Bean Mountain Farm Plants

Winter strips the leaves off trees and turns the grass from green to brown. Gardens are mostly barren. Only the most hardy plants remain.
At owls knob, even without water this summer or any attention during fall or winter, a few plants seem to always persist. Kale is the main vegetable. I posted back in fall about how kale is an amazing food. It grows despite drought and even keeps producing green edible leaves through most winters. This year has been mild so far and my kale is still flourishing. I was delighted to pick delectable fresh greens to spice up my burrito last weekend!
Herbs also persevere through the winter months. I once had an old rosemary bush that lived five years and produced food all winter. I also had an old thyme plant that kept  its leaves in the snow and ice. Though they died back each cold season, it grew bigger than ever before each spring.
This year oregano is my herb. Underneath the blown leaves I find hairy oregano leaves hiding. It is nice to flavor pasta with fresh oregano in January!
But I can not take credit for these herbs and hardy vegetables. The plants I grow from seed rarely last long, grow big, or produce in hard seasons. The plants in my garden that thrive are all from Bean Mountain Farm.
Bean Mountain Farm sell small and large plant starts every spring. They always have a booth outside the Ozark Nature Food Co-op on different weekends in spring. This year some of their sale dates are March 24, April 14 (Owner Appreciation Weekend) and May 12, all at ONF. Their annual Mother's Day Sale always inspires me to finish planting before the cool spring weather expires. I have bought plants from the Walmart plant department or from Lowes with much less success. Often the plants I buy from these big stores are half the price as local plants. But when the plants dies and all my money is lost I realize that investing in quality plants is very important! Something about the Bean Mountain Farm plants is special. They live a long time, grow bigger, and are very hardy. When preparing your garden this year, consider buying your plants from a local farmer!

Food and Water

   The garden at Owl's Knob, which has been neglected, is still producing kale. The leafy vegetable doesn't mind a light freeze and can almost grow year round. Though it's leaves will become skeletal in summer as Japanese beetles feast on them, they regain their composure in fall and leaf out again. It is an easy crop to grow in sun or partial shade and it doesn't mind a drought or heavy rain. I would say that kale is the ultimate apocalypse vegetable!
    But how do you eat it? Though I like snacking on its leaves raw or adding baby leaves to a salad, not everyone likes the strong flavor. Kale is great steamed along with other sweeter vegetables like squash or carrot. But my favorite way to cook kale is to saute it with soy sauce and oil or butter. This can be done in a stir-fry or by itself. Either way, it is important to not burn the kale leaves. To prevent burning you can add a splash of water, wine, or soy sauce. Keep the vegetables steaming more then frying.


The well at Owl's Knob, in which the water is 100 feet underground, is not functioning. Either the 12 volt pump is clogged, or the water table dropped. But the system is not working. However, the spring in the holler is still flowing. All throughout my life I have been drinking from this spring. At ONSC I ask children if water coming straight out of the ground, spring water, is clean. They always say no. When I tell them that the typical backpacking water filter uses clay to filter river-water, they are puzzled. But only then do they accept that the water, filtered by the clay in the ground, might be clean.
    Deep in a gully there is a mossy spring, shaded by maiden-hair ferns and old magnolia trees. The water comes trickling out of the bedrock, flowing over a slab of limestone and dropping into a sink hole that leads to Terrapin Creek, a tributary to the headwaters of the Buffalo river.
    To retrieve water from the trickle that hugs the bedrock, you must take a leaf and a rock. The leaf is placed in the stream of water with its steam hanging just over the bedrock's ledge. Then the rock is placed on top of the leaf to keep it in place. Thus, a spout is created, and the trickle of water, seeping over the stones, is launched into my jug.
Patiently, I wait for the gallon to fill.
It is like waiting for kale to grow.
Slowly but surely, nature provides.