Nanabush Food Forest Stories

If you have ever gone wild mushroom foraging, you are probably aware that these wild treasures have their seasons.  Many favourites flourish in rainy autumn temperatures.  However, one of the earliest mushrooms is a delectable spring mushroom known as the Black Morel mushroom.  Hunting morels in the wild takes an extremely keen eye.  They are often overlooked, because they are so well camouflaged into their environment.  Animals like to eat them and no doubt hunt them out partly by smell.     To take the guesswork out of the hunt, we have just established several black morel patches in our...

In fact this post is not about my bridge-grafting operation to save a Clapp pear tree that was ringed by mice over the winter… In our recent organic certification inspection, the conversation came around to what tree seedlings were growing.  Along came a proclamation from someone that they “will never grow butternut”.  I can only assume, this is for fear of the dreaded butternut canker that can inflict trees.  This is in fact why we started a whole bunch of butternut trees from seed last year.  We are happy to be a part of the Butternut Rescue team, and hope...

The rhubarb patch keeps on giving this year, and sparked the start of our annual preservation efforts.  We’ve created some wonderful low and no-sugar fruit spreads, in limited edition batches.  I am proud to offer these alternatives to conventional jams.  Our fruit spreads contain only a fraction of the sugar, and do not leave you with that ‘furry teeth’ feeling.  When you take out all of that refined sweetness, you experience the real fruit.  We will be bringing them to the Just Food Farm Stand (at 2389 Pepin Court beginning July 7th). In my humble opinion, the vanilla-ginger rhubarb combination is...

Though not quite a perennial in our part of the world (Zone 4), certain short season types do grow well here. There are many benefits to this delicious tuber. Due to last year’s success, we are setting up to grow Covington sweet potatoes again. We cured even some small potatoes so that we can use them to propagate this year’s batch. 1) Easy Keepers: When properly cured, they will easily keep through the winter into May at room temperature, with no shrinkage or loss of flavour. 2) Nutritional Powerhouses: Loaded with Vitamin A, beta-carotene, fibre and anti-oxidants, and being a...

Will this winter ever end? While we wait for the snow to melt (and collect some tree sap for a few jars of syrup), we have yet a few more successes with some additional varieties of mushrooms. One of the gardens most impressive mushroom goes by several names, but we call it King Stropharia. This winter’s indoor culture yielded some nice sized mushrooms, but in the great outdoors, as a companion and collaborator with your sweet corn, this mushroom can grow to have a cap that is 18″ in diameter! Now that is a lot of mushroom!