Mushroom logs in the forest

Matt and I have been experimenting with mushrooms for a few years now and we’re slowly learning what works best for us here. Last year we got some nice flushes of Oysters in September and late October, as well as our first Chestnuts, and a lone Shiitake.

Warm Blue Oyster Pleurotus ostreatus

(past their prime) September 20th, 2024

We’ve been ordering our spawn from Mushroom Mountain in GA for a couple of years now, and I picked up some sawdust spawn and tools from them last spring at the Organic Growers School Spring Conference, allowing us to start using the sawdust instead of the wooden dowels. It’s more cost effective, easier, and we’ve had better success with it, so it seems like it was well worth the small investment.

Here are the steps we took to inoculate this last batch (winter-early spring of 2024), which we got some mushrooms off of (Oysters and Chestnuts) in the fall of the same year. We only got that one Shiitake so far, but I’m hopeful we’ll see more of them later this year.

First we cut down our tree(s). This year we harvested a small Oak that was going to get hit by a dead standing White Ash when we cut it down (we have the Emerald Ash Borer here in WNC, decimating our Ash populations leaving huge, dangerous dead trees in their path). We also took some limbs from a number of Tulip Poplar trees. We like using the log cabin method of stacking so we measure each piece so they will stack nicely.

I use my Instant Pot to melt my jar of wax, that way I can just put the jar of wax away when we’re finished and get it out the next time we’re doing this and get it pre-heating (I like to start the wax at least an hour before we’re starting to drill holes). I generally use beeswax but that’s just because I can get it easily locally. It’s definitely not the most cost effective wax to use. I believe many people use cheese wax, soy wax or paraffin.

After plugging and waxing we soaked these logs for a bit since they were on the dry side and there was no rain coming for a few days. This soaking may have been the difference since these logs did better than any we’ve innoculated before.

Things we learned this year'-

• Warm season Oysters get eaten up fast by little insects. They’re great to have around for personal use but they would be tricky to get to market looking good, so I may focus on cool season Oysters and other species of mushroom from now on.

• Soaking after inoculation is a good idea if you’re in a dry spell.

• Sawdust spawn is faster, cheaper and easier to use

• The fancy drill bit is worth the investment.

• Mushroom inoculation is so fun, and what’s even more fun is when you go for a walk and find them fruiting!

Potter On The Farm

I started a new business!

Hello! Lindsay here with exciting news!

You may know that I worked for many years under the business name Lindsay Bostic Pottery. It feels a little bit sad to be retiring the name, but it’s time. Bostic was my maiden name, and became my middle name when I got married to my husband Matt in 2019. Being Lindsay West of Lindsay Bostic Pottery felt a bit confusing, but more importantly, over the past few years I’ve slowly realized that making pottery full-time isn’t right for me at this stage of my life. After 20 years of working outside with plants in the light, moving around getting exercise, my mind and body have come to expect that from me, so I really missed it (and it took me a while to surrender to this knowing). I’m still making pottery, just in smaller batches, and I get to go back to my roots and work with the plants in a way that feels super fufilling and good.

My first plant job, Reems Creek Valley Nursery, somewhere around the year 1999. I got my worker’s permit for this job so I must’ve been about 15. I learned so much working here over the years with my mom, and many others.

Looking back through pictures of past craft/farmer’s markets I found some from when I had hit my stride with the pottery, and a few from the 2016-2018 years when I was taking produce and pottery to smaller markets. I had the right idea when I began, I just hadn’t found my niche yet, but I think I’m finally getting there..

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I’ll be popping up at local markets with pottery, native and medicinal plants, herbs, salves, and other seasonal offerings from the farm. You can find my calendar here. I’ll be doing more online sales this year as well. Stay tuned through my POTF website (and social media which you can find through my website as well)- https://www.potteronthefarm.com.

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Thanks for reading, and for sticking with me through these changes!

Planting the seeds

In October-November of last year (2022) we planted approximately 6,000+ American Ginseng seeds in the woods. A special thanks to the Catalyzing Agroforestry Grant Program that I wrote about in my first post, for making this huge step towards our. dream possible.

The first thing on our list of work was to build wire covered boxes to start seeds in. These protected nursery beds will keep the seeds safe from rodents, falling limbs, wild turkeys and other woodland happenings while they wait for spring to emerge. We elected to char our non-treated lumber rather than buying pressure treated, and we left one box un-charred to see if we can tell a difference in longevity of the wood.

