Tag Archives: Saint Andrews Forest Farm

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September 5, 2024 – Continuing to clear the road and Shrimp of the Woods

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Cutting back trees that have grown up through the roadway on the north side of SAFF.

We couldn’t wait to get back out to clear some more trees from the roadway. We used the chainsaw, loppers and the string trimmer to clear out another chunk of the road. This time we made it just past the culvert with the shoe lasts. We were pleased and exhausted. The road is covered with leaves, pine needles and other forest debris so we keep pushing the debris aside with our foot to find stones underneath. It’s a compacted dark gray stone just like our driveway up top. The roadway goes along the northern boundary from the top clearing to the back line near another road. It stretches for acres and gives us truck access to the whole farm. A man stopped by a few weeks ago and said he was a member of the family that owned the property. He said the road ran all around the farm and also mentioned tobacco was grown on SAFF. It’s almost all forest now. We hope to figure out where the tobacco was grown. We’ve been bringing our homemade compost out to the farm to nestle in our new plantings and nourish the soil.

Ferns and trees have grown up through the roadway for more than a decade or two.
Our newly planted fig snuggled in with our fresh compost from our wormery at the house garden.

We also checked our lion’s mane experiment right off the clearing. Last fall we inoculated beech logs with lion’s mane mushrooms and yesterday we saw the mycelium creating something that looks like it may be what we hoped for.

Inoculated logs with lions mane spawn. We will keep a close eye on these logs after every rain.

Then we took a walk around and found Shrimp of the woods, Entoloma abortivum, a choice edible mushroom down by the waterway at the bottom in the pawpaw patch. We found it last year in the same spot. These are early and we expect much more with the next rains. The temperature is perfect for mushrooms. We are waiting on rain.

These are delicious treats we sautéed for 25 minutes in a pan with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and we had them on our salad for dinner.
The texture and appearance is like shrimp and the taste was scrumptious.

We also continue to forage for pawpaws on public land to and from the farm. We found three more fruits yesterday. Each one has been a tropical delight tasting of mango, banana with hints of caramel and vanilla. Even better, they are full of seeds we are going to plant to further our pawpaw grove and increase production by adding more dna and, in the long run light, to the area.

Pawpaw seeds
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September 2, 2024 – Labor Day at SAFF

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Sourwood, Genus Oxydendrum, sometimes called sorrel tree is native to Eastern North America. The honey that bees produce from its nectar is sought after for its health benefits and taste. The leaves are edible and have a laxative effect. The Cherokee people used it for seasoning soup and meat, as well as a medicinal tea from its leaves. They also used the shoots to make arrowshafts.
Sourwood leaves

Yesterday was a lovely day at SAFF. It’s gotten cooler and feels much like fall all of the sudden. On the way over, we stopped at the pawpaw patches and found about eight more ripe fruit. Each one has 10 to 14 seeds inside in two rows. We probably have several hundred seeds. Some we have already planted in pots to overwinter outside and cold stratify in nature. Others we have cleaned and placed in a container in the refrigerator to cold stratify for 70-100 days and then we will plant. We will determine best practices from our experience but we hope to add many more trees next year. We are excited to use these to sprout new trees for our pawpaw grove that hasn’t been productive for us yet. While down in the pawpaw patch, we noticed the Sourwood tree. We have quite a few of these down by the main waterway at the bottom of the slope growing, in some cases, right next to the pawpaws. We are still thinning out the forest in every location to allow more light in and room for our trees. We are especially doing this around our older pawpaw trees to encourage production of fruit.

The roadway we found on the north side of SAFF.

We went out to the northern edge and found where the road began and we cut back small trees growing up through the rocks of the road. We cut back grassy areas. We cleared everything we could easily. We got a third of it cleaned up except for the largest pines we will have to use the chainsaw to remove. We imagined this would take us much longer to clear. We were beyond thrilled to get that much accomplished in one swoop.

The roadway will make it a whole lot easier to farm on the north side.
Turkey tail, Trametes versicolor, on the north side. A common polypore found throughout the world. It’s a medicinal mushroom that’s full of antioxidants and other compounds which fortify our immune system, maintain healthy gut bacteria and support the treatment of certain cancers.
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September 1, 2024 – Pawpaw Foraging

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Pawpaws found today.

After a busy week, we wrapped up a few local chores and errands at home in Staunton, and started the holiday weekend Friday morning with a specific mission. Inspired by our visit to a local nursery last weekend, we hoped to find ripe pawpaw fruit in the wild. In particular, we wanted to collect some wild fruit to eat, and also collect the seeds to grow new trees with and bring novel dna to our pawpaw patch. We are saving all of the seeds from our fruit and we are going to plant them at the farm. A dedicated search on the iNaturalist app showed us locations along our route from home to the farm in Buckingham County where pawpaw trees, flowers and fruit were observed and identified. Some of the observation sites along or near our route were private land, so we ruled them out. But we began to notice the pawpaw trees by the side of the road as we drove to and from the Farm. Especially where rivers, creeks and streams crossed the road. We saw Black walnut trees and many pawpaw trees. Having tried a couple ripe pawpaws last weekend, we figured it would be worth stopping to take a look if we saw accessible, fruiting pawpaw trees. They fall off the tree when ripe. So far, we have found about 20 in various stages of ripeness. A few were so far gone, we had to just plant them in a pot. We have at least a hundred seeds now and we have them stored in the refrigerator. We’ve also gotten to eat a few of these creamy, tropical-tasting native fruit.

