29/01/2023
Fern Creek Naturals is a natural woodland based forest garden/agribusiness located in rural south Spotsylvania County, just north of of Lake Anna. We’re located on Lawyers Road, about a mile from the entrance to Lake Anna State Park.
The woodland isn’t a huge tract, it’s just right for a forest garden- about 13 acres of hardwoods- beech, oak, sweetgum, holly and giant loblolly pines along with a scattering of Virginia pine, green briar and other natives. There are 3 small creeks running through the lot, with dozens of ferns… hence the name, Fern Creek.
Over the past 8 years, I‘ve been watching the natural cycles of growth and decay, observing wildlife and insects. All along, I’ve been adding native plants, seeding the woodland with ramps and edible mushrooms.
Fern Creek is a refuge for me, I walk the woods now and then and let the quiet woods drain the stress from me. Touching the trees, feeling the rough bark of the great Loblolly pines or the smooth bark of the large beech trees infuses me with calm.
The woodland serves another important purpose - carbon sequestration. Each acre of woodland traps and sequesters about 4 tons of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide….so, in total, the land traps 52 tons of greenhouse gases each year. the average US person generates about 16 tons of Carbon Dioxide through our daily activities.
My family is careful in our energy usage and I estimate that we produce between 40-45 tons of greenhouse gases per year; so our investment in the woodland is in a way balancing our greenhouse emissions.
Climates are ever changing, what were lush forests once is now desert, and what was dry grassland is now tropical forest. I don’t believe in blaming people, industry, or automobiles, or the Government. We are where we are, and what happened in the past can’t be changed by finger pointing or blaming each other. Now that we know that climate change is happening, we just have become more informed about what we can do to prevent things from getting worse, and adapt to the new conditions.
Fern Creek Naturals is a micro agribusiness (if that’s a thing) to leverage nature’s bounty and make the 13 acres of woodland sustainably productive with minimal impact to the woodland itself.
Please feel free to browse the Fern Creek Naturals page and website. I will update the page with pictures and news. I will build out the website and add products based on what’s in season.
More to come.
AJ
