Lillie House Forest Garden Tour Saturday at 1:00

This Saturday we'll be giving some free tours of our garden, with a discussion on the basics of Forest Gardening. 

It's a nice time of year to see our young forest garden, as the summer flowers have begun their show and the pollinators are taking full advantage. 

If you have questions about starting a forest garden or where to begin, this weekend would be a good time to chat about it. 

We'll also have a few plants for sale/trade, including valerian, blood-veined sorrel, marshmallow, comfrey, bellflowers, bee balm, anise hysop and a few others. If you don't have the cash or anything to trade, bring some empty pots and there might be something you could pot up and take home. 

A forest garden is a "procreative asset," an investment that replicates itself, growing wealth naturally. We take pride in knowing that our forest garden is helping to create other forest gardens, making our whole community wealthier, healthier, and less reliant on an ailing corporate system that poisons both people and nature. 

Here is a beautiful little shady garden area on the north side of our garage and on an east-facing slope. It's loaded with strawberries, mulberries, black raspberries, sunchokes, mushrooms, herbs for cooking, flowers just because, and greens like kale for daily salads. If I only had a few hundred feet of shady yard to garden and limited time to do it in, it would look a lot like this. 

Just throw in a multi-graft paw paw, a shade tolerant and virtually maintenance free fruit tree, and possibly a few more  berries, and it would be just about perfect. 

(Shingiku, "chop suey greens")

If you live west of Kalamazoo, you can also visit Rustling Knapweed Forest Garden in Lawton. We team up with PJ, who manages that garden, to provide educational opportunities and promote forest gardening. 

For more information, visit: www.vankalpermaculture.org/forest-garden-tours

To RSVP for a tour and get directions, call (269) 350-3407.