Perennial Food Forest Farm & Nursery

Currant history

Big beautiful Hawthorne fruit for the heart ❤ ❤ ❤

With night setting upon us sooner and sooner we must find ways to make the most of our days. Adrienne is garbling the last tulsi harvest and I'm washing burdock roots.

Pause that Fire - Why Native Thicket Species Form Thickets -

PawPaw has an amazing ability to colonize through root suckering. The pictured PawPaw sprout is 27 feet from the mature Pawpaw tree in the background showing the extent and intent of the PawPaw's root system. Mowing can suppress it's suckering nature, but naturally these thicket species would spread as far as surrounding conditions would allow as the sprouts aren't very susceptible to browse by elk, deer, bison, nor groundhog grazing to slow the suckering.

Thicket species such as Native Plum, PawPaw, Hazelnut, Gray and Roughleaf dogwood, and Sumac have evolved an adaptation to fire. Instead of investing energy into creating fire tolerant bark like Bur Oak or certain Pine species, their intent is to create a thicket wide enough to suppress the herbaceous layer that fuels wildfires. The leaf litter of most native thicket species decays quickly preventing that form of fuel from carrying fire through the thicket. Occasional fire keeps the thicket element of Grasslands and Savannas in balance by burning back the edges of the thickets where the herbaceous layer's fuel is still heavy enough to top-kill the suckers.

Modern day land management methods most often attempt to exclude all native thicket growth from their own ecosystem within which they evolved (Grasslands and Savannas), with unnatural annual prescribed fires and targeted herbicide applications on native thicket species. In addition to eradicating them, most often, grassland/prairie plantings aren't planted with their thicket species - at all as a part of modern prairie restoration/reconstruction work.

Native Thickets can and will withstand fire within grassland plantings and restorations, but only once they can be allowed to mature to the point that can make an island-like thicket dense enough to prevent fire from sweeping through the inside thicket. A few native grassland and savanna thicket species are: Native Plums, Native Hazelnuts, Wafer Ash, Roughleaf Dogwood, Gray Dogwood, Prickly Ash, Hawthorn species, Eastern Wahoo, Sweet Crabapple, Prairie Crabapple, Sumac species, Carolina Buckthorn, Lanceleaf Buckthorn, and Ninebark.
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👋 We are opening up to volunteer help needed to wrangle in the bindweed and open up some paths! 🌼 Fridays are the usual farm work days but can do other days if needed 🐝
Ask all your questions of permaculture professional Ruth, and take home some herbs, plants, and flowers. 🌈 ❤

The Amazon is a Man-Made Food Forest, Researchers Discover Most of the edible plants in the rainforest were planted by humans over 4500 years ago, new study finds. Modern farmers should look to these ancient forest gardeners for the key to sustainable food production. Ancient humans were practicing a form of agriculture known as horticulture or permaculture...

Harvesting wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) in the garden today. One of my favorite flowers. So pretty, such a pollinator magnet, native, medicinal, invigorating, refreshing. As we approach the midpoint of summer and the hot hot sun drags me down from the joy of working outside, moments like this reassure me and give renewed energy. This Monarda was calling out to me, offering itself mildew free in perfect flower stage to capture its essence. Waving in the breeze they said "Pick me! I'll grow back stronger!"

Monarda, Liatris, Yarrow, Echinacea, and Blue Vervain... all native plants loved by pollinators available soon for pickup in Somerville!
@ Somerville, Massachusetts

vine blooming in the nursery garden is so lovely. This pretty vine with glossy leaves climbs at a moderately fast pace and provides abundant berries packed with flavour and nutrition. Valued from ancient medicine in the Eastern Asia to Nootropics today, the berries are also known as 5 flavor berry because of the complexity that hits the tongue. We'll be fermenting their juice this year. Plants available for your garden! They can climb high or grown lower like ours on a 4' fence, on which they fruit prolifically!

Red raspberry plants available for pickup or local delivery next week! A bunch are in quart pots, easy to plant, and some larger sizes will bear more fruit earlier.
$12 1qt with bearing canes
$14 1gallon bearing canes
$9 1qt will bear next year

They love sun and will send up new canes expanding their territory every year. Easily kept in place by mowing or removing extra canes. Growing up, we had them surrounding our back deck, so you could reach behind you and pluck a tasty treat! Favorite raspberry memory tho? Working for Fred Johnson at Home Grown Produce in Washington state. I'd pick a bowl of them then top off with the cream floating on the raw milk. Heavenly breakfast!
Feel free to ask further questions about growing!
-Ruth

We use wood chips thickly on all garden paths. They break down and build soil over time and are a free resource from local arborists. King Stopharia/Wincups regularly pop up, but this one is new to me. Anyone know it?