area from any outside contamination.

      Zucchini starts in mini-glass houses

Due to all the pre-growing-season work that we do in the fall, we are able to sow in the spring with relative ease. The soil beneath the straw in the cultivated areas is dark, moist and teeming with worms. Weeds are kept at a minimum with the heavy top layer of straw. In over ten years of following this process I have witnessed the soil steadily improving. We also rotate nitrogen-fixing red clover, and leave annual root stalks in the soil to feed the micro-organisms over the winter… but that is another story for another time.

            Happy baby calendula plants

The recent cool, rainy days were perfectly timed for our garden. The seeds and transplants were in the ground and germination occurred quickly as the weather warmed again. We now have many beds full of tiny green herbs and vegetables, and we will soon transit into the next stage of our season. For me there is a real sense of richness with having fruit, vegetables and medicinal plants happily growing in our garden. Once again, I am deeply appreciative for the ongoing cycle of reciprocity within nature. Sow the spring goes…

The Season Begins

This has been a busy week for us here on the farm. Today is the deadline for submitting our organic paperwork to the Colorado Dept. of Agriculture, who administers the USDA organic certification in Colorado. Last year the department implemented a streamlined approach to recertification, and this year it really made things a lot easier, as rather than filling out from scratch the 30+ documents required for recertification, we were sent the forms we filled out last year and told to confirm their contents, making changes where necessary. Needless to say this saved hours of labor filling out all the forms from scratch. So kudos to the department (and USDA) for implementing this time-saving feature.

        Ben harvesting nettle leaf

We were also made aware of the fickleness of the weather this week. Less than two weeks ago we did our first harvest of Nettle leaf, and the sweetgrass was growing rapidly, along with tons of blossoms on our fruit trees.

          Unseasonable hailstorm

This week brought a not untypical spring snow, preceded by an intense pea-sized hailstorm (hailstorms are the leading cause of property damage in Colorado).  We got 8” of snow over a 24 hour period, with overnight lows of 22°F (-5°C). Needless to say this did not make our tulips or blossoms very happy… but such is the fate of gardening in the foothills -- we’re at 6,700 ft. (2,000 meters) elevation and the last frost is typically around mid-May (global warming notwithstanding).

      Snowy beds two weeks later

We are still actively interviewing potential internees to help us this season and learn the ins and outs of certified organic herb production. Feel free to contact us if you feel drawn to help out. In the meantime, we hope your spring is filled with new growth and beauty, and may your gardens be life-, soil-, and soul-enriching.

Earth Day

         Ben harvesting nettle leaf

Spring is always an exciting time of year; the days are longer and lighter, and plant life is ready to burst forth. There is also the element of wild unpredictability in the Rocky Mountains in April, where almost any form of weather can show up. Ben and I were away for most of the winter and arrived home to Wildcat Gardens just ten days ago. We were surprised to see all the blossoms and vigorous green growth already, and that the hummingbirds arrived here before us. Early birds indeed! I was able to jump right into gardening, turning the warm soil, weeding, planting and harvesting. Ben and I harvested the first 2017 herbs (nettle and alfalfa leaf) over a week earlier than we did in 2016. After a beautiful week of almost hot days, I was wondering if we would need to start watering the garden weeks earlier than usual. Then today, Earth Day we awoke to snow; not a lot, but enough to cool and moisten the dry soil. And so another growing season begins for us here at Earthstar Farms.

                      Spring nettle leaf

Every spring I am hopeful of a good growing season ahead with bountiful harvests, benevolent weather and great co-workers. Each spring is like a new birth, a new cycle of hope and potential. But this year 2017, I am feeling something else as well. It is subtle, a quiet shiver beneath the excitement. It speaks to question of what this year will bring, with the rumored challenges against the EPA, and the larger environmental movement in general? I think that all organic growers must feel this shiver on some level. Growing anything organically is already challenging enough, and can be seen as an act of faith in all the systems of nature, government, big business and good will. From this understanding, I would like to invite everyone on this lovely planet to consider every day to be Earth Day. This really is a time to share our resources and wisdom to work together for the health of our planet.

