Pj Pape

I am 68 and a half 😁 on about 2 acres in northern Florida. I relocated from CT a bit over 10 years ago to help my parents and get to know them as humans. Such a blessing, really!

The estate work is complete and I also want to age in place growing and tending my food forest. I’m about 1.5 years into this place and have been making good progress with paid help. After a Jeep vs dump truck crash 5 years ago, I’m still on the mend, yippee.

My body does not like the 6-months of dragon breath weather, so I’ll be heading back north.

I’m the tail end of the Boomers, so a young 68, and I have to believe that there are some adaptive ways to keep planting, harvesting and preserving.

While I am not looking forward to packing again, my body will be happier in four seasons. I can’t wait to see the pearls of wisdom to drop along with cautionary tales!

This showed up last year, too. I’ve owned the property since 2015 and for 2 years, a couple with pigs and chickens lived here. The pigs would not have been able to reach the mystery shrooms in Bunnell, FL.

I have many root knots ( nematodes?) and zip for topsoil. Holy moly is it ever different from gardening in CT!

This is my first year mushing. I’m open to suggestions!

I have wine cap and blue oyster blocks in the fridge.

I got a good 100 rejected bricks (poor things!) from a construction site. They were enough to pave the walkways between 4 raised beds! It was a lovely finishing touch.

For a quick hit with kids, have them start a few nasturtium seeds on the first day. They germinate quickly, have brilliant colors and the flowers are edible. It could work into your curriculum nicely. It’s so important for kids to learn about growing their own food. I love what you’re doing!

It's easy to overlook the somatic elements of disease, particularly autoimmune. I was Dx'd with MS in 2000. I was a 'good' MS patient for about 9 years, depressing my immune system with injections. My health kept going down the crapper. I experienced a spike in symptoms and, thinking this might be the big downhill slide, I spoke with a counselor about developing better coping strategies.

She asked for a list of my symptoms and shared that every-single-one was also a symptom of Lyme disease. She referred me to a Naturopath who was Lyme savvy. I made big changes in my diet eliminating wheat, cow dairy, soy and corn and began to heal my gut and support my immune system. Fifteen years later, I haven't had a single flare-up and boy-howdy, the stressors which used to send me into a physical tailspin have been ever-present.

I'm feeling pretty spiffy when along comes some serious family drama involving wills, estates and the like. I do not even recognize the person my family member has become, nor what she's been willing to do. I've had a number of figurative gut-punches and there are some things I'm having difficulty swallowing, releasing, stomaching. So what happens? My gut starts backing up, significantly. Like 15lbs worth! I looked like I was smuggling a basketball!

None of my usual goto flow methods were working. I was practically doing a colonoscopy prep to no avail. My Dr even ordered a PET scan of my belly looking for tumor(s). What the Radiologist found was 'copious amounts of fecal matter' - how fun that must have been to write in a report! I knew I was fulla $hit!

What worked was looking into why I'd felt gut-punched, what was it that I couldn't 'digest' or stomach, what I had to let go of, and some energy work.

Our bodies, minds and emotions are absolutely connected. While I continue to eat a cleaner diet, make my own personal care and cleaning products, I am now even more wowed by that connection.

Oh, and my cat's new favorite place to lounge is across my belly. The purring vibratory rate is a marvelous healing frequency.

Any system resets in my future will absolutely require a dive into the somatics.

I have used curvy terra-cotta roofing tiles  with some success. After a few years, they worked their way lower into the soil. Pretty idea!

I grew up in a small shoreline town in central Ct in a house built in the 1740s. It was downtown on the Boston Post Road in the historical village area. I could not kill mints or keep them from spreading, same with chives, garlic chives and borage which is a self-seeding annual with lovely lavender flowers both edible and medicinal. The escaping mints and chives made mowing the yard an uplifting experience! I did not try to kill them, they simply thrive on neglect in poor soil while retaining the soil.

The front yard was poor soil but plantain and dandelions were also super-survivors. You can make a great salve from both which helps soothe leaf raking blisters! They bloom at raking times, such a wonderful buddy system!

The foundation garden boasted copious varieties of daffodil. Paper whites, grape hyacinth and hellebore - all bulbs and all multiply so you can save money dividing them and brightening up other spots around the property. There is nothing like the scent of lily of the valley with pretty white bell flowers! These will also spread in poor soil. Poppies will also multiply and adore sunny, poor soil areas. Day Lillies are prolific bloomers and deer resistant. You’ll notice them blooming along many roads, so they are getting zero care in poor soil and they also multiply!

Impatiens are super annual color pops in shady areas as are violets. They’re great set it and forget it annuals. The more delicately sized violas can take the full sun and will also spread into the lawn areas giving you great patches of pale colors and less to mow. When the flowers quit, you get green, green, green! These are all generally available in local nurseries.

The backyard had been grazed by cows long ago who were kind enough to distribute fertilizer. Make friends with a local farmer. They’d likely be happy to share the abundance of good stuff, the management of same is a chore for them. Look for local CSAs. They may have cows!

We were near enough to a tidal river and the house had been built atop a 3,000 year old kitchen midden. Oyster shells worked their way up so there was no need to spread lime.

You could go to about any seafood restaurant and ask for oyster and clam shells. A word of caution - they are stinky. A neighbor decided to pave his driveway with oyster shells and though he told me they’d been cleaned, my eyes practically bled for 3 weeks. A reasonable approximation of the stink duration.

Many of the above bloom before the trees leaf out and the leaves raked into the beds are home to many pollinator precursors over the winter.

The master gardener classes offered by the UConn Ag Extension centers are the bomb! They also have master gardeners on tap to troubleshoot horticultural issues.

I often traveled with a plant-rustling kit. I could help myself to what grew abundantly in poor conditions, practically thriving on abuse and neglect. If you keep your eyes open and notice what is blooming when along the roads, you’ll see evidence of what grows well in the space you want to spruce up. (see what I did there 😎)

We never bothered with a compost pile. Instead, we made direct deposits of scraps straight into the ground and developed a robust soil system. We let the bugs, bacteria and rhizomes do the heavy lifting.

My rule of thumb is to observe light, shadow and whatever is already growing for a year before making any big changes. Your patience will be rewarded handsomely!

I've just received an email letting me know my payment has been processed for this super-duper bundle. I 'clicked here' and the link brings me to the bundle-for-sale page.

How do I access my purchase, please?

You might be a permie if you travel with a plant rustling kit.

You might be a permie if you slow down to get a better look at what others have pitched at the curb.