Iowa adventure
This weekend Chelsea and I headed south to Iowa for two of our last farm visits this summer. We stayed at the peaceful Deep Mountain Retreat Center outside of Elkader, Iowa. The Center is surrounded by 300 wooded acres of beautiful land in Northeastern Iowa. Matthew Lang, the on-site care taker of the land, took us on a long walk to the back of the farm to show us some of the long-term projects taking place. We were most intrigued by the government-funded Timber Stand Improvement (TSI) work that Matt has been implementing. Hundreds of bushels of hardwood tree nuts have been drilled and disked into what was previously either cornfield or dairy cattle pastureland over 30 years ago. Matt has also planted hundreds of tree seedlings on the land. Now the land has group up significantly, and we enjoyed hiking through the deep woods. The work is never-ending – Matt spends many hours every week just checking the trees, staking tree tubes, and battling the deer who try to eat the tender young trees. However, the work that he has done is invaluable in that it has created a beautiful space for people and animals to enjoy and the harvestable timber gives the land significant monetary value per acre.
Needless to say, we learned a lot on this farm tour. Neither of us knew much about tree farming before we visited Deep Mountain, but much of what we learned may be applicable to the long term plan for the Carlson Land. Matt taught us about various government programs that provide funding for Timber Stand Improvement projects, even on a smaller scale than the ones he’s working on. The Carlson Land includes about 20 acres of timber which is in dire need of maintenance: buckhorn, mulberry and other trash trees currently dominate the habitat. I hope to contact the county forester to find out exactly how we could go about changing the forest composition to be a more inviting habitat and even a potential source of income for the farm in 50 years or more.
Striped-Leafed Japanese Maize - an unusual variety of corn growing in the Seed Savers Preservation Gardens. This corn grows colorful tassels and brilliant purple- and burgundy-striped leaves.
After our tour of the tree farm, Chelsea and stopped at Seed Savers in Decorah, Iowa. Seed Savers is a non profit organization that aims to collect and propagate a wide variety of flowers and vegetables. The organization started out saving seeds in one of its volunteers’ basement, but quickly grew as more people began sending in their heirloom seed varieties. Many of their seeds were brought by immigrant families, some dating back to the 1800s. Other varieties were selected by Native American groups and sent to Seed Savers.
The Seed Savers garden and Deep Mountain were very different farm tour experiences, but we learned a lot at each site. We’re excited to begin the discussion about developing the Carlson farm’s forested areas, and also to incorporate more heirloom varieties in next years garden.
Buckets of seed line the shelves and walls inside of the Seed Savers climate controlled seed bank. Hundreds of thousands of rare seeds are store in the vault and propagated on a regular basis to collect fresh seeds.
Pollination is an vital component of the work at Seed Savers. Bees are pulling their weight in this photo, but many plants must be isolated from insect pollinators and pollinated by hand to preserve their unique genetic qualities.
According to the Seed Savers catalogue, hollyhock flowers like the ones shown here were traditionally grown near outhouses to indicate their location. This flower's name is particularly fitting: Outhouse Hollyhock.
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