                       Passion flower vine

Ben and I spent this past winter in New Zealand. We are fortunate to have a whole alternate life there with our many friends, family and grandchildren. I grew up in New Zealand and still feel a strong connection to basic kiwi values. On this last trip, Ben and I spent time in the Nelson region where I lived in the 70’s and 80’s. Back then there was an active group of inspired, dynamic people involved in growing organic food and working for the larger common good. Coming back over twenty five years later I was struck by the lack of organic produce available in this region. There were packaged organic products available, many of them from US companies, but there was a dearth of fresh organic vegetables. What happened? It is a complicated answer owing to many factors, including a small unaware population, expensive supplies, poor marketing, young people not going into organic farming, new trends in agriculture, etc. But one of the main factors, I believe, is that there was very little government support for organic growers. Big farm incentives went to the farmers of large export crops, not to growers for local food consumption, let alone organic food for local consumption. Over time it became harder for organic growers to make a living and organic produce became increasingly scarce. I do believe that this situation will change in New Zealand, and already see signs of the pendulum slowly swinging. Undoubtedly, those 1980’s NZ organic farmers were ahead of their time. And although the US is a different country in a very different situation, I do see a link to this cautionary tale from New Zealand. Shiver.

     Budding Aspen and birdhouse

Not one to end on a somber note, I am now going outside to the garden, as the sun is shining brightly once again. Time to plant calendula and California poppy seed for an abundant harvest ahead that will be made into herbal medicine. May everyone have a blessed Earth Day every day.

USDA Certified Organic Inspection

Earthstar Farms had its annual certified organic inspection this week. The inspector was the same person we had last year from the Colorado Department of Agriculture, the agency that administers the USDA Organic Certification in our state. This is the thirteenth year that Earthstar Farms has been USDA certified organic, and the first year the inspection occurred under the new LLC. There are three actual certifications that we renew: Cultivated products, Wild-cropped products, and Processing. In the spring of each year we receive that year's set of certification documents to fill out (about 40 PDFs), and thankfully the bureaucracy has gotten easier this year, as the state has sent us the documents we filled out last year and asked us only to note what has changed since then, so we don't have to start from scratch each year filling out the forms.

The inspector's job is to walk around the properties and observe our processes, gardens, sheds, wild-cropped areas, greenhouses, and anything else they wish to ask about. Then they sit down with us and fill out a bunch more paperwork, including asking about the "seed to sale" of a random product that we sell. We then have to provide them with a paper trail that traces the whole chain of steps from when we planted, what inputs were used, and when it was harvested, processed, packaged, and sold. They also ask about another random product that we have to provide documentation showing how much we planted, and compare that to how much we sold, in order to ensure that we don't have a lot more sales than what we documented as planting. Thankfully this is all made very easy because of a set of databases I wrote specifically to track everything associated with maintaining the certification. I'll describe the details of how they work in another blog, but the gist is that it took me about five minutes to gather the pertinent information from the databases and print out the relevant log entries and sales reports for the inspector, who was very impressed by the ease and elegance of the system.

Given the detail that the inspector delves into to ensure that everything is in order with regard to all of the rules and regulations from the USDA, all the farms do a thorough job of getting everything ready for the inspection, and I want to acknowledge each farm for making this year's annual inspection relatively painless.

We find that as consumers, we love the organic standards. It's more challenging as a grower, of course. The regulations have gotten more strict over the years, but it's worth it to ensure that "USDA Organic" is something we can be proud of putting on our products. There are over 400 USDA certified organic entities in Colorado, and the state only has a handful of field inspectors to do annual inspections for all of them. Apparently they are so busy that they are currently not accepting new applications for USDA certified organic status. So what we have is a rare commodity worthy of maintaining, and we are thankful to have it as the organic agricultural market continues to grow as people care more and more about the quality of the food they eat.

Our Pond: A Hybrid Environment

This is obvious to anyone who has a pond they take care of (probably not a lot of people), but most ponds are hybrid environments – part natural, and part man-made. This past couple of weeks have made this hybrid more conscious because of two events: 1) Algae bloom; and 2) Cleanout.

As a reminder, our pond is filled by water that flows down Two Mile Gulch which comes out of our southwest from a pipe about 200' higher than us. The flow is controlled by the local water district, and there's no "plan" for when they start and stop pumping. So man-made, but not predictable (believe me, I've asked).

This is a picture of the algae bloom that showed up a few days after they turned off the water. We've had our pond since 2006, and have never seen this kind of algae bloom… I'm guessing there was something in the pumped water, maybe as a result of fire retardant from the recent Cold Springs Fire. This website reports:  "In still bodies of water like lakes and ponds, concentrated doses of retardant can immediately kill fish, or the nitrogen and phosphorus in retardants can lead to algae blooms that consumes oxygen and kills fish slowly over time." Thankfully we don't "keep" fish in our pond (because of the unpredictable nature of the water level).

