321. From Panic to Empowerment | Chloe Lieberman | Wild Abundance | Asheville, NC

May 24, 2020

Blog and Newsletter Writer, Instructor for Nutrition, Gardening, and Wildcrafting

Tell us a little about yourself.

Wild Abundance is more then a website it's a school, I live here and the school is here in the Southern Appalachian mountains just outside of Asheville, North Carolina

• corn
• winter squash
• sweet potatoes
• micro dairy, one Jersey cow and mostly Alpine dairy goats
• flock of ducks
• beekeeper

medicinal and edible mushroom cultivation

medicinal plants

the school that i work for is located just down the road

campus is run by my dear friend, Natalie dog walker

together

this year

we are walking on an online gardening school

teaching people all over the world

pretty much because

we love it an are passionate

afraid of breakdown of supply chains

surge and your listeners have noticed

interested in gardening

when you first start out gardening it can be

• overwhelming
• discouraging

steering them in the right direction

folks who have that inspiration can have that success and keep going

I always think it's interesting, I always dreamed of going to Montana, I knew a girl who always wanted to go to Maryland. She's like doesn't that just sound beautiful?

can really

20 acres

we have 23 acres

bigger farms in this state

piedmont

east

up in the mountains

Appalachian mountain chain in the southern part of that mountain chain. It's one of the oldest mountain formations in the world

Lots of endemic species that live here

It's a beautiful verdant jungle in the spring and summer

• temperate rainforest
• lots of rain
• gets chilly changing with climate change

A big chunk of that is wooded hillside

farm per se flatland 3-4 acres

where we have the animals

harvest timber obviously for wood heat cooking and mushroom cultivation My partner is just dedicated at working away at developing a silvapasture and nut orchard up on the slope.

I'm sure your listeners know 23 acres can mean a lot of different things if you have top soil and if it's hilly land

so we are somewhere in between

• flat for the mountains
• do grow our vegetables
• steep land marshy boggy land

That's similar where we are surrounded by doug fir forest and you can see before and after pics on our website. where he has cut the forest to build the minifarm.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

well, I didn’t grow up gardeningI grew up in the suburbs in the bay area in Northern, CA

small rural western part of the county

alternative school that happened to be a public school, was really a blessing for me and my family getting to go to a private school that was public and free

alternative

project based

interdisciplinary

open classroom

in marin

more rural part

• best friend mom had dairy goats
• made her own beer
• apple sauce

My other friends mom

• grew beautiful roses
• berries and fruits

I did have early exposure

we had a garden at my school

early childhood exposure I was drawn to plants and animals

I didn't tend my own garden till I was in college

I knew I wanted to study

• agri-cology
• environmental studies
• sustainable food systems

avid cook

vegetarain

love vegetables and cook lots

Anyone who cooks a lot has a visceral understanding of the difference of quality