After dancing, Kayla and I headed over to Heartwood to peruse some Appalachian crafts (and to eat some lunch). But we got sidetracked on the way by a sign bound to tug any homesteader astray: "Plant sale."

The Virginia Highlands Community College has a large greenhouse system, and they were taking advantage of visitors attending the Virginia Highlands Festival to show off their space (and to move a few plants to new homes). At 25 to 50 cents per plant, I splurged on about a dozen broccoli and brussels sprouts to add a bit of security to my own tardy plantings, and Kayla picked out some fall greens and flowers.

But the most intriguing feature of the greenhouse wasn't for sale. Instead, a large aquaponics setup was filled with huge koi living happily in water filtered through the growing medium beneath a slew of plants. Granted, both fish and greenery were purely ornamental, but it was still intriguing to finally see an aquaponics system in action.

And that --- plus some chocolate --- filled up our girl's day out to the brim. Kayla called it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Do you think that means she's never getting in the car with me again?

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.