Welcome to EarthStar Collective

Written by Willow Oak

For those who celebrate, Easter was the weekend of April 20th. This is a time for our family to get together to share food and fellowship, and my Memaw’s favorite holiday. We also got the chance to check on the progress of our plantings - one month out from establishment.

Young leaves in abundance on the Elderberries, and silvery buds just beginning to unfurl on the Serviceberries. Blackberries, Raspberries, and Blueberries all happily leafing. The Oaks a little slower to leaf out, but still pliable and alive. Grandaddy’s old Grapes leafing out and producing new vines.

To us, the most exciting progress was the Strawberries and Purple Asparagus. Nearly all of the Asparagus crowns survived, and were cheerfully sending up their first year of growth (we won’t harvest them until they establish for a couple of years). A few of the Strawberries didn’t make it, but most of them bore strong and verdant clusters of leaves. The Garlic continues to grow, the largest of the plants now reaching about knee-high.

There is hope in the greening of things.

Written by Willow Oak

The Vernal Equinox marks a time of growth, a time for reflection, a time of balance. Here, we find light and dark in equal measure. As the world yawns, stretches, and awakens from Winter, we here at EarthStar Collective have been welcoming in the Spring with our hands in the dirt. At this time of balance, we look both to our past and to our future. Our farmer Willow has been hard at work tending souls, tending stories, and tending soil. The pond revitalization project (see post: “What the Muck?”) is taking root like a young seedling in fertile soil.

I spent the two weeks surrounding the Equinox in Culpeper, tending the land and attending trainings.

A couple of days a week, I trained with a Hospice provider to be a Hospice volunteer with the eventual goal of becoming a Death Doula. Baby steps.

During my evenings and open days, I worked down by the pond. My Dad and I worked together to rehabilitate Grandaddy’s old Grape arbor: digging posts, clearing weeds, stringing wire, and talking about life. I planted trees and cleared a flat patch just below the grape arbor, breaking ground for a new perennial bed of Strawberries and Asparagus. Honoring the past and working towards the future.

I had serendipitous timing on my hands. The Hospice volunteer training happened twice a year, and one of those offerings coincided with the two weeks my pre-ordered bare root plants would be shipping to Culpeper.

The first week, my order of trees and shrubs from Food Forest Nursery (not sponsored) arrived. I chose species with a focus on native plants and berry-producers. I will admit, my favoritism for Oaks shined through. I had four different species of Oaks (White Oak, Black Oak, Willow Oak, and Swamp Chestnut Oak), planted in places to replace old Oaks that had fallen down or with the eventual succession of existing mature Oaks in mind. The fruit-bearers were planted with habitat preferences and ease of harvest in mind. A line of Serviceberries at the treeline, a Brown Turkey Fig near the Grape arbor, Native Mulberries at the bottom of the embankment, Raspberries and Blackberries on either side of the drainage spillway, Elderberries tucked in amongst the others, and Blueberries in a flat patch below the Grape arbor.

The second week, my order of Strawberry plants and Purple Asparagus crowns from Johnny’s (also not sponsored) arrived. I spent many meditative moments preparing the bed for them by hand, partially to align with my preference for no-till agriculture and partially because I don’t own a rototiller. I used my hoop-hoe to remove grass from the flat patch below the Grape arbor, and a shovel to dig the Asparagus trench and loosen the soil for Strawberries. I hauled wheelbarrow loads of horse manure from my Cousin’s field next door to fertilize the soil. My “soundtrack” was the podcast “Cults and the Culting of America” hosted by Daniella Mestyaneck Young and Scot Loyd. I was joined in the planting by my Spouse, farmer Noah. Our hands were full of dirt and roots, or lungs were full of fresh air, our hearts were full of love and hope.

It does not escape me that the plants flower a little earlier each year, that the cold of Winter holds less of a grip over those darker months, that the storms coming up from the tropics keep getting bigger and stronger, that disastrous Climate Change is at our doorstep and trampling the welcome mat. The homeostasis of our climate patterns is getting thrown out of balance in favor of profit and convenience, at the expense of our futures. It feels difficult to balance fear with hope, difficult to plan for an uncertain future. With our hands in the dirt, it feels a little easier to plan for the future when that planning is planting. May we one day see our children and grandchildren eating berries and enjoying shade in the future we planted for them.

Written by Willow Oak

Following the grass removal at the pond, I had three mounded rows of muck and the perfect opportunity to experiment. I could wait until Spring, let the muck decompose a little, and spread it over the growing space to enrich the soil, or I could try planting something into the mounds themselves. I had a vision in mind, and I really wanted to try planting directly into my piles of muck. The question was: what to plant?

