This is Us...We are Eliana's Garden. Sharing, living, learning all things forest and homestead.

This is us…Jeremy, Stesha, lil Man, & lil Lady (not our children’s real names of course). We are a semi-modern, semi-rustic, forest farming, homesteading and homeschooling family. We spent the past 8 years developing a 1.5 acre semi-urban homestead and sold it earlier this year to build and move to our forever home on 17.5 acres. We have pushed the ‘reset’ button on life in many ways and this blog will document the makings of our new homestead and creating the simple life we have always had a heart desire for.

We recently were blessed with the opportunity to begin a farm on over 200 acres of gorgeous forest and pastureland in southern VA. Through the faith and efforts of a generous couple we will share how all this unfolds and manifests to help the earth and our community. Beginning in Spring 2018 we will also be offering a variety of homesteading, survival, and forest farming courses through our local community college. We will share with you what we teach in hopes to inspire you towards a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.

We will also be sharing our past story of love, faith, forgiveness, trials and triumphs. It has been a long hard road with many ups and downs to get to see Eliana's Garden begin to manifest from the seeds of our dreams.

Photo credit to JessaD Photography http://www.jessadphotography.com

We have been ‘farming’ and studying permaculture based concepts for roughly 10 years. Ever since we were both children we carried a passion for the natural world and were both fortunate enough to have been raised by parents who further instilled respect and love for God’s creation. We consider ourselves stewards of this beautiful land we have been entrusted with and strive to pass this sentiment to our children and community.

Jeremy and I (Stesha) both have backgrounds in agriculture with both having worked on farms, nurseries, sold our produce and goods at farmers markets and to restaurants, and taught agricultural topics over the years in a variety of settings. Jeremy has a degree in horticulture and I have one in agricultural education. When we bought this land we developed less of a desire to be in hot fields and more of a desire to be in the soft speckled light of the forest. We have started our venture into forest ‘farming’ and are looking forward to sharing with you as we learn and explore this fairly new recognized form of farming. This video (click on video link below) was taken of us in 2016 by the Appalachian Beginning Forest Farming Coalition in our first year working with them (2nd year forest farming)…. click on their link to go check them out. Great organization, amazing mission, wonderful community! We are also avid foragers and mushroom hunters. I recently obtained my 5 year permit to forage and sell wild mushrooms in the three states, very excited to share finds with you as they happen.

Jeremy currently still works outside of the home as a manager at a great local retail and landscaping nursery. I am a homemaker in all forms of the word with a current nearly 5 year old and a 3 year old. We homeschool our children (yes, even at this age!), cook all our meals from scratch (gluten free!), process our own meat, grow as much food as we can, forage, make as many of our household needs as possible, and tinker with more hobbies than we can hold. We live simply and love it. We are plant nerds and not afraid to admit it. We’re going to share this simple life with you if you care to come back.

As this blog develops you will find many how-to’s (hopefully with videos included in most) for the homestead, resources we find, recipes for wild game and foraging, and hopefully some inspiration that you CAN do this too.

This is us. We are Eliana’s Garden.

Thanks for joining us on this journey! More posts to come. Cheers and blessings to each of you reading!