I cleared an area in the woods above our house. In the winter we can see the boxes from the kitchen, and I love that. I pulled the truck up the old logging road and filled the boxes with a locally available mixture of barks and other types of compost. In the spirit of experimentation I added different amounts of native soil and leaves to the boxes to see if there is any noticeable difference in germination or longevity. After scattering the seeds I patted the soil, and added some nice leaf litter as mulch.

After a long, snowless winter, the time finally came to start checking on the boxes. It got warm early, like way too warm. Things started sprouting, blooming and hatching. It seemed like spring might actually just come early, and then we had a March cold snap. When it came I already had a few seeds that had sprouted in the boxes, so I covered the boxes all with blankets and hoped for the best. It seems like they did ok. Below is how the beds looked just a week or so after the cold snap.

This week there are lots of seedlings in the beds (I counted about 86 in the bed below. I planted close to 300 per bed so I do hope more emerge). The beds of NC Ginseng did way better than the NY seed stock, but that could be because the NY seed stock sat in the fridge a while before I was able to get it all in the ground. The seeds were all good when they went in, and I have had some germination, just not a lot, so hopefully they just went dormant again and will come up next spring. My original plan was to keep it mostly local as far as the seed stock I plant out in our woods, so maybe the seeds are just helping me stay true to that idea. I will keep hoping to see some more life in those beds, though. The grower of the plants that those seeds came from passed away early this year and he was a big deal in the forest farming and Ginseng world. I never got to meet Bob Beyfus but I would certainly like to keep a bed of his Ginseng alive here in WNC. I can’t imaging anything that would make me happier after I pass than to know my seeds were being grown and tended by the next generation.

For the rest of the year I’ll be keeping an eye on these seedlings, and all of the other plantings I’m working with. I’ll be weeding, doing invasive species removal, transplanting plants from the paths, roads and fields to the woods, making paths, marking our property line, and making beds in the forest to plant these seedlings out into next spring. Somewhere in there I’ll also be making pottery!

Emerging mature American Ginseng plant. Lindsay West. 2023. All Rights Reserved.

I am so grateful for the Catalyzing Agroforestry Grant Program, and for the support of the Appalachian Beginning Forest Farmer Coalition, OGS, and everyone involved in this important work of getting more native, woodland medicinal plants into the ground to help ease the tension on wild populations. I am beyond happy to be a small part of this forest farming movement.

dirty hands ~ clear mind

Forest Farming Beginnings

Howdy! Lindsay here. Welcome to my very first forest farming blog post!

Although this is the beginning of the blog, and of our commitment to forest farming, Matt and I have been casually learning about, protecting and propagating some of the special native, medicinal and at-risk plants in our forest since 2015. We have some nice populations of Ginseng, Black Cohosh, Stoneroot, Bloodroot, Solomon’s Seal and many others, and through good stewardship practices we’ve watched these populations grow over the past 8 years.

Every year the land looks a little happier, and this consistently feels like the most important work I’ve ever done. Hungry to learn more, in 2020 I reached out to Margaret Bloomquist of the NC Alternative Crops and Organics Program and the Applachain Beginning Forest Farmer Coalition, and asked to be put on an email list for a Woodland Stewards group that meets up monthly during the growing season. I went to my first meeting in the spring of 2022, and about a half hour into this meeting I felt like I had found my people. All of those years of slowly learning about the woodland botanicals via websites, books and videos had been fun, but to meet other people in the woods who were doing what I’d been doing was beyond exciting! During these meetings we learned about propagation techniques, record keeping, markets for different plants, and good agricultural practices. We kept beds free from weeds, transplanted seedlings, planted rootlets, identified pests and diseases, made new planting beds and collected data on plots of Ginseng and Goldenseal. I went home from every meeting more inspired, and eager to head to our woods to work.

After many fun and informative meetings with the woodland stewards, Margaret told us all about a grant opportunity designed to get planting stock into the ground in Appalachia. I’d never considered applying for a grant before but I applied and we got it! The Catalyzing Agroforestry Grant we received from the Appalachian Beginning Forest Farming Coalition, Organic Growers School and the Edwards Mother Earth Foundation has been instrumental in the work we have done since August of 2022. We’ve been able to purchase beautiful planting stock, build protected seed beds, inoculate logs, and prepare forest beds for future planting. We look forward to sharing our forest farming journey with you!

If you or anyone you know is interested in growing native, medicinal plants in the forest as a part of a farm or herbal business, for personal use, or just for fun, please check out the Applachain Beginning Forest Farmer Coalition’s website. It’s an invaluable resource.

Thanks for reading.