Making Garden Beds in the Forest

Everything is overgrown and lush around our home in this stunning Mendocino Forest. Shamrock green is so bright, its luminescence enlivens my soul after months of white winter. It takes me a while to locate my plant allies among the weeds in our garden beds – like finding treasured Easter eggs.

Today, Joey and I spent our time on the garden in front of our home in the hollows. The sun beat over our heads at a whopping 72 degrees, which is the hottest temperature I have felt in months. It was glorious to work up a sweat. As we get closer to summer, the arc that the sun travels is much higher in the sky, gliding a few hands width above the canopy of redwoods, firs, and oaks. Now is the time to plant as much as possible.

I am literally living my dream. Ever since I was in my twenties, I have wanted to live in the woods with a strong man who knows how to live off grid. Now I’m in my mid-fifties and my back aches more than it would have if this dream had manifested thirty years ago, but it honestly doesn’t matter. This is an absolutely wondrous life. Plus, I’m only supplementing our food with the garden, I’m not trying to raise children on it, as if this wish materialized when I wanted it. The Goddesses and Gods really know what they are doing. Now, the garden is a leisure, an artform to carve out a place to grow food and herbs, working with what the land and water gives us.

When we bought the property there were six 10’ x 100’ hoop houses for growing cannabis on three flattened out spots: one at the top of the property, one halfway down and one spot near the trim house (where they trimmed and dried the cannabis) that originally was an 800 square foot shell that we have converted into the sweetest cottage. We have taken down five of the hoop houses and dumped all the soil in contained areas so the perlite doesn’t leach into the surrounding forest. The plan is to put a yurt at the top of the property that gets more sun and is closer to the Redwood Highway that takes us into the town of Willits; on the second flattened out spot I want to build a wood burning hot tub surrounded by flowers that we can add to the warm water.  This site overlooks ancient fruit trees (pear, apple, fig and olive) planted by homesteaders in the 1800s, that need tending, and 18,000 acres of protected forest.

The gardens that surround the house are for food and medicine. Currently there are two beds made from fallen trees that are 6’ x 10’ feet (one with garlic, strawberries, thyme and marigold and one with garlic, Johnny jump ups, watermelon, chamomile and oregano – the latter three having just been added) a 6’ x 30’ bed full of second year artichokes and pumpkins. The next two beds will be 6’ x 40’ and 6’ x 30’. Above the garden beds will be two rows of grapes, and on the hill facing the road we will plant all manner of berries that we expect will be abundant.

We have dumped the soil onto the earth, surrounded it with grow bags, weeded it, raked in, then planted a row of artichokes (Arty Chokey Farm will be Joey’s retirement business), watermelon, corn, and sunflowers. I’m creating a cozy spot shaded with a section of the last hoop house for happy hour and morning coffee – a she shed of sorts that looks down an old logging road flanked by madrone and redwood. At the end of the day, we can gaze out at our work from a large shaded porch lit by solar lights in the evening. A single solar panel charges a string of camp lights in the house, phones, speaker, and computers. Mind you, we have no cell reception or internet, so we cannot Google at a whim but we can watch downloaded movies and still play Solitaire.

A well at the top of the property reaches us through a series of hoses for a decent shower. Propane charges the refrigerator, stove and floor heater. At night we play cards, especially a game called Shitheads that my daughter Ali and hubby Braden taught us. We are surrounded by forest when we lay down to rest and usually sleep in until the glorious hour of 8am.

I love sleeping in the hollows. The drive from the highway turnout to our cottage is along a two-mile dirt road that descends 400 feet, with sharp cliffs on the right side that used to scare me. They could make you dizzy though so I don’t look if I’m the one driving. When we bought the house, I literally heard a blade of grass ask me to be the new caretakers of this land. It felt so scary to be so deep in the woods – not to mention that it’s an old pot property that Google shows has active hoop houses which could attract the bad guys. There’s even a hidey hole behind a secret panel where you could hide 4-6 people who could be quiet and not vomit from the fear or claustrophobia. Our converted bedroom has a fire door with a lock because this is where they dried twenty rows of cannabis ten feet tall by forty feet long. Those first nights Joey felt like sleeping in a vault, because that is what it had been. Then he put in two windows, and now we sleep deep.