The second aspect of the hybrid is itself a hybrid… the cleaning out of our pond a few times a year. It occurs because of the 150+ gallons/minute that the pump delivers (plus gravity) and what it picks up  as it travels down the gulch naturally, ends up settling in our pond, which is the first flat area of slow-moving water.

Above is an example of the sediment forming two distinct layers, a lower layer of dense water-impermeable clay, and a top layer composed of sand and stones. Volume for volume, the former weighs about three times the latter. That dual layer pattern occurs throughout our pond, which is divided into an upper and lower part. The upper part where the water first enters is shallow (< 2' deep), then it flows into a deeper part (≈ 4') before it spills over our spillway/dam into the culvert and down the other side all the way to our Pine Brook Hills Dam about a half mile away as the crow flies. Depending on the time of year and the water flow, once or twice a year now the parts start to fill up and while it's running, we'll clean it out (see my earlier blog for this 'aha!') by first pulling the plug out of the bottom of the dam, and letting the water flow through the drain into the culvert, naturally taking sediment along with it. This week we spent a total of about 5 hours between the two of us "facilitating" this process, and moved about three cubic yards of material down the culvert. Moving the dense clay is harder because it's heavy, so it doesn't move well in the running water. But below is the end result that we're enjoying for a while longer until they turn the water off again and the pond drains.

Sharing the Land

The past week ushered in the first hints of fall with cooler nights (down to 42°F), ripening fruit, shorter days and golden evenings. It also rained, which is a gift from the heavens as it has been a very dry and hot summer. Everyone, including the trees and wildlife, are feeling the nourishment of this gentle, bountiful time of year.

Ben and I are seeing more wildlife lately, especially the big bucks with their fuzzy antlers. These four-legged ‘boys’ nonchalantly cruise through our yard in small groups, sampling the foliage. They are bold, curious and un-afraid. They would go right into the house if we let them. This is one of the highlights of living here in the Rocky Mountains, that we see wildlife almost daily. This ongoing fauna parade provides great entertainment that never grows old. Though at times there are challenges, such as when some hungry herbivore eats a valued plant, most of the time we all get along fine. I have been known to burst out of the house yelling and waving my arms, only to have the munching deer look at me with cool unconcern, as if to say ‘whatever ails that poor human?’ My best mountain lion roar does not impress them either. The deer know this land intimately and any garden buffets are to be taken full advantage of. Secretly, I enjoy their bravado even as I bemoan the destruction they wreck on the un-fenced areas of our garden.

There are many beautiful animals that live on this land with us. A short list includes: black bears, foxes, deer, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, skunks, marmot, turkeys, hawks, squirrels, magpies, chipmunks, snakes and of course the mountain lions. Ben and I still have not seen the elusive lions that roam the land, but many of our neighbors have exciting lion stories, so we know they are around. Our closest encounter is finding big paw prints around the house and a deer kill on our driveway several years ago. (The Dept. of Wildlife took the big carcass away in the name of neighborhood safety). At night, the darkness is occasionally pierced with howls, screeches and the sounds of wild animals going about their business. This wildlife presence cannot be ignored and is a constant reminder that this really is their land too. They hunt, breed, live and die right here among our houses, sheds and gardens.

Over the years we have witnessed many of the wildlife’s seasonal habits and tricks for life in this tough environment. Hummingbirds delicately harvesting insects from spiders’ webs; deer testing weakened fences with military precision; skunks burrowing into freshly dug beds for earthy treats; the magpie ‘mafia’ terrorizing smaller animals too close to their nests; raccoons sampling our ripening fruit; pack rats harvesting greens for their huge nests; foxes hunting rodents hiding in the lavender bushes; a snake gliding through Echinacea blossoms in search of rodents; rabbits feasting in our clover; bears ripping entire branches off trees to get the fruit; flocks of turkeys roosting high in pine trees; bats skimming the pond to drink, a gorgeous bobcat sunning himself in winter… truly, it is as entertaining as any animal documentary. Yet I am aware that life is a fragile balance for many of these animals. We may help them in some ways by providing food via our gardens, but in other bigger ways we humans greatly hinder them as our civilization encroaches ever more on their natural territories. So it is with awareness, respect and appreciation that we do our best to share this land equitably with our wild neighbors.

