Slow Life | Starting our First Garden, Foraging Edible Plants on our Land, First Spring Rains, Ep.18

These last weeks have finally become warmer. After a long and cool spring, it feels so good to work outside without having to wear multiple layers of clothes to keep us warm. We also started foraging wild food on our land high up in the mountains where we live. It’s a passion for us to find ways to integrate in our meals the edible plants that we’ve found lately. Also, our garden beds are taking shape. We are quite beginner in the gardening field so we stay humble with our expectations… But Hügelkultur is the technique we chose to use this year so if we get good results, we’ll keep these garden beds going!

Hope you enjoy this short episode. We’ve been very busy working outside lately so we’re slowly catching up with our content..

Thanks for being here with us.

Sending lots of love your way!

Émily & Travis

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#cabin #simplelivingcabinvibes #alone #cottagecore #cottage #spring #cabinDIY #simple #slowlife #mountainlife #slowliving #intentionalliving #medicalmedium #gardening #slowlivinglifestyle #springtime #simpleliving #mountainliving #slowismore

Music from #uppbeat used in this episode:
Tethers by Light Patterns
Early Hours by Justin Lee
Con Toda Mi Alma by Dan Barracuda
La Plage by Dominique Charpentier
Buda by Dominique Charpentier
Mountain Pine by Corals

[Music] Hello everyone, we finally received some spring rains lately which made us rejoice because it meant that the warmer season is finally here! If you have been following our adventures in the past weeks, you know that we hadn’t planned to be here for springtime as we were supposed to travel down to Central America and to come back just before summertime. But life had other plans for us, which we totally surrendered to, so here we are at our beautiful mountain property working on our land so we can build some vegetable gardens this year. If you’re new here, welcome. We are Travis and Émily and we live in the mountains of Colorado. After a long winter, it feels so good to spend some time outside and to start working actively around the house. We’ve been speaking about having gardens for years now but never had the courage to start as we knew that it would be a demanding project. In high altitude, temperatures fluctuate a lot, we live in a dry environment where we get hail every two weeks or so, we also have violent winds and we have lots of wildlife roaming around like bunnies, mooses, deers and the neighbours goats. So all of this felt like huge difficulties to surmount. But hey, in life if you never try you never get any result. So I just started working on the garden where the previous owner, 20 years ago, used to have a geodesic dome that collapsed years before I arrived here. So there is a seeming structure that is still there that we will use to create hügelkultur gardens. Let’s see how it will turn out by the end of the summer. [Music] We’re going to put them back in the soil. [Music] It’s starting to rain. I think I’ll continue until it’s very… it’s pouring very strong, so. Yeah, I’m going to put some rotten wood at the bottom of that hole. [Music] I forgot to put compost in there. All right. Okay I just worked in the garden for hours and I finished one raised bed garden. Um, uff… I’m pretty tired right now. Yeah. I put some um, rotten wood at the bottom, some twigs and then some mulch, and then our compost, and then some old soil and then new soil. And the goal with the hügelkultur is that the bottom will decompose eventually and feed the ground. And same with the compost, the mulch, everything. And then it kind of feeds the whole raised garden over the course of the year. We will of course, like, put some nutrients in there during the summer but, yeah, it feel satisfying. It’s the first day that it’s kind of warm enough to be outside. It’s been between minus 3-4°C to 2-3°C, like all week. It’s been a pretty cool spring so we are this week going towards something a little warmer, so we’re very excited so we can spend some time outside, maybe go for a walk, start foraging a little bit, there’s some dandelions out, so. Satisfying day guys. Happy to share that with you all. And now I’m going to go eat something because I’m hungry. [Music] [Music] With the rain that we have received this week came lots of life. Every year when spring comes in, we become aware of the infinite variety of wild food and medicine that Mother Earth is offering us. The first week of bloom already presents to us multiple kinds of greens that we can consume and integrate in our diet. Dandelion is one of them. This makes for a great health celebration as these wild plants are full of vitamins and nutrients and they are perfect for great natural spring detox as well. Also I feel to mention how much joy this brings to our lives as we wander in nature and re-discover plants that we already know and deeply love. I think our industrialized society has brought us away from a true deep connection with nature and learning to know our land again has been one of the most healing and wonderful adventure we’ve been through in this life. For both of us, it has contributed in developing a deeper and much more refined intuition, a better health and it also gives us a deep feeling of gratitude for everything that is so generously offered to us. I just found a very beautiful raven… raven’s feather. [Music] I found some Uva Ursi for tea. I got these prickly lettuce leaves, very young cuz when they grow they’re not so edible anymore, but they’re… For what I’ve read, are the ancestors of the lettuce that we know today, you know the garden lettuce has this kind of bitter taste a little bit. That’s what it is. Mhmm. I absolutely love that at this time of the year. And they’re going to be on for probably at least another month cuz it’s a weed, it just grows everywhere and we love to put them in our salad, it’s so delicious. And look at this day! [birds chirping] [Music] What a beautiful day! -Some trails are not exactly out of snow. -No. -It’s the first time we go in our forest this year, heh? -"Oui". -First time without snowshoes. How does it feel? He’s happy guys. -He’s happy guys. [Music] Can you hear the birds in the background? It’s like chirping? It really smells like spring, it sounds like spring and it’s the first time that we come to our spot without our snowshoes since… it’s been probably 6 months. It feels very good. The moment that the sun is down, it gets pretty cool so we’re going to go back home at high speed. Try to… I will have to stop because of the attitude and the fact that I’ll be out of breath but anyway. -What did you find there? -Evening primrose. Oops! The roots are edible. And they have to be dug at this time of the year because after they become too uh, woody. the roots. We you got our first evening primrose root. I’ll put it in our soup tonight so, it’s exciting! Starting to rain. It’s getting cool. [crickets noises] [Music] We got some kind of minestrone soup with white beans and there’s the whitetop mustard in there, there’s the evening primrose roots, plus the dock leaves so that’s a bunch of wild free food that we integrated. And Travis is eating some pesto that is made with garlic mustard, also a wild food, and he also has has some wild mushrooms in there, plus some, uh, wild little whitetop mustard. -Yep and quinoa pasta. It’s incredibly delicious. -Yeah it’s all gluten free. Plus we’re having actually with that like a little piece of bread toasted, it’s gluten-free millet bread that we made of course. Is it going to be good? Going to be delicious. "Vraiment délicieux." [Music]