July 23, 2024 Building our first fish scale terrace and a few edible mushrooms at SAFF

Golden gilled bolete, Phylloporus rhodoxanthus, found along Hawk Trail. Mycorrhizal with hardwoods usually oaks or Beech (both are near where we found these beauties).

Yesterday we went over to do some planting in the rain. It has been raining every day or so for the past week and the ground is wonderfully moist and much greener. All along the trails, we could see white mycelium spider webbing on the forest floor. We created a new garden bed at the bottom of North Trail by laying our tree trunks perpendicular to the slope.

Tulip Poplar trees we took down and placed to help slow water run off and build our first fish scale terrace for planting and water and soil conservation.

It may not seem like much but this is a huge paradigm shift for us as we have imagined fish scale terracing our slopes for the past year and it came together just as we’d hoped. We are eventually making a space for pawpaws. For now, we will have smaller plants. The ground was soft and pliable in the rain. We practice minimal disturbance gardening to improve our soil quality, increase yields and drought resilience as well as increase fertility. So this means we dig as little as possible to keep our soil and mycelium undisturbed.

Chris busy felling tulip poplar trees which have grown up too close and tall in the forest that was disturbed 20 years ago. Many are diseased from not having enough space and light. We plan to use their trunks to construct our fish scale terraces.
King bolete found on South Trail about 2/3 of the way down. The bugs love it!
Blue-Green cracking Brittlegill, Russula parvovirescens, found along South Trail. Mycorrhizal with oak, hardwoods and conifers. Over the past year, we’ve observed these when the weather is rainy and the temperature is in the 80s.

Our new sign gifted to us from Chris’ parents who visited the farm last weekend. We love it!

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