Click here to see a slideshow of larger pics above and more wildlife!

Living Human Living Earth

Earthstar Farms is a collective of small farms in an “intentional neighborhood” that centers around The StarHouse, a sacred ceremonial temple built by David Tresemer in the early 1990s. At one time David owned all of the land parcels containing these farms, but over the years has sold them to folks like me. Thanks to David’s leadership, as well as my partner Aria’s, we have evolved to be a thriving collective of farms that grow and sell organic herbs locally which express the healing energies of our living Earth. This connection with living Earth is very important to us, as we feel it is a missing critical link for our western civilization which has lost touch with its roots in the Earth.

A few years ago I heard David Korten coin a phrase which has evolved to become a touchstone for me: Living Human, Living Earth. This “meme” represents a “superordinate goal” for humans to strive toward as we struggle to transform our civilization from one heading faster and faster toward self-destruction, to one which honors all life on planet Earth, now and for future generations. Since our economic sphere is a critical aspect of what needs to be transformed for Living Human Living Earth to become a “guiding star” we need to follow, I wanted to mention an excellent website, The Next System Project, and specifically David Korten’s latest offering on that site, “The New Economy: A Living Earth System Model”, which covers his ideas on what a new economic system would look like. The Next System Project is attempting to collect the ideas of many thought leaders on what and how the next system can emerge, and while it is likely that our life conditions will get worse before they get better, it gives me great hope that we do have many of the solutions to our systemic problems already at hand. One of those solutions that Korten advocates is a strengthening of local community as a source of nourishment for people. We are quite happy that Earthstar Farms is one small example of how we can nourish our own local community by our love for healing plants and Living Earth. So think globally, act locally!

Lavender Marathon

Today with both a thankful blessing and a sigh of relief, I harvested the last of our lovely lavender flowers at Wildcat Gardens. I am always a bit sad to see the lavender season end. However, the past four weeks have felt like a lavender marathon and it will be nice to slow down a bit. Ben and I grow around 500 bushes of Lavender angustifolia, both the Munstead and Hidcote varieties.  The bushes are scattered around the property, some planted in graceful terraces and others amongst other hardy mountain perennials in rowdy beds bursting with color and aromas. We grow over 40 different herbs here on the farm but lavender is my favorite herb child. It thrives without irrigation in Colorado’s arid environment; withstands our tough winters; short, hot summers and poor soil without any fuss. The abundant and hungry wildlife does not eat it, although I have witnessed groups of does lounging in the lavender like privileged princesses. But above all, lavender is so beautiful, fragrant, productive and useful. It fills my spirit every time I see it growing with such purple grace and unconcern in this rugged, mountain environment.

Ben, being the data man that he is, has already crunched the numbers for this season’s lavender harvest. We harvested over 260 pounds of lavender flowers and processed them into over 150 dried lavender bundles, dozens of floral smudge sticks, and our own essential oil and hydrosol. Last year we purchased a larger copper Alembic distiller, four times the size of our previous one. It is a nice upgrade, allowing more efficient use of our time and energy, plus it came with an ‘essencier,’ a complicated copper contraption that separates the oil from the hydrosol. Great! One less job for me to do. We set the distiller up on the patio next to the creek and pond, as we need the cool water for condensing the steam. It is a lovely set up, and we both enjoy the process. The yard and house have smelled divine for the past two weeks while we were distilling. Next week I will start bottling the essential oil and hydrosol. With the ‘big three’ harvests now complete (St. John’s wort, monarda and lavender flowers), the rest of our growing season will be a little more relaxed. I will be able to turn my focus to other chores that have been neglected in the lavender marathon, including blogging. To be continued…

St. John's Wort

We’ve been very busy growing and harvesting herbs for the past month or so, so our blog has been sadly neglected. But we’re happy to report that the St. John’s Wort harvest has begun, and that means daily picking of St. John’s Wort flowers in the meadow to the west of Wildcat Gardens, which Earthstar Farms has been harvesting since the 1990s. We welcome volunteers to help us harvest, contact me if you’re interested. We typically harvest from 8 am – 10 am daily, either selling it freshly picked, or dried.

St. John’s Wort helps with depression, turning summer sunshine to a beautiful yellow flower to assist people in feeling great! It is also a noxious weed in Colorado, and our picking of the flowers helps in a small way to keep the seeds from spreading.

