While our local community is great, we like to travel to expand our horizons and gather inspiration from new places and people. We might be exploring a new state or country, or just visiting a local park or nursery that's new to us.
Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica)Shenk’s Ferry Wildflower Preserve is located right along the Susquehanna River in southern Lancaster County. The 90 acre preserve surrounds Grubb Run, a small spring-fed stream that cuts through a small valley...
Food should be a conversation. Too often we rush through meals and don't think too deeply into how it was sourced or even prepared. There's value in slowing down, treating food as medicine to replenish our mind, body, and spirit, and sharing with others.
We love eating mushrooms. Both Jes and I have had them sautéed, raw, grilled, and baked since we were kids. Unfortunately, most of them were white button mushrooms, they didn’t always taste good, and we...
Homesteading is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. While it had various definitions over time, we like to think of it as a collection of skills that you can use to build, grow, and prosper ourselves and our community. It's also a great way to ensure that what you produce is local, organic, and ethical.
I believe the first step toward homesteading or living more sustainably is chickens. My first introduction to keeping chickens was 3 years ago when my girlfriend, Jes, asked me what I thought about raising chickens....
Landscapes are inherently a connection between people, places, and plants. All of them interact to create a cohesive living space that mutually benefits each piece. We seek to create a balance between these by interpreting nature and recreating those systems on a person's property.
The foundation of good landscape design is observation. Too often a design is forced into a space because someone didn’t read the land first and decide what would work best. One of the best ways...
Native plants are foremost a connection to place. They ground us to a location and are then attached, as if by threads, to all of the other pieces of an ecosystem, from the air, soil, animals, fungi, and microbes. By incorporating native plants into your property, you are supporting local biodiversity and providing food and shelter for local wildlife.
Native plants in North America don’t often make good first impressions. It all starts with the common name. Some prominent plants that come to mind are Ragwort, Tickseed, Beggarticks, Baneberry, Spikenard, Dog Hobble, and of...
Wild food has a certain untamed appeal. It's something that escaped domestication and therefore has extra value as being the ultimate natural food. We forage throughout the year for plants, nuts, berries, and most of all mushrooms.
Common Chickweed (Stellaria media) is an exotic winter annual (aka weed). It germinates in the fall, grows slowly throughout winter, and blooms whenever it gets a warm, sunny day through spring. Once the hot summer...