I love the joy, peace and solitude I feel from living close to the land. Another one hundred feet from our cottage is the headwaters of Big River, lined by a redwood forest with mushrooms like black trumpets, witches’ caps, turkey tails and more to discover. I’ve watched a bear walk by from the kitchen window, seen many deer bounding over the meadows, we gobble to the wild turkeys who gobble back. I just found a discarded large rabbit pelt under the house when I was looking for a rake, most likely consumed by a mountain lion by virtue of how tidily the cat hid their food in a pile of grow bags. Quite honestly, I was totally freaked out at first, then I got over it when Joey explained that this happened months ago. We’re living in the wild and under this house is warm in winter, why wouldn’t an animal hang out here?

In this stillness and yet busyness of wildness, I feel the realness that I want to connect with. I don’t hear the pressures from people in my life or human society at large – there’s nothing to rank or be graded on as a good or bad job. It’s just what is. This acceptance is not based solely on the lack of a to do list, because I have freedom in my days wherever I am. But here, the silence forces me to hear the quiet of my soul. I cannot commit to a predetermined daily schedule and chose instead to stitch my financial life together by piecemeal gigs and windfalls. The rollercoaster feels immature sometimes. Other times, I have allowed this inconsistency to make me feel like a failure or worried for the future that isn’t here yet.

As the clean tree filled air blows, I see the silliness of my condemnations. I am rocking on a cushioned chair with a wool blanket over my legs, affectionally called the “Joey blanket” by the entire family because it was the first present from Joey gave me. Life is good in this moment and that is all we have.

Spring on the homestead

Three feet of the road crumbled under the torrent of water rushing down the hillside. Several trees, included a beautiful cinnamon colored, 40-foot tall madrone were ripped from their roots and lay prone sideways. Joey recharged several batteries on the chainsaw to clear a path for us to drive the truck to the bottom of the hollows.

I want to learn how to operate a chainsaw and cut up the fallen madrone into chairs or rounds for serving homemade food from our gardens. The culverts await on the side of the road because you can’t bring in heavy equipment when the road is still wet and mushy. I am learning a lot about road maintenance and how it can work well with permaculture, like building French drains and water bars that move the water so it won’t disintegrate the road, gardens or the root systems of trees you want to save.

I admit, I do like feeling close to the land in a way that I can measure my take or use of power. I watch the percentage of energy drop on the solar powered battery when I charge my phone or Bose speaker, run the toaster or the camp lights. When the battery runs low, we carry the solar panel outside. We don’t have cell service so we listen to downloaded podcasts, do puzzles, work on the house or deck, or I read to him or myself. We just settle into life, listen to birds, watch the flowers grow, and tend the garden. We emptied the perlite soil of two hundred grow bags into the garden because we plan to grow the artichokes in the ground. The new wire is working great to keep out the deer. The garlic are growing and I cannot wait to try them!

My beloved sexy man and I were in the quiet of our sacred homestead over Beltane, my most favorite pagan holiday in late April. This sabbat celebrates the unbridled joy of living. It is a time to celebrate the end of winter by jumping over a bonfire, which we built in the middle of a spiral that will one day be filled with wildflowers. When we left Crowley Lake for our homestead in the hollows, the snow tunnel to the wood shed was still eight foot tall on either side. We had shoveled countless hours as the world became a blizzarding white monochrome for five months. Now, we were submersed in nature’s green bounty.

The Wheel of the Year had turned and spring had sprung in Willits. I rejoiced when I saw the poppies, iris, red clover, plantain, pennyroyal, horsetail, olive fruits, blossoms of apple, pear and fig. Even the gorgeous black trumpet mushrooms didn’t escape our watchful eye. I felt immense joy at the return of life… this separation and reconnection cannot be experience until you have lived the pain of a colorless world. Spring is such a metaphor and guide in our lives.

What are you welcoming back into your life with a profusion of life, color and strength?