Lavender and Community

This week marked a couple of milestones for the year. First we bottled some lavender water we distilled last year, to stock up for the season. There are lots of uses for lavender water, including: adding it to a bath, soothing sunburns and insect bites, hydrating spritzer, spraying it on pillows or clothing before ironing. Of course we also have a limited quantity of our certified organic ½ oz. bottle of lavender oil as well.

This week also marked the first farm tour that we hosted this year. Thirteen folks from Equinox Center of Herbal Studies in Ft. Collins spent a few hours with us walking the land, identifying the many herbs that grow here. A fun time was had by all, and we also enjoyed Aria’s Nettle and Spearmint Tea freshly harvested from the farm. Our lavender products were a hit, and it was great to feel the enthusiasm for what we’re doing. Thanks for coming, everyone!

The Hummers are Back!

Every year we mark the beginning of our growing season by the return of hummingbirds to our backyards. The males battle it out over who has control over the two hummingbird feeders, and over the next 4-5 months I provide the “never-ending supply” of sugar water (raw organic sugar, of course!), rarely letting it be empty for more than a couple hours. We also have lots of other flowers they can go to later on, but when they first arrived, we got a snow storm soon after!

The psychology behind their behavior is fascinating, with a male having a “harem” of females that he permits access to the feeder, shooing away any unwanted females and, of course, other males. The male hummers that visit us all make the characteristic high-pitched whistling sound when they fly; the females are silent except the beautiful sound of wings flapping at 50 times per second. There is a pair of hummers at each feeder at the moment; that will definitely change as repeat customers from previous years show up… they live 3-5 years, and with a never-ending supply of as much nectar as they want, this is probably as close to hummer-heaven as they can find.

Lessons From the Wildcat Gardens Pond

The idea for our pond came up when we found out that our local water company was planning on building a dam at the bottom of the canyon that acts as the main artery in and out of our rural forest subdivision. I was against the idea of the dam at first; it was very expensive (almost $10 million), but changed my mind when I found out that the “headwater” (outlet pipe) for the pumped water flowing to the reservoir comes out just above our property in Two Mile Creek, the natural ravine of the Two Mile Gulch watershed. It also happened to run through a culvert right underneath our driveway. It ends up there are a dozen property owners who happen to have this waterway somewhere through their property; ours happens to be 30’ from our house.

Needless to say we wanted this watercourse to be very robust, in order to handle over 200,000 gallons a day, for many days, of water flowing through it. When I built my house in 1999, there was already a culvert on the property, and I extended it another 30’, with no thought that it would be used for this new purpose. That reminded me of something Steve Jobs talked about in his commencement address about “connecting the dots”:

“Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

So my life brought me this opportunity to connect the dots to something I did 16 years ago, when my current life conditions were simply not imaginable. In October 2005, a year before the water district was scheduled to “turn on the water” for the first time (October 5, 2006), my partner Aria and I designed and built (with friends) a dam and dry stacked stone patio. In 2010, we repurposed that stone, and built a nicer patio area that we distill lavender on each year.

From day one, we see that there would be a significant buildup of silt, etc. from the water slowing down when it hit our dam. Each year we need to remove 10-20 cubic yards of gravel, sand, silt and clay, or else our beautiful pond area would fill up and cease to exist. For most of that time, I’ve dreaded this project; it usually takes hiring a team of folks to hand-dig it all out (because it’s too destructive to use machinery), usually taking 50-60 people-hours. On the one hand feeling like a "job creator," and on the other feeling the toll it takes on our bodies, as well as the labor costs involved.

Our typical process has been to wait until the pond is filled in with material, and when the water district stops pumping water (which it does for a few months a year), remove the plug in the dam which lowers the water level about three feet, wait awhile for the exposed material to start drying out; then dig it all out by hand and move it elsewhere on the property.

Last year Aria came up with a brilliant alternative that she’d stumbled on the year before. Instead of waiting until the water stopped running, why notlet the flowing water transport the material downstream, help it move through the drain, work with the flow by channeling it to different areas of the pond, and see what happens.

The outcome has been very successful. It takes the two of us a few days, a couple hours a day, with the water doing all the "heavy moving".

