Perennial Collards, Creating Habitat, Salvaging Plants - My Homesteading Weekend Report

Planting tree collards (a type of perennial vegetable / perennial green), creating habitat, salvaging plants and more! This was my weekend and this is something new I'm trying out. A weekly "Homesteading Weekend Report" each Tuesday.

As someone who works a full-time job during the work week, runs a business, is married with a 2 year-old son (and a daughter on the way due in May), and trying to run a homestead I don't have a lot of time. The weekend really is the best time for me to get some homesteading work done along with business work.

So I have decided to take a break from social media and steemit each weekend. I keep running out of time anyways so I figured why not just make it official! :) No more weekend posts for me--but this homesteading weekend report will be the replacement.

Salvaging Native Plants and Collecting Woody Debris

One thing I did this weekend was attend a native plant salvage event. This is organized by a local non-profit and basically we meet at a site that is going to be developed and salvage as many native plants as we can. I get to take a fair number of plants home to plant which is awesome! :)

But I also gather a bunch of wood from the forest. The wood is great for creating habitat features such as snags and I also use some of the rotten wood to make hugelkultur beds. This wood is filled with forest microbes and fungi which can help my homestead.

Along with the native plants this can really boost my homestead and help me towards creating what I call a Wild Homestead.

Creating a Wild Food Forest

This picture and the first picture in this post are both showing (from 2 different sides) my front yard. I'm slowly turning what was just a lawn into wildlife habitat and also an area to grow food. Soon there will be 2 paw paw trees and a cherry tree growing there. I already have a mulberry tree, a fig tree, a cherry bush, and 2 goumi berries plus a lot of strawberries. This is on top of dozens of native plants--some of which are edible and more to come!

I planted the ferns and other plants I salvaged. But I also "planted" some of the woody debris I collected as snags to create a more diverse set of habitat. Snags and woody debris in general are a major part of a healthy forest--my goal is to create that type of habitat in my wild food forest.

Here you can see one of the snags up close. The next steps will be to plant some more plants and finish mulching the site with wood chips. No more grass (but I will still have a lawn in the backyard)!

See all those small logs on the ground?

Those are marking the planting areas and paths around them. I want this area to be enjoyable for my family and I so I'm making nice wide paths.

I also just put in some new steps to finish one part of the paths. This way my family and I can quickly just run out our front door into the wild food forest.

This area will change a lot and I can't wait to see all the birds and other wildlife that will use it.

Planting Tree Collards

I also planted 3 brand new little purple tree collards. Tree collards are type of perennial greens and taste like a mix of regular kale and collard greens. But these collards can grow up to 8 feet tall (without pruning) and live for over 20 years!

One of my homesteading goals is to rely much more on perennial food plants instead of annuals. These tree collards are a step on that journey.

My little 2 year old son loved helping to plant the tree collards. In the picture he is sitting on a small log marking a path in front of the area I planted the collards. He is pointing to the collards.

Tree collards can only take frosts down to 20 degrees F. My area normally only gets down to about 23 degrees F but rarely (not every year) can get colder. To keep my collards safe I planted them on along the south facing wall of my house. I also put some stones around them to help while they are small. This creates a nice warm micro-climate.

I'm also putting small greenhouse covers over them this week while they adjust to being planted. I only put the covers on in the evenings and then take them off in the morning once the sun starts hitting them.

If you are interested in tree collards you can buy them through Project Tree Collards on Amazon (affiliate link).

Busy Weekend but Fun!

I also picked up a load of wood from a neighbor (for a future hugelkultur bed). Such a busy weekend but a lot of fun!

It feels good to have a weekend where I get a lot of homesteading tasks done. There is never enough time to get everything done which is why I had to make the decision to not worry about social media or steemit on the weekends. But I hope you have enjoyed my first Homesteading Weekend Report!

Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you want to learn more about the topics I covered here click on the links which will take you to posts on my website that cover these topics in detail.

If you liked this post please upvote and please leave a reply with your own homestead report! :) I would love to hear from you!