Tucked away in the lush hillsides of Landenburg, Pennsylvania along the White Clay Creek is the homestead and native plant nursery ‘Green Light Plants’. Dale and his wife Carol have lived here for generations and poured their love into the Earth and community.
Human scale trials meander around a myriad of fruiting trees and native pollinator plants. The intersection of small scale intensive food production, agroforestry, and traditional earth skills intersect on this land. What’s happening here feels tangible in all the soulful ways - muddy bare toes, home baked fruit pies, and communing with sun dappled trails surrounded by abundant foods and medicines.
Diverse Berries fro the land
We pull fists of juicy ripe fruits dangling from loaded branches, our palms stained purple and red. There are an array of fruit and nut trees here that provide for both wildlife and people. This time of the year you will find nanking cherry, unique varieties of mulberry, goumi berry, and an understory of black raspberry + high bush blueberry. Food forests such as this are models for relating with Earth in regenerative ways. They sustain a healthy ecosystem while bringing countless benefits to both humans and wildlife. These multilayered gardens build soil, sequester carbon, provide shade, capture water, and provide for pollinators + all other species within our shared community. They bring back a recognition of abundance, earth culture, and connection to our more indigenous selves.
A collection from the Green Light Mulberry Gathering
Mulberries fill the trees along the trail, we stretch sheets to collect the abundance
Charlie, a resident and co-creator of the Earth works here gives a tour of his diverse vegetable plots intermingling with Dale’s fruiting shrubs and trees. We visit long rows of heirloom melons, neatly trellised tomatoes, rare varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and corn. The corn is really a spectacular example of crop diversity! Heirloom flour, flint, popcorn, sweet, and broom are all already a few feet tall in late June. The plants here are grown for food, remedies, and cultural crafting. Charlie and I trade seeds from his extensive collection, all neatly stored in recycled spice jars in Dale’s basement. He saves many of his own seeds, creating more resilient and unique genetics for the years to come.
Ripe Goumi berries, ready to be picked
We kneel amongst plantain and clover filled walking trails and nibble on freshly pulled carrots planted earlier in spring. I excitedly leave some of the soil on, knowing I too will become a part of the culture of this place. Charlie has been growing his own food for years and knows techniques for increasing production and germination in small scale spaces. He explains a technique for increased germination of carrots in which he presses one of his hand hewn boards atop the freshly planted seeds and adds amendments made on site such as biochar and communal compost. They even compost human waste ‘humanure’ on site, which is rich usable soil by year two.
Outside of the growing spaces there are dense areas of forest with species such as oak, poplar, beech, hickory, maple and walnut. In the understory I notice shrubs such as spicebush, multiflora rose, black raspberry, and native forest plants sewn by seed over the years. There are mixed generations of people here who know how to steward Earth in beautiful and harmonious ways. Dale and Carol are inspiring elders who have allowed so many to grow and learn in their presence. Our friend Nolan was working on maintaining some trails during my visit and shared with us his compassionate presence and bowls of homemade chili.
At the entrance to the forest, Charlie is building a home with his own two hands, the help of friends, and a quality collection of traditional hand tools. We observe newly stacked stone layers dug straight from the land that will be the foundation for floorboards and hand hewn beams. He explains that each one, made of fallen trees from the forest, takes an entire day or more of labor to create. He uses simple hand tools such as an axe, adze, and two person saw. He even dug a pit for sawing boards of wood the way people did hundreds of years ago. Charlie also built a primitive sweat lodge, lean-to, and tree swing on the Green Light Land. Some of his experience is from living at ‘The Possibility Alliance’ in Maine - an experimental community focusing on off-grid communal living, hand-crafted culture, and the gift economy.
His outdoor kitchen is nearby, framed with rot-resistant cedar posts. The floor is Earth burnished by bare feet walking in and out of the space. There are modern cabinets gifted from a neighbor and a small hanging candle holder with a beeswax votive. He is excited to have his younger brother who is interested in masonry and architecture come add stones to the floor this week. The whole project is a labor of love, with most of al the materials gathered for free on site.
Wooden spoon carving in the morning with Nolan’s herbal brew
Charlie and I practice using some hand planers on his countertop and learn about the shifting direction of wood grain. I’m a novice woodworker, so it’s amazing to learn the tricks of the trade from someone skilled. He expresses how the sound of the tool against the wood helps us understand the channels of least resistance. This is important for planing and carving smooth surfaces.
There are legends of the nearby White Clay Creek and the surrounding tributaries having deposits of pure white clay. It’s lovely when the name of a place matches the findings to be had there. We decided to take a hike to find out, with our rucksacks and bare toes… through the forest we went. The stream banks here are lined with all kinds of clay and stone in monochromatic shades of red, orange, and yellow. There’s even mica in the stones that gleams in sunshine as you wade through the water. Wearing no shoes makes us extra observant of all the treasures underfoot.
Hand picks are replaced with primitive rock tools for digging at clay deposits in the banks. We take a moment to dig every time we find a promising spot. Charlie recalls that Dale said to, “Turn left at the fork” to find the best deposit of clay. And so we passed around five forks before finding the Perfect white clay… I’ve never found white clay in the wild in such a pure form! It seems more refined and easy to work with for modeling and sculpture.
We sat in the stream and filled our bags while being munched on by hungry mosquitoes. The journey was well worth it. On the trail back home, we passed beautiful young hickory trees dropping smelly nuts we stuffed into our pockets. We sauntered through magical golden-hour-lit meadow filled with milkweed and prickly datura leaves.
I’m looking forward to making more pottery with the white clay we found. Process and storytelling are an integral part of the art we make. We hope to host a primitive pottery workshop on Dale and Carol’s land in the future!
We came back home to Nolan’s wonderful cooking - a big pot of well spiced chili with Eunice’s homemade yogurt. We sang ‘Cornbread and Butterbeans’ by the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Nolan farms nearby and helps out on Dale’s land. He enjoys sharing foraged teas and traveling. We talked about hosting tea ceremonies with sassafras, spicebush, mugwort, and mountain mint.
Homemade mulberry pie with leaf lard crust
Charlie and I made mulberry pie for dessert from Eunice’s preserves. She had visited the week before and her well known quote is, “If there is a jar, I’m going to fill it.” The shelves in the basement have been graced with her presence and preservation skills. The pie had leaf lard I brought from the local ‘Rising Locust’ farm. It was possibly the best pie I’ve ever tasted. We even sculpted designs of symmetrical shapes, a dragonfly, and milkweed flower on top to honor our adventures.
A frog and lily pad sculpted as a gift from clay found on the Green Light land
As evening approaches, the moon and milky way shine down onto the porch and I camp surrounded by the most beautiful drying seeds and flowering green roof. I have in my heart the presence of my extended family of plants, animals, and friends. There are moths dancing in the light, leopard slugs slithering in their slime trails, and crickets creaking in the jungle night. The resident dogs snuggle up with us in our sleeping bags. My heart is filled with gratitude for places like this. I hope more of them are created and enjoyed by all of life, Earth wants that to happen.
Sincerely, Emily
Please take a moment to visit https://greenlightplants.com to order native plants and trees from the Green Light Plants forest nursery, support their work, and to read more about their story.
Morning light at the forest edge