Pawpaws we found yesterday.
The seeds we are saving. We will cold stratify these in the refrigerator for 70 to 100 days and then plant these in deep pots to accommodate their need for a long tap root.
A turtle we saw working on his mushroom dinner.
Amanita flavoconia, Yellow patches. Found along Mary Banning Way.
The pawpaw patch.
Our Concord grapes we just harvested.
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August 22, 2024 – Trail blazing and Mushroom foraging on the North side

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Hard to see black trumpet mushrooms growing near oaks and pines.

We went over and created more trails on the north side yesterday. We were rewarded for our work with wonderful weather and about two pounds of wild mushrooms. The temperatures in the 70’s made for a wonderful day to be outside. We found several new large Black trumpet patches as well as Cinnabar chanterelles and Ghost chanterelles. We also found a Lilac bolete, Amanita banningiana and an Old Man of the Woods. We joked our basket was full of Halloween colors.

Our basket from yesterday with lots of black and orange mushrooms.

We brightened up the paint on our boundary markers and widened our trails. We cleared a bit more from the road. We stood in awe of the beauty of the forest, the quiet peace to be found there with the trees and the network of mycelium that supports it all and sends up these colorful and wonderful fruiting bodies. We feel grateful and blessed by our surroundings.

We got home and cleaned up our mushroom bounty and dry cooked them for some minutes to cook off the water we used to clean them. Once dry, we added butter and olive oil and salt pepper and garlic. We saved most of these mushrooms but used a small amount for our white pizza for dinner. It was scrumptious!

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Cooking with mushrooms

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We’ve learned to thoroughly wash our mushrooms from the farm and to bring home as little dirt as possible to begin with. Trim and brush them with a mushroom knife if possible before putting in our basket. Once home, we soak them in water and also run under water and then use a towel to wipe them. (If from the grocery store or market, the mushrooms will not need cleaning usually. )

Heat a skillet to 7 and put the mushrooms in, letting them dry out somewhat by cooking gently for a moment or so. Don’t let them stick. Add olive oil or butter when needed to prevent the sticking and add white wine to deglaze if necessary. Try to be gentle and keep them intact. Make sure to cook them at least 10 minutes but we go 15 or so. You can’t really overcook them. Then, either save your mushrooms in the refrigerator to use within a few days. Or, freeze them like this until you are ready to use, for up to a year. Thaw them in the refrigerator.

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August 16-17, 2024 North side Mushroom Hunt and Trail Blazing

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Chanterelles harvested from northwest corner of SAFF on Saturday.

We had not explored the north side in months and decided to spend this weekend making trails and looking for mushrooms over there. We are sure glad we did. With both days added together, we had about three pounds of mushrooms.

Friday’s wild mushroom harvest from the north side of SAFF includes three different varieties of chanterelles and indigo milk caps.

We started off down Mary Banning Way and found multiple types of boletes right along the path.

Retiboletus ornatipes, Ornate-stalked bolete, an edible mushroom found in multiple spots on SAFF.
Leccinum testaceoscrabrum or Leccinum versipelle was found along a hillside. There were hundreds. Edibility is suspect.
Boletus auripes, Butter-foot bolete
A young moist bolete frostii found along Fern Trail with amber colored drops sweating from the pore surface. This is a process called guttation.
We also found this interesting black staining polypore on the north side.
Hydnellum spongiosipes, Velvet tooth, found in multiple locations around SAFF.
We found this roadway along the northeast corner of SAFF. It was graveled. We began to clear small trees and vegetation from the roadway.
Golden Reishi, Ganoderma curtisii, a wood decaying polypore found along a wet weather gully on the northern side of SAFF.
But we mainly found chanterelles. These Black trumpets were surrounded by pines.
These Cinnabar chanterelles were everywhere along the southeastern facing slope in the northeast side of SAFF.

We have a lot of cooking to do with these choice edibles.

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January 17, 2024 New Trail cam videos and the First Snow at Saint Andrew’s Forest Farm

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We got a new trail cam in December which we placed about 5 feet off North Trail just 10 feet away from the clearing. We kept it there for a few weeks. We had trouble viewing the videos collected and were relieved to see it does work. These three were recorded in late December and early January. Today we moved the trail cam down by the waterway at the bottom of the slope. We will check it next week.

Cat hunting around the stumpery.
You can hear something walking around. We have a still shot of glowing eyes behind the tree to the right. Could be a possum.
A squirrel hopping around the stumpery.
It’s a winter wonderland at SAFF. We were excited to come out and look for animal footprints. We saw deer, squirrel, rabbit, cat and dog prints in the snow throughout the farm but most notably up top. A few deer prints deep into the woods.
This is just about the view of where we placed the new trail cam today. We hope to see animals. We saw deer prints down here today in the snow.
The view where the new trail cam had been for the past few weeks. Today it is covered in snow and we didn’t find any tracks.

The shed stayed dry and we continued fire blocking today.