First Fruits Permaculture

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First Fruits Permaculture

We are an urban permaculture orchard on one acre in Oshkosh, WI.

07/05/2025

Plums and cherries are blooming, their fragrance wafting across the yard.

Slow spring this year.

All things in their time.

24/02/2025

45 degrees outside means the garden season is on the horizon.

Local friends, please stop by annual seed swap this weekend! I'd love to say hi and chat about seeds with you.

15/02/2025

Winter is the time for soaking in books...

I love books, but I often don't have time to read as much as I want to. This year I've decided to be a book finisher when it comes to my farming/permaculture/regenerative landscaping books. That means I'm squeezing in the reading and studying a few minutes every night before bed.

This book is a two volume set that feels like a textbook, but I'm here for it. Deep diving into ecology makes me miss my college days.

We have to make space in life for the things we love. I love learning, and I love books. Both are lifelong hobbies 📚

05/02/2025

Our root cellar is looking a bit too full of a few items at this point in the winter. If local folks are interested, I'm happy to set up a pick up/delivery that works for the following items:

-spiced peach butter (think apple butter but using peaches)
-peach black currant jam
-mild salsa
-dried lavender

Please pm if interested for prices and to set a time up.

04/02/2025

The seeds have arrived! Getting the package of these from the mail is like waking up on Christmas morning.

We love . They're the primary company we order from for a few reasons:
1) they're based out of Maine, and we appreciate a northern grower of seeds
2) they label their seed varieties with supplier codes so you can know if you're supporting a small seed farmer or a larger corporation
3)they reject genetically engineered seeds
4) they support seed breeders and keepers with specific programs such as indigenous royalties and black benefit sharing

Some of our favorite varieties they carry include tatsoi, optima lettuce, Klari baby cheese sweet pepper, gaudi eggplant, and sun gold cherry tomato.

We're excited to try their Czech black hot pepper and Glacier Rose shallot this year!

30/01/2025

This strawflower sits on my book shelf and reminds me that beauty still exists.

Last year was the first year I dried strawflower, and this variety is Monstrosum Fire Ball. I picked it because I thought my son would love the color. My strawflower did poorly, as it was planted in part of the garden that was nearly drowned in last June's rain. But these blooms persisted, and I managed to dry them so they could be with us all winter. Reminding us of sunshine. Of warmth. Of brighter days when all is cold and dark outside.

The world feels cold and dark right now. Uncertainty and anxiety pound on my door as headline after headline sows discord.

But I will not forget that we had summer before, and it will be summer again. Winter is the season for planning, so plan we will. Plan, and prepare and give and support those who also feel the cold and the darkness. Because the sun will shine again on us. And we will last to see it.

14/01/2025

Seeds never stop being a wonder to me. An entire garden of food sits here in a small metal box and some jars.

It doesn't matter how many years I've done this, it still feels like a miracle. In a world full of cynicism and hate, January helps me remember that wonder and hope are still good things. I sit with my seed catalogs, garden maps, and box of seeds looking out at the icy cold, and sometimes it just doesn't seem possible.

But I remember that the seeds don't mind waiting. They don't mind the cold. They bide the time. And when the earth once again turns her face to the sun on our side of the world, life will burst forth.

Miracles and wonder and hope indeed. All kept in a tiny seed.

07/01/2025

I'm starting 2025 slowly this year. No intense goals, no tight deadlines I can't possibly meet- just measured breathing asking what is the next step.

These past few years have felt like being on a sinking ship with only a leaky bucket to bail out water. I've worried about the collapse of ecosystems (Doug Tallamy has excellent books), stressed over the state of agriculture, and wondered if I was doing enough to change anything.

Of course I am, and I'm also not. I am doing my best to steward the land I have, to bring back natives, to grow food and ornamentals in the best way for nature. But while my acre of land IS significant, I cannot be the only one. I cannot be an island. I need to understand that no amount of my increasing anxiety will make a tree grow faster. That just isn't how it's done.

So this year we are still working, still planning, still setting goals and hoping and dreaming. But I'm also letting go of the need to have my space be perfect now and feeling like I have to fix everything.

We need community. We need people working together. I am a highly introverted person, and it can be very hard to talk to people I do know about things I care about, let alone people I don't know. I gotta start somewhere though, so here we are.

I cannot fix everything. But perhaps I can take one step at a time, and trust that just like the trees, we'll grow into something lovely as well.
#2025

16/10/2024

Sometimes, you find the most beautiful plants growing in your garden.

These leeks have essentially been ignored since I planted them so many months ago. And yet, here they are. And here I am. Still here, still growing.

May we all keep finding our way through the ups and downs. And sometimes, we also get leeks.

03/10/2024

"Let's pick apples."

They didn't want to, not at first. Their reluctance makes sense- my biggest small just conquered a bike without training wheels. Why stop to pick apples when freedom awaits?

But as we went, every apple in the crate was more exciting, more fun, than the previous. Our trees are young, and this is the first year we've gotten more than a couple off of the trees. Even though there were quite a few apples lost to wasps and other insects, the pure joy of picking something we watched grow all year alongside us is a feeling I savor.

I never get tired of it. I hope they never will either.

There is something special, almost intimate about a tree, a shrub, a garden-growing alongside you. We watch the apple trees out the window in winter, judging the snow by their branches. We celebrate spring when the trees bloom. Summer is filled with walks around the tree, inspecting; we watch in amazement as this tree grows fruit. Autumn is eagerly awaited for: "when can we pick them?" I know every step of the process, and yet my joy and wonder is the same as my smalls. Every year.

Everyone should be able to grow something in their space. Something they can pick, something they can touch. Something that can grow alongside them.

09/09/2024

I've been feeling all sorts of weight lately. The days are long between caring for plants and children, and the fruit of this labor feels far away.

But then I look at my apple tree. Her branches are heavy with fruits as large as my hand, some branches even touch the ground. They are so weighed down, and yet they aren't broken. Simply waiting for the fruit to be ready.

I wonder what my apple tree knows that I don't. She seems so adept at her constantly changing state, while I am always grasping for an equilibrium that never arrives.

How does my tree do it? How does she ride the waves- the cold rest of winter, the beauty of spring, the work of summer, and the heaviness of fall without breaking?

Perhaps, because she knows that each season is only that, a season. This heaviness will soon be released; the work will be finished for now, the fruit sweet to savor. Rest will come in its time.

Perhaps we can hold on a bit longer too, knowing that this season will change as well.

05/08/2024

Today's harvest hit differently as I laid it all out on our table. We haven't had a single harvest from our annual garden close to this in three years. Three years ago I was a semi-high risk pregnancy. Two years ago we were fighting to get our daughter to gain weight. One year ago we were trying to win back our gardens that had been completely overrun with weeds and rodents.

Today our hard work paid off. Today we again see the light that this land is being healed and can feed us and others. Today we are thankful for the food that will help our bodies be strong while also strengthening the ecosystem around it.

Lately, I've been feeling tired and wondering if it's worth it.

It is. It all is. Run your race with endurance.

It's worth it.

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