As many of you know, we made the big move of our elderberry farm from St Leonard, MD to the midlands of SC at the end of 2022.
As hard as it was to move, this was an opportunity to be closer to our hometowns & family.
Since then, it's been a whirlwind between the move, adding a baby girl in January, buying land, finalizing construction plans for a farmhouse, clearing a driveway + homesite ourself and preparing a field for the new elderberries.
After an outpouring of messages about Mama Bears, I figured it was time for an update!
Since mid-January, my husband has spent weeks clearing the home lot himself + clearing a path of almost 1000 ft of winding driveway through thick woods.
No, we have no prior excavator/clearing experience so there was a lot of learning curves!
We're building a farmhouse at the house site, so there's been a lot to work on finalizing changes + get things into motion. We also hope to add a barn with a commercial kitchen later this year for elderberry processing.
After he returned back to work, I took over granite driveway material deliveries + trying to get that finished, which had its own saga including a 60,000 lb dump truck going off the drive into a muddy spot & getting stuck with all 4 tires.
(If you're interested, be sure to watch Instagram for a drone video soon of the aerial set up of everything!)
We found out that if you have clay soil, a newly cleared driveway can take A LOT of gravel to make it driveable! Start to finish there was 30 loads of 20 tons and it took 3 weeks to finally complete.
During all of the chaos, we also cleared a large heavily wooded area that will be the new elderberry field. Last week we finally finished prepping the lot + soil to plant the cuttings (that have leaves budding out already!)
This week is planting week! We won't have any elderberries this year as the plants focus on their roots, but next year should be the first producing crop.
The process was much different than when we planted elderberries in MD since the field had already been cleared and just needed to be tilled & bushhogged. For the field here, we had to use a mulcher then excavator to clear remaining trees + roots, level & root rake the ground then haul off debris.
Luckily, the location is naturally a wet area at the new spot and soil is a mineral rich black color. Elderberries are native to SC also, so we are looking forward to seeing these plants thrive at their new home.
I feel grateful to be here on our land but it sure has been busy.
Our neighbors on the land down from us helped with grading + foundation prep and the home building process will finally begin soon - I'll be sharing build progress on social media.
So between a newborn (8 weeks old!), construction prep & getting these elderberries planted I'm just now working to get the website back up.
It's officially restocked & ready for orders!
The messages and support we've received during this time means more than you know, thank you for believing in our small farm/business & following us on this new adventure ❤️