Lessons have abounded from this process:

• Going with the flow reduces the work, and brings joy and generative energy.
• I get into “water time” because I’m basically looking at flowing water the whole time, and my sense of “clock” time fades into the background.
• I’ve learned to appreciate the moments… like moving all the material from around the drain through it into the culvert… it’s satisfying to see the same kind of suction through the drain as I do with the recirculation system we use when we distill lavender. And I can come back in an hour and see it all built up by the drain again, ready for my next meditation with it.
• I’ve learned about how sand, silt and clay settle in a pond… strata with the dense clay below… hard and heavy enough so you don’t want to try to lift a full shovel-full very often. And ontop of the clay, layers of silt andsand which move much easier through the flowing water. The clay material tends to stick together like glue, and eventually forms abarrier limiting the water from seeping downward. Our pond is probably half-full with it. We use that density to help divert the water where we want it to go… and help move it downstream and through the culvert as well.
•  I love it that my masculine side leaned toward finding a machine to help me move all that material… and Aria came up with a feminine version which does the job very well indeed by using the energy of nature rather than fighting against it.
• Cultivating awareness of my body as I movearound the pond, dancing with the water andmaterial… when I can get an almost tai-chi movement going, skimming shovel-fulls toward the drain; as well as feeling the soreness when I’m lifting heavy loads of the dense clay.

May Day

Aria Seidl

May first is a snowy, wintery day here at Earthstar Farms. Us gardeners are always hopeful for a gentle un-frozen April and May, yet typically the spring months in the Rockies are when we get a wild diversity of warm sunshine, rain and heavy snowfalls. Even after thirteen years on this land, I still think that every big April snow must surely be the last.
 
Earth Day was a sunny warm day and I was happy to see our first hummingbird, abundant fruit tree blossoms, fat tulip buds and shiny new Aspen leaves of the season. The hummingbirds in particular are a harbinger of spring for us at Wildcat Gardens. These tiny, feisty birds fly all the way from Central America to the Rocky Mountains for the summer months. On Monday morning Ben put out the hummingbird feeders, and we harvested our first herbs, five big baskets of beautiful nettle leaf. We also spied the first tiny green seedlings of Calendula and fat purple asparagus stalks breaking through the soil. Rhubarb, catnip, garlic, spinach, sweet grass and other early greens also showed their spring vigor. The passionflower vines in the greenhouse are shooting up, their curling tendrils seeking purchase on the trellis. I felt my own energy quicken as I imagined the growing season ahead. It is a delightful, spring-fever surge.
 
However, on Friday we awoke to cold and snow, and it has not stopped for three days now. My spring-fever had me practically bouncing off the walls, until I settled into a grudging, then grateful acceptance. This snow (the fourth big one this April) is a gift of water, future growth and abundance. Although I do wonder how the hummingbirds cope with this much snow, we are grateful.

Introduction to Wildcat Gardens

Hi, this is Ben Levi, owner and co-manager of Earthstar Farms, LLC. Along with Aria Seidl, my partner of 13 years and main driver of our farm, Wildcat Gardens,  we both will be blogging here, and look forward to sharing and hearing your feedback.

View of our home from the south

Back in 1998 I approached David Tresemer about building a self-sufficient solar home on land that was then owned by All Seasons Chalice, a church David had founded to steward the sacred ceremonial building he called StarHouse. I had studied solar engineering in college, and with the threat of Y2K looming, I was compelled to “walk my talk” by designing and contracting a passive and active solar home. It was completed in July, 2000 (thankfully Y2K was a non-event), and in 2002 I met my life partner, Aria, who moved in with me in March of 2003.

Thankfully Aria is a gardener extraordinaire, and together we created Wildcat Gardens, growing it over the past 12 years to include a fenced area with cultivated garden beds and fruit trees, over 400 lavender plants, a drying shed, a pond area where we do lavender distilling, and a beautifully landscaped home filled with xeriscaped herbs that we harvest and sell.

We inherited David’s USDA Certified Organic status, which he had obtained the previous decade on all of his properties around StarHouse, and this year Aria and I have taken over responsibility for maintaining the organic status of all of the properties, for which Aria had been previously responsible under David’s property management company, Tamco.

Through Aria’s leadership, Wildcat Gardens and the three other farms which make up Earthstar Farms, Earthstar Farm, Wildstar Farm, and Starlight Caravan,  have grown into a reputable local provider of over 40 cultivated and wildcrafted certified organic medicinal herbs and products.

Our goal is to be an example of how to live a 21st century lifestyle that is more in harmony with nature. As we do this with others, we co-create healthy community here and around the world. Thank you for being part of our community.

Blessings,

Ben