The line between life and death is thin on Easter. I once learned that Jesus rose on this day. We see this in our food forest too; it seems as if nature is resurrecting itself from winter. The trees are budding, the blossoms are blooming, and everywhere, perennials are sprouting from the ground out of nowhere. Amidst all the sowing and planting in the vegetable garden, I found time on this day to inoculate 30 tree stumps with six types of mushrooms: four oyster mushrooms, poplar clay cap, and velvet foot mushrooms.
Mushrooms are the fruit of the fungi I drill and hammer into the poplar trunks, sealed with a thin layer of rapeseed wax.
The fungi can then use the felled wood to create new life from what is dead. Magical, isn’t it? It just takes a little more patience, a year or so, and then those mushrooms will pop up like mushrooms! This gives our food forest an extra tasty addition. Once the wood has been eaten by the fungus, it can continue to decompose to nourish the soil and thus provide our trees with the necessary nutrients. Thus, the circle is complete. It feels like a blessing to be close to life and death as part of, and working within, the natural environment of a food forest.
