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Featured Article!

Here's our latest article published in the Homestead & Survival blog: http://homestead-and-survival.com/how-does-your-garden-grow-with-organic-compost-tea/

Springing Into Action!

Andres & I were away for much of the winter and then some and it is so good to be back at Laughing Heart when there's such a vibrant, lively energy. And we're back in good time to pitch in with all that needs tending. Spring is a busy time on the land! As glorious as the gardens look with all the showy flowers and vibrant colors come to life after waking from the winter slumber, there is also much that needs tending. This week has been full with spring cleaning, feeding and seeding!

First, the cleaning. There are many beautiful grasses growing all around Laughing Heart, giving it such a wild feel. However, some of the grasses will become quite a chore once they have dried up and their seeds become stickers. The major culprit this year is the foxtail. Its stacked column of seeds will become dry and tenacious little stickers that work their way back into the ground, your socks and your poor dog's ears. So, we are doing our best to eradicate as much of this grass as we can through hand pulling and weed whacking, then collecting all pieces to haul off to green waste (you don't want these in you compost!). In the fall, we will likely wood chip the area then seed clover as a cover in an effort to thin the population even further. We also cleaned up the grasses around the bases of the trees (keeps them healthier) and where wildness was encroaching on the garden beds.

Andres & Logan repairing irrigation

With the days warming up, it was time to put the shade cloth over the green house to keep tender seedlings protected. The sunny days also have the plants and trees calling for more water. Andres & Logan repaired and revamped the irrigation around the gardens to fit this year's bed shapes and sizes and be sure everything is getting the flow of water needed to thrive. It feels great to have this system in place as hand watering is a big job here!

Andres spraying home-brewed compost tea

Next up was feeding time. With so many of the plants and trees in such an active state of growth, it feels like the right time to give them a boost of nutrients. We brewed up a batch of compost tea using worm castings, steer manure, fish emulsion, dried kelp and 50 gallons of water. All of this was left to bubble overnight so the tea would be full of the nutrient rich microorganisms that make the garden so happy. The next day we fed all the greenhouse plants, potted plants around the land and did a foliar spray on the orchard trees. It's amazing how vibrant everything feels after a feeding!

Simran & Hanna transplanting fennel

After all the clean-up, set-up and feeding, we were able to get to the task we'd been longing for...planting! There were lots of starts in the greenhouse ready to be transplanted. Hanna & I cleared all the flowering broccoli, past-prime peas and anything with aphids or mildew until there was plenty of space for the little seedlings. We gently turned the soil, added worm castings and a light watering before transplanting fennel, dill and peas and seeding lettuce, kale, beets and carrots into the greenhouse beds.

So many starts!

Hanna suggested we get a good head start on the next round of greenhouse and garden starts by planting lots of seeds into small containers. So today we gathered soil and amendments and filled about 150 little pots with the mix. Then we planted seeds of watermelon, summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes, green beans, dry beans, cucumbers, basil and sunflowers...wow! This will likely be far more than we can plant in Laughing Heart's gardens. The extras we will use to trade others for their garden specialties we're unable to grow here. That way, everyone gets lots of variety!

Tule planting potatoes

Oh yes, we did have one more task! For this one, we had an energetic young gardener step in. Tule (recently turned 5) offered to plant potatoes in the raised bed made just for this crop. He did an excellent job with spacing and plant depth--a real natural. Of course, he's also had years of training with some plant-wise folks.

Tule leaps off the swing

Though there's still more to be tended (always!), the gardens are looking and feeling good. I feel this is not only because the chores are getting done, but also the love we are cultivating in our relationships with each other and the land through working together and taking care of one another. And now we're ready to have a little playtime!

Hanna's First Article: A Link

Hi everyone!  Hanna here, and I am feeling very enthusiastic about my first publicly published article on the web!  Truly, I never imagined myself a writer, but I love it.  Please check it out.  This article is a picture into how it all began for us out here in beautiful Nevada County, CA.

Plant Remedies That Take Out the Sting

Bee season is upon us and I wanted to share a couple great resources I've learned about this past year living on land and close to so many nature-connected people. Two plants you may have growing near you can ease the sting of a bee, wasp and many other critters.

How Laughing Heart Told Us Its Name

I've been asking Hanna & Logan for more history on Laughing Heart and their journey with it, to get to know my home more closely and be able to share it more fully. In the telling of stories, this sweet one came to me from Hanna...

Logan and I moved onto the land in November 2004. It was spring of 2007 and for years we would find shapes of hearts inherent in the paths we walked and garden beds we made.  Logan and I felt that the journey with the land was ultimately about the heart in all ways - in form/shapes and in consciousness. The Dream of this land being a place for healing and learning was alive and pulsing, and we knew is was about Heart...so the name was something- Heart or Heart-something.  We also felt a very strong unseen presence with us on the land, so we honor the spirit of this place with our acknowledgement of those who have walked this earth in this place before.  Because we also were very much interested in sharing ideas about sustainability and growing food, we thought maybe it would be blossoming heart or blooming heart. But one day we were in the orchard area before it was an orchard, planting wildflower seed. We were cracking up laughing, as we often do when enjoying our relationship with this place and each other, and it hit us both at the same time, the name is Laughing Heart! I also think its cool that LH could also be Logan and Hanna:-)

New Light

Harish and Uma planting beets in the green house

The Energy of spring is beginning to infuse the land and all its inhabitants with fresh new life.  Each day the light is brighter and there is more and more activity.  We had a sweet visit from our friends Harish and Uma last Saturday.  They love natural living and green building and help to keep me updated on new green technologies.  They are going to take what they have learned about Earth-bag building from last summers workshops and travel home to India where they will build the first circular Earth-bag home in their city!  Harish has been working on his own simple design for a small family dwelling.  I really like to highlight them because it's a perfect example of the creativity and self sufficiency natural building inspires.  You CAN build your own home!  The dome's form seems to inspire us all to live in more beautiful and creative homes.  It's a joy to share our natural home with so many other people who have a common vision.

Vicente, Marcella, Herman & Logan

I have been working for a sweet local family using earth bags to terrace some steeply sloping land into permanent garden beds.  It's another neat way to utilize this simple and strong building technique.  The small crew of three people was just enough to keep the work flowing and our spirits high, but when we added two more folks we were flying.  Within our crew of five people, three of us were from Mexico and two hardly spoke english.  But the language barrier was no trouble at all!  With hands on work you simply show the process and clarify with hand gestures.


It took only half a day before the basic process was completely understood and we worked like a team.  This experience was very inspiring, like we could take these skills and teach anywhere in the world!  I hope this summer we get some more interns from around the globe.