Growing food

Our gathering with Leif was wonderful. Thanks everyone for an amazing meal and loving friendship

Leif Olsen treated us to an incredible discussion about mycology.  Wow, the stuff is everywhere, thank goodness.  We had an amazing turnout and the food was divine.  Thank you Leif for sharing your time and knowledge and thanks to everyone who shared their time and delicious goodies.  Over 40 people enjoying the evening and our trash can didn't even notice.  Thanks everyone for supporting zero-waste events.  It is so kind to not leave a lot of garbage for folks to clean up.

By |2021-06-22T07:38:39-04:00June 22nd, 2021|Categories: Composting, Connecting with nature, Food, Food preservation, Gatherings, Growing food|
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Help Wanted: $20 an hour. Compost service demand is exceeding our ability!

We need help!  We have more demand for composting services than we can handle.  We are looking for someone to help us increase composting in the county.  We have about 6 - 8 hours of work a week, some flexible hours.  We can provide all the training.  If you are interested, please let us know.  We would love to help someone start their own company and help provide services we can't keep up with.  You can email us at [email protected] or call at 304-482-3062.  Thanks! Kim & John

By |2021-06-14T10:43:58-04:00June 14th, 2021|Categories: Compost Drop-off Location, Composting, Connecting with nature, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|
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Join us for a potluck on Thursday June 17th at 6 pm & and a class on about applied mycology from Leif

We will host a potluck on Thursday June 17th at 6 pm at the Cedar Mountain Canteen. Please bring a covered dish to share and your own non-disposable place setting. Plant-based meals are encouraged and all dishes are welcome. Everyone is welcome to join us. We look forward to getting together. At 6:30 pm we will enjoy an informal talk by Leif Olsen about applied mycology and focus on having plenty of Q&A about topics people are interested in. Leif Olson is an environmental scientist and educator with a background spanning ecological field research, environmental chemistry, soil health management and mushroom farming. He worked for two years as a cultivation manager at Pisgah Gourmet, a local mushroom farm in Brevard, NC and currently operates Integrated Land Enhancement, an environmental consulting and education business based in Asheville, NC.  Leif has taught all over the country about fungi, soil, plants, compost and more. He also started co-hosting the Applied Mycology podcast earlier this year, a show featuring discussions with co-host [...]

By |2021-06-07T16:22:33-04:00June 6th, 2021|Categories: Composting, Connecting with nature, Gatherings, Growing food, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|
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Moving to Conservers Members helping us create a food forest at the Cedar Mountain Canteen

Growing food organically and planting native plants and trees is one of our passions.  John and I are now part owners of the Cedar Mountain Canteen and we want the community to enjoy locally grown food so we are busy planting.  We have planted 2 peach trees, rhubarb, blueberry bushes, strawberries, and are planning on much more as the weather warms up.  We have also planted 2 Red Bud trees and 1 Dogwood in the garden for shade. We planted bee balm, a native flower.  Our dear friend Susan Sunflower brought us native Green and Golds and planted them at the base of our shade trees and also blessed us with a couple of Oconee Bells, a rare native flower. Michael Plauche of the Transylvania County Bird Club brought us 4 bird boxes for our food forest as well.  We have found nesting birds are one of the greatest forms of natural pest control. We received some gorgeous hanging baskets from some of our neighbors for the garden [...]

By |2021-04-11T08:16:13-04:00April 11th, 2021|Categories: Composting, Eating Consciously, Food, Gatherings, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Use Food Scraps|
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Seeds and plants available for our seed swap

Many thanks to Noel for putting together our virtual seed swap this year.  Unfortunately, she is unable to participate further at this time.  She is a great motivator and organizer and we are grateful for her energy and attention. Here is a list of seeds and plants we have available.  You don't need to provide seeds to get seeds. These are free to anyone who can use them.  Thanks for sharing and for helping keep seed diversity alive. Dakota Black Popcorn Little Blue Popcorn Bloody Butcher Corn (Dent) Oaxaca Green Corn (Dent) Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn Hidatsa Shield Figure Bean Greasy Cut Short Bean Jacob's Cattle Bean The following seeds are available from Tory Nergert.  Please email Torry at [email protected] if you would like any of the seeds below. If you are interested in any of the items below, please contact Kim or John at [email protected] Iris - we have a mat of them.  They need divided and you are welcome to as many as [...]

