Whistler Meadow Farm

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Shenandoah, VA
Whistler Meadow Farm

Meadow restoration and small-scale regenerative food systems with no pesticides, plastics, or fertilizers in the Shenandoah Valley.

06/10/2026

Garlic is a'commin in!

Scapes and garlic planted along the edge of the meadow.

06/06/2026

Our American elderflowers are beginning to emerge — still green and tightly clustered, but already showing the promise of the delicate white blooms to come.

We expect to harvest them over the next few weeks, once the flowers have opened fully and before they begin to fade. After drying, they will be blended in small batches with some of our sage and lemon balm teas over the next few months.

This is American elderflower — Sambucus canadensis — not the European elderflower, Sambucus nigra, more commonly used in traditional European cordials, syrups, and teas. The two are closely related and share a similar floral character, but American elder is native to eastern North America and has its own long history in this landscape. It belongs here: along edges, in moist ground, in hedgerows, and in the layered plant communities that support birds, pollinators, and people.

06/04/2026

Just some sage soon to be harvested, dried, blended and sold as dried tea in markets around the valley! 🍵🌸

05/19/2026

I’m starting to establish Virginia wild strawberries as part of the living understory beneath my tea hedge. The hedge itself is made entirely of tea plants — a perennial mix of native and non-native species that can be used for herbal and caffeinated teas.
The understory is still just beginning to spread, but the hope is that Virginia wild strawberry and pussytoes will eventually form a low, living mulch beneath the hedge: protecting the soil, filling open space, and adding another layer of biodiversity to the planting.

Virginia wild strawberry is especially exciting because it is one of the wild ancestors of the modern cultivated strawberry, a true crop wild relative of the domestic strawberries we know from gardens and markets. The berries are tiny compared with store-bought strawberries, but they are tasty: sweet, fragrant, and intensely flavored.

It will take a few years for this system to really become what I’m imagining assuming everything goes as expected, which, when working with living systems, happens only sometimes and maybe less often than not. 🤷‍♀️

05/13/2026

Some wildflowers from spring hikes in the area....

1. Canada violet with, yes, two very different looking flowers on the same plant! Canada violet is a shade-adapted woodland species that thrives under the filtered light of forest understories. In these environments, where insect visitation can be limited, the plant employs a dual reproductive strategy. The chasmogamous flowers are open and showy, with white petals marked by purple veins, and function primarily to facilitate cross-pollination by insects, promoting genetic diversity. In contrast, the cleistogamous flowers are small, tubular. They are self-pollinating, ensuring seed production even when pollinators are scarce. This combination of flower types allows Canada violet to maximize reproductive success in shaded habitats, balancing the benefits of genetic variation with the reliability of self-fertilization.

2. Large-flowered Trillium

3. Wild anise

4. Wild geranium (with anise cameo)

5. May apple

05/11/2026

Planting out sage and lemon balm--soon to be appearing n local teas at a farmer's market near you.

1. Ornamental Farm Dog staring after Mr. Meadow Farm on his bike, wondering why he left us planting sage and lemon balm, and why she couldn't go with him.

2. Baby lemon balm

3. Baby sage

05/07/2026

Not the most dramatic pinxterbloom azalea photo, and not as many flowers as we hoped to see — but still beautiful. 🌸

I think many of the blooms were damaged by the strange hot-weather / freeze cycles we’ve been having this spring. Along the trail, we also noticed a lot of mountain laurel already starting to bud and open — a full two to three weeks earlier than usual.

Luckily, most of the mountain laurel buds were not far enough along to be badly hit by last week’s hard freeze. Most still looked good, though we did see some frost damage here and there.

It’s another reminder of how sensitive spring flowering can be to these temperature swings: a few warm days can push plants forward, and then one cold night can change the whole season. 🌿

05/06/2026

Some spring blooms spotted in Whistler Meadow--Columbine, Fleabane, Columbine! 🌸🏵🌼

05/04/2026

For the last few weeks, we’ve been brush hogging sections of the meadow to take down the winter growth.

Now that the meadow is in its fourth year, the thatch layer is getting quite thick. We also have Indian grass that needs to be managed so it does not begin to dominate the planting. Our long-term plan is to use a rotating regimen of burning, brush hogging, and eventually grazing, once our EQIP contract allows it.

We brush hogged a little later than intended because we were still in a back-and-forth with the Forest Service about the best time to burn. These are complex decisions, and the right timing depends heavily on your management goals. There are always tradeoffs. A burn that helps suppress one species may set back another. Mowing that opens the field to light may also temporarily remove cover for wildlife.

In the first photo, you can see the upper field partly brush hogged, with the lower field still standing. We plan to brush hog again when the Indian grass reaches about 8–12 inches, as part of an effort to weaken its early growth.

One thing this work has really brought home is how much habitat the meadow provides, even in early spring, when the standing grass and wildflower stalks are dry and bleached from winter.

Before we brush hogged, the bird feeder was taking 10 days to two weeks to empty. After we took the field down, it was empty in two days. That pattern has continued all week. The birds had clearly been foraging in the standing meadow, using the old stalks and cover as part of their daily world.

The second photo is blurry, but it shows a cardinal that has been constantly perching in a small redbud sapling since the field came down, seemingly using it as a substitute for the standing stalks of burnweed, bergamot, and grass that had been abundant in the field.

The brush-hogged ground still holds seeds and insects and life. But for the birds, the space has suddenly become more open, exposed, and dangerous. The shelter is gone. The perches are gone. The nesting cover is gone.

We’ve had good rain these last few days, and the meadow will begin to change quickly. The features that these animals relied on will soon return.

04/25/2026

Towhee & Dogwood Tree--which is his best angle?

🐦🌸

Address

Shenandoah, VA

Website

http://www.whistlermeadowfarm.com/

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