Growing up, I ate more home-grown garlic than store-bought. My Dad would plant tidy rows of seed garlic cloves, we would harvest it when the bottom leaves started to die, and my Mom would braid it into garlands once they dried. I still feature garlic heavily in my cooking, even though my days of living with my garlic-growing parents are nearly 10 years deep into my past. Nary a savory dish passes through my pots and pans without the addition of garlic. Fresh (pre-peeled and in bulk from HMart nowadays), powdered, infused in oil, pickled, all welcome in my kitchen. As much as I love the convenience of my pre-peeled store-bought garlic, nothing compares in flavor to fresh and home-grown.

Garlic seemed like the natural choice for my experimental planting.

Planted in the Autumn, if it failed over the Winter I could pivot to planting something else in the Spring.

A heavy feeder, the nutrient-enriched pond muck would fertilize it well and continue breaking down over the growing season to keep feeding it.

Hardy varieties, I could leave it for long periods of time without maintenance in the early stages of growing and take care of the more hands-on stages after finally moving to the area.

Planted by clove rather than by seed, I ran less risk of losing track of my propagations or planting seeds too deep.

My Memaw broke apart the cloves and handed them to me as I planted them, nestling them root-side down into the mounds. I planted two hardneck varieties: Chesnock Red and German Extra Hardy. We always grew softneck growing up, but the prospect of garlic scapes was alluring to me. (Keep an eye out for future posts on what we do with those scapes.) With the garlic planted, all there was to do was wait. Every time I visited, I would check on the progress of my garlic. MY garlic. My first ever patch of garlic grown on my own. Over the next few months I watched them grow. I’m reminded of a phrase from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. They grew “the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once.” Small green sprouts, reaching up tentatively to touch the chilly late-Winter air. Pausing, relishing those first slow inches of growth. Tilting more towards the sun, snow becoming rain, growth kicking into high gear. Racing towards the warmth of the early-Spring sun, branching into true leaves, the distinctive flat leaves that visually distinguish garlic from their onion cousins. Thriving in their beds, fed thoroughly by decomposing pond grasses. So far, a success. A testament to using what we have available to us in creative ways. Stay tuned.

Written by Willow Oak

Nestled between two hills and fed by a seeping spring, our farmland is blessed with a fishing pond. Several generations of people on this land have fished Bluegill and Crappie and even the occasional Largemouth Bass out of its waters, and many fishing lures have been ensnared by the old Walnut tree that used to shade the southwestern half of the pond. For many years until he was no longer able, Grandaddy Tommy used to maintain that pond, making sure the Cattails kept to their corner and mucking out the leaves that would fill in the pond over time. For some time during farmer Willow’s childhood, Grandaddy and Memaw also maintained Cherry trees, a Grape arbor, and their vegetable garden next to the pond. It’s been several years since Grandaddy passed away, and many years since he was able to maintain the pond. Several people have done good work keeping the pond from falling into disrepair, but life and raising kids and taking care of a loved one at their end-of-life have to take priority. Now, one of those kids is grown up, and ready to be caretaker of the pond.

The pond looks a little bit different than it did in my childhood. The Walnut tree is gone, the Grape arbor overgrown with weeds, the vegetable garden moved to raised beds up by Memaw’s house. Even the pond itself had the eastern embankment rebuilt to make it more resilient against flooding. The pond shows us it needs to be taken care of: algae choking the sun-splashed surface, grass encroaching on the water, banks and margins covered mostly in lawn grass and field garlic. Revitalization is needed, is wanted.

Inspiration struck in the form of my favorite author: Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer. In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, she describes her own pond revitalization project. Her daughters wanted to swim in the pond, so she began the labor of love of clearing muck and algae. The pond never truly became a swimming pond, but the algae fed her garden and the work fed her soul. She may not have reached that initial goal, but her relationship with the pond deepened and the ecosystem thrived. I was shown a possibility. A way of working with the ecosystem in the long term to reach my goals rather than reactively throwing algae killer in the pond for short term effects.

Thus began the ongoing pond project. The first stage: getting rid of that grass. Armed with hip waders, a curved pitchfork, and determination, I pulled and piled wet grass and muck for two days. My soundtrack was the albums “Hark! The Village Wait” by Steeleye Span and “Basket of Light” by Pentangle. I was reminded of my childhood, discovering nature with my Sister. We used to rake leaves out of the edge of the pond and marvel at the insect larvae, tadpoles, and small fish that revealed themselves, shining and wriggling. We threw them back, of course, knowing the fat tadpoles would grow into the sonorous bullfrogs we could hear in the evenings. With the hands of an adult but the heart of a child, I likewise found and threw back any creature I could find in my muck. I can never remember to take “before” photos, but even without photographic evidence I could feel in my heart and in my sore muscles that I had done good work. At the end of those work days, I had clear waters at the edge of the pond, three tidy row-piles of mucky grass in the old vegetable garden, and an itch for more work. The possibilities felt endless, reflected back at me like gazing at the sky on the surface of the pond.