Longleaf Breeze

Every year about this time we find ourselves racing the clock to get fruit trees planted. Muscadines, kiwifruit, loquat, blueberry, and blackberry all are going into the ground, an...

This week we got our first chance to use the lodge for a large workshop. Today Amanda and I describe the coverage of the workshop, how our guests seemed to react to the facilities,...

We apologize for our failure to keep good records even while acknowledging the importance of doing so. The location of underground utility lines, plantings on Veg Hill, fruit trees...

We depend on a heat mat and a grow light to give our seedlings the heat and light they need in their early development. The program this week includes lots of tips we’ve learned al...

Amanda's pulling fall veg and planting new, the orchard is full of firewood pallets and four new golden kiwis, and we're in the middle of major work on driveways and landscaping. A...

Lots of information on the essentials for growing food, good choices for the new gardener (hint: tomatoes are not on the list), organic weed control and organic pest control. We fi...

We are dangerously late preparing firewood for next winter. How we got behind, how we’ve addressed it, what we’ve learned about different kinds of wood, and what we’re doing to dea...

Last week we explained how and why we’re storing less food than we thought we would. This week we share what we’ve learned about how to store food effectively and economically. We ...

Food storage is a constant issue for subsistence farmers. For us, the best way to “store” vegetables during the winter is on Veg Hill where Mother Nature keeps them fresh and crisp...

It’s winter here, and both Amanda and I are feeling less energetic, sleeping more, working less. Is this Seasonal Affective Disorder, or is it just a normal, healthy response to th...

We've been using the lodge at Longleaf Breeze for several months now and offer today a first report on how it's performing for large gatherings, for overnight guests, and for energ...

PV power is expensive, so we must use it in tiny amounts if we can. We don’t need the air conditioning, of course, and we do need a ceiling fan and basic lighting. But what about t...