Following are some of the highlights of our efforts this year at Growing Wild LLC. Thanks to all our members and their donations of time and energy and material over the years.

Win-Win TimeBank

Not a lot of activity in the timebank this year. We have around 40 active members, but  most everyone is pretty busy. Most members I speak to share that they do not have much time left over to donate, although there is lots of good intentions and good wishes for the TimeBank to succeed.

I believe that most of us may have to develop new and different lifestyle choices that allow us more freedom with our time and energy, if we plan to develop things like the TimeBank and other community and people strengthening systems.
There is talk of planning a pot luck meal to encourage people to put faces with the profiles. Let Jenn, Steve or Adi know if you are interested in volunteering to help with forming this event.

Plants in the Permaculture garden areas

Beans, tomato, broccoli, and kale are great producers this year. Almost all of the dozens of tomato plants were volunteers from the mulch piles.  Asparagus is doing well in its 2nd year. Lots of lettuce from the spring yields, and lots more recently planted for the fall, including spinach, more kale, lettuce and swiss chard. Squash, pumpkin and cucumber are very prolific in my home gardens, although we are still battling some powdery mildew on these curcubita.
Nursery plants like poke berry, sunflower, Queen Ann's lace, chicory and lambs quarters and herbs like comfrey continue to thrive and contribute adding beauty, shade for new starts, structure for the beans, cucumber and tomatoes to grow on, as well as providing condensation surface area. All these plants are also excellent NUTRIENT accumulators, and are ultimately added to our mulch piles or sheet mulch. Lambs Quarters also makes a delicious side green.
 
Fruit trees over entire property
Cherry, pear, plum, persimmon, peach and fig all are thriving, although most peach blossoms were lost in the frost.  A few more mulberry trees have been discovered, along with 3 or 4 PEACH TREES located in the honey locust grove by the 2nd pond. Pear and persimmon harvest looks very promising.  Our apple trees have developed cedar apple rust, and we are looking to learn more about this.
Berries
Lots more Wine berry were located this year. They fruited well and had a very good year, and we are encouraging the newly discovered wine berry by pruning overhead, as well as some gentle clearing around the plants to let in more light. We are very mindful to not alter the space much, knowing the current conditions were favorable to its thriving. 

Growing Wild LLC Farm and Garden

During 2014, the county of Frederick zoning office was nice enough to approve our Permaculture Education and Demonstration site. This helps to put our efforts on the map. We hope to become more a part of moving the community forward by demonstrating ways to stay involved and make a difference.
We are also looking to expand our Permaculture Education and Demonstration site to other areas in the county and beyond. Keep us informed of potential sites by sharing your knowledge of any new possibilities in our area. (Unused or idle farms, empty community lots or unused rural areas that would be open to Permaculture development) 

  Water management
Pond 1

Pond 1 in its third year is thriving, although there still appears to be elevated nitrate levels that I can only attribute to all of the surrounding farmland and possible groundwater contamination. This pond, with its prolific growth of 2 types of flowering water lilies, macro algae, cattails, and such provides lots of material for our mulch piles, as we need to cull the green growth periodically. Koi, snails, dragonflies and lots of frogs stay pretty happy here, helping to keep things in

balance.
Pond 2
The new pond, perhaps 3 times the size of pond 1, is still in its breaking in phase. Although circulation and aeration were suspended for a time, we have reintroduced a pump driven waterfall system to help with oxygenation and general circulation. Frogs, cattails and some Koi have made this their home, although the Lilies do not seem to be very happy yet. Cloudy suspended clay silt still colors the water, and our thinking is once a degree of sediment forms on the pond bottom, the water should clear up.
Pond 2 was placed at the high point of the property to make it easy to help with irrigation. The overflow for the pond feeds the 1st pond. We are excited about adding a PV array to power the pump for pond 2. One of the integrated uses for pond 2 includes feeding a DRIP IRRIGATION SYSTEM, especially for the more arid parts of the garden areas during the dry season. Although watering is sometimes essential, we are just as interested in building soil and earthworks  up to the point that very little water from outside sources (e.g. pond irrigation, drip systems, well) Is needed      

 Soil cultivation in the Permaculture garden areas
2nd and 3rd year chunking gardens continue to show signs of soil improvement.
During the summer of 2014, the ‘chunking' gardens were top fed mixtures of partially composted ground wood chip/leaf mulch and grass clippings. I am always amazed at the CONTINUED improvement in yields and plant health, even though there has been no tilling for years, and no artificial fertilizers.  Very small amounts of worm tea (10 % red wriggler worm effluent/90% well or pond water) and comfrey tea have been added, but the amounts and areas treated is  relatively small.
Some areas were sheet mulched using layers of cardboard, then adding 4-6 inches of mixed compostable material. I realize the importance of keeping this mulch material moist throughout the season. The soil below will dry out from time to time, as is natural, but I like to keep the mulch moist. This allows for the worms to propagate. It is also very important to keep the cardboard from drying out, as any exposed cardboard can wick moisture out of the soil. 

Composting and food digester
Our composting systems continue to experiment and expand. We were very lucky to receive around 16 cubic yards of chipped leaves, branches and other miscellaneous material removed by the Rappahannock ELECTRIC COMPANY. This material was completely used throughout the property, and was a great boon to our top feeding efforts. This year we also began using the Bokashi composting method using EM1. This system utilizes concentrated microorganisms to accelerate the fermentation process.
 All of our sheet mulch systems essentially involve composting directly on the garden area, and we continue this throughout our gardens. Our food digester continues to devour any food wastes. The compost produced by this system is a major contributor of nutrients and minerals to our gardens. I still struggle to find a source of free, local carbon, and I have of late begun adding plain old subsoil to the mix. This appears to be helping, and adding EM 1 also helps with eliminating smells or insects.   We also continue to practice vermiculture with red wrigglers, and we have added an expanded vermiculture bed that will include common earthworms. We also have a large BARREL COMPOSTER on site, and I am also continuing to create compost piles directly on certain garden sites. Our hot compost bin is fairly idle, as we did not want to put energy or money into purchasing things like enough manure or straw to get the minimum 27 cubic feet of combined material to run the hot pile. A few more farm animals would help, as our 2 chickens cannot produce enough of this kind of hot nitrogen.