Hey! Welcome to Mountain Jewel, our permaculture homestead.

Wren harvesting Cleavers (Galium aparine) (A plant that showed up here without us planting it- sometimes the best medicine is made of such "weeds") & making a medicinal tincture in a permaculture guild of Goumi, Asparagas, Wild False Indigo and Perennial or Walking Onions.

We are Ini and Wren, a homesteading duo dedicated to Plants and Cultivating, Enjoying & Sharing the Abundance that this earth affords if we PARTNER with her instead of seeking to dominate, control or heedlessly take from.

We moved here, just above the border of central Missouri/Arkansas, 2 and a half years ago.

We'd wanted to homestead for years. It was our dream since we met. In the first two weeks of meeting at OUR Ecovillage on Vancouver Island, we were saying "No way?! You have this dream too?!?!"... Since then the journey has been winding and we tried living in a few different spots, but ultimately settled in the Ozark Mountains for the

• abundant water
• cheap land ($1000-2000/acre)
• long growing season (zone 6b)
• back to the land communities
• no zoning laws
• beauty and abundance of natural resources!

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Perennial "Walking" or "Egyptian" Onions we've established on the homestead. As you can see, they create more of themselves from the shoots on top!

When we moved here we kept our Permaculture training in mind.

I wont get into the whole story now, but we went very slowly toward establishing our plant communities. One of the first Permaculture principles is Observation-- now how would we follow that if we rushed right in?

We needed to give ourselves time to get to know the land before we jumped in with our human wills and intentions. Let the land speak to us... Listen... Observe... Wait until we had developed a relationship before implementing our ideas.

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Monarda clinopodia, our native White Bergamot (photo taken in our woods)

I think that has served us quite well. In our Third Spring here, we are seeing the literal FIRSTFRUITS of our efforts.

So much work has gone into this- to the point of running ourselves down and needing to take a step back to assess our relationships: to ourselves, each other, the land and place. I think those types of assessments are necessary in general and especially so when birthing a huge land-baby such as this!!

Here, in our THIRD SPRING, I want to share some of the beloved plant members gracing our space. They each have a story to tell and while I wont get into each of their individual benefits or intentions, I'll at least name each (look forward to some profiles on some of the herbal medicines in my upcoming Herbal Anxiety Support Posts). I hope you enjoy! If you do, please let us know in a comment: we love to hear from you!! :)

Herbal Medicines

Some of the first things I was incredibly excited to establish on the homestead were Herbal Medicines. I got into herbalism over 10 years ago and, since then, herbs have been the mainstay of how I heal myself, keep myself healthy, and share healing with others. I am a wholehearted believer in herbal medicine. Below are a few of the herbal medicines we are growing here.

Chamomile

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Lemon Balm

Catnip

Motherwort

Mugwort

Valerian

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White Clover

Many of the plants, like white clover, also fix nitrogen or serve other functions on the homestead.

"Stacking Functions" is another Permaculture idea and it basically means that in any given space, think about the multiple aspects of each plant and how it can integrate and serve multiple functions within the whole.

Wild False Indigo

Is another nitrogen fixing plant in our gardens. Nitrogen fixing plants actually have little nodules that take nitrogen from the atmosphere and "fix" it into their roots. When these plants die, the nitrogen is released into the soil. For sites with "poor quality soil" like we have on our hilltop, these plants are our major allies.

Now into the Garden

Next we enter our Annual garden. We do a fair amount of annual gardening (the plants only live through 1 season) here, although most of our plantings are focused on long-term perennial production (plants that come back year after year). We chose this focus after interning and working on Organic Farms all through our 20s and seeing HOW MUCH WORK THAT IS! It's beautiful and necessary work, but we wanted to work smarter not harder and ally with plants which will return year to year.

Snow Peas & Garlic

Gobo or Japanese Burdock

We will cultivate this for a season and harvest the long taproot which is an incredibly nutritive and tasty vegetable highly prized in Japan.

Next, there is a popular perennial vegetable going to seed within our gardens:

Asparagus

One thing we love about the fact that we observed for the first couple years is that a few natural foods have showed up in our lives and blessed us tremendously. One is our Native Persimmon. It's just leafing out.

Persimmon

Another is the Wild Grape... These grapes produced in abundance last year!

Wild Grape

Thanks for coming with me for a walk through of some of the gardens.

We love this time of year. After the chill and inwardness of winter, to step out into the gardens and embrace the LUSH GROWTH of the new year, is so rewarding! This year is especially special as we see some things we planted 2 years ago finally establishing and producing fruits and more growth!

Til next time!

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This post was written by a passenger of the #ecotrain. Check the tag often for more inspiring posts on the blockchain!