By |2021-03-08T11:21:28-05:00March 8th, 2021|Categories: Growing food, Help a Neighbor|
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Noel talks about the upcoming seed swap

Hello Gardeners, I am sure you all enjoyed the short string of sunshine we were gifted as of late. I bet you noticed as well the day length was longer, at dawn and dusk.  Time to think gardening!  Since humans have been growing food, the challenges have been numerous. With this endeavor came the saving of seeds from the tastiest and most adaptable plants. People today still are making crosses, trying to achieve variety and hardiness.  There are many facets to gardening and seed saving is one of the many. It is a challenge and every plant has its own protocol for ensuring next year’s seeds will be viable and delicious.  But we have the luxury of thousands of varieties of seeds offered to us through garden centers and seed catalogues. Many of you most likely have packets from last year or even earlier. Check out the seed viability charts and learn what seeds are still useful. It is these you can plant this season AND share! https://www.highmowingseeds.co [...]

By |2021-03-01T08:47:01-05:00March 1st, 2021|Categories: Food, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Noel Thurner|
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It is time for our annual seed swap! We are doing this one remotely.

Our last gathering before the lock down of the pandemic was our annual seed swap. I enjoyed growing some of those seeds last year. I always enjoy shared seeds and plants. They have a story and I smile when I tend to the plants and remember the soul who shared them. We have beautiful Cardinal flowers and Green and Golds given to us by friends and they warm my heart every time I see them. It is like they are in our garden, beautifying it. Noel of our Eating Consciously team, sent me some seeds out of the blue last year and we have been enjoying the Arugula and Collards since. It was so nice to receive a surprise in the mail with a handwritten loving note. Noel and I were recently discussing seed swapping and we both were thinking of how to do it during a pandemic and she suggested using the US Mail. I loved it! I think hand-written letters sent in the mail are a [...]

By |2021-02-15T09:10:19-05:00February 15th, 2021|Categories: Eating Consciously, Food, Food preservation, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Noel Thurner|
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Spring reads – as usual, it’s all about SOIL!

  A wonderful resource for home gardeners and farmers of all size:, just in time for spring garden dreams: The Hidden Half of Nature, The Microbial Roots of Life and Health by David R. Montgomery, Anne Bikle In The Hidden Half of Nature, Montgomery and Bikle start a garden in their poor soil back yard. That led directly to the need for organic compost, via giving us the history to understand microbial life in a decent soil, why their initial soil had it’s particular components, and other wonderful revelations. The next part of their journey was to review and change their diet, to support their immune systems and, in this case, prevent cancer. This includes how human bodies work and, very timely, how infection gets to humans from other animals. They talk about domestic animals and the development of targeted vaccination… covid and wild animal access to humans, for example. The next chapters move back to food, a study comparing an animal based diet (meat & cheese) and [...]

By |2021-02-15T09:13:02-05:00February 3rd, 2021|Categories: Composting, Connecting with nature, Eating Consciously, Growing food|
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NCEJN’s 22nd Annual Environmental Justice Summit (2020) registration open

Registration is open for the summit!  Looks like a great event.  John and I have enrolled and are looking forward to learning together. I took the following from their website: We Can’t Breathe: Policing, Pollution, Public Violence, and Pandemic This year, we are focusing our hearts and attention on the multiple crises that harm our communities – namely the public violence of policing, pollution, and the pandemic – and how our collective struggle can transform that harm into wellbeing for our communities.   To promote the safety of our community members, we have planned for this year’s Summit to be held online for the month of October. We will be gathering via email, social media, on Zoom, and by word of mouth to continue to practice solidarity and prove that our strength in numbers is not changed by any force! In addition to the virtual events, for the month of October, we will be asking our members and others to join in completing weekly action challenges as well [...]

By |2020-09-22T11:57:30-04:00September 22nd, 2020|Categories: Connecting with nature, Eating Consciously, Food, Gatherings, Growing food, Help a Neighbor|
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Why focus on zero-waste when there are so many more pressing issues?

At one of our potluck events (I sure do miss those), someone said to me, "Why so much focus on zero-waste?  There are more pressing issues."  I have thought of that a lot.  Of all the issues I can think of, they all are impacted by working to move to a zero-waste community. "Our goal is to eliminate the idea of waste from our mindset and to normalize a kinder existence without waste." John and I are moving to that mindset and it has impacted every part of our lives.  John and I have lived most of our life not thinking deeply about our waste.  Recycle, recycle, recycle and we were good citizens.  Items are disposable for a reason right? Well, right we have discovered.  What we discovered and what we continue to learn is that the thought of waste is privileged.  I visit the DrawDown Project website frequently, especially the solutions page.  Here is a paragraph from the page. Here, we present the individual solutions reviewed and [...]

By |2020-09-14T09:03:24-04:00September 14th, 2020|Categories: Composting, Connecting with nature, Eating Consciously, Food, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Sharing Club, Use Food Scraps, Zero-waste tips|
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