AVELLA - Isaac Wiegmann, Wiggi's Greenhouse proprietor, will be offering workshops on gardening and other produce-related items in an effort to assist people in becoming more self-sufficient - what he calls "backyard homesteading."
"I'm trying to become as self-reliant as I can," said Wiegmann, adding he eventually would like to produce up to 80 percent of all the foodstuffs that he needs. "I want to produce most of my food and sell the excess."
Wiegmann said society has moved away from consuming food grown locally, making the quality and healthiness of the food questionable. He pointed out the recent peanut butter-salmonella recall as an example of the dangers of mass-producing food items.
His workshops will begin with lessons on backyard maple syrup production. Wiegmann noted that maple syrup can be produced in any area where the temperatures dip below freezing at night and rise above during the day and sugar maples grow. Although it takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to make a useable amount of syrup, Wiegmann said anyone with just a few trees can harvest enough sap to make syrup.
"I'm going to demonstrate how to make the syrup," he said of the workshops. "I'm going to try to start the last weekend in January and go through March, but it depends on the weather."
He noted that tapping the trees, if done correctly, doesn't harm the tree.
"There are trees that were tapped hundreds of years ago by Native Americans, and they are still producing syrup," he said.
Wