Nanabush Food Forest Stories

We have established two food forests in Ottawa, Ontario, one is affectionately known as the "Basecamp" food forest (and happens to occupy the front/back/side yards of my house, while the other is the "Flagship" food forest being established at the Just Food Farm in Blackburn Hamlet (east Ottawa), for use as a working food forest example for public tours and workshops.  Though these food forests are both very young (Basecamp is 5 years old, Flagship turns 3 this year), they are starting to be very productive.  Each year they will produce more and more food as the plants and trees...

It's that time of year again in the food forest, where temperatures and humidity hit just the right point to cause a flush of spring mushrooms.  So exciting!  Shiitake logs are in full flush, as the newly planted vegetables establish themselves in the soil and fruits and nuts develop on the trees and bushes.  We've got some blue, pink and pearl oyster mushrooms queuing up over the next few months, along with some reishi logs established last year which we hope will produce their first flush this fall. 

Our mini experiments are underway.  We've build five small compost piles to test the mixture, and keep track of temperatures.  When we initially built them, the soil temp was 40F (4C), within days, the piles reached 60F (14C) which still below our goal. We added moisture and adjusted the nitrogen/carbon ratio by adding more nitrogen in the form of organic chicken manure. Now, only a few days later, the temps have all climbed, with the hottest pile hitting 140F (60C).  Note, each pile is seated next to a fruit tree (peach, nectarine, apricot). We'll be tracking this through the winter and...

Nanabush Food Forests is a partner of Just Food (justfood.ca).  Though we don't have a plan to use the greenhouse at the Just Food farm where we are establishing our 'flagship' food forest, we are involved in a very unique project to heat the greenhouse.  Based on the same concept that we use in the food forest with our hugelkultur mounds, we are working on a project to help heat the Just Food farm greenhouse by harvesting the heat off a souped up compost pile (check out the Jean Pain composting method).  Tomorrow evening (Thursday, October 8th), I will be...

Exciting to see the cold and the rain have brought out the blue oysters!  Sad to see the summer go but in exchange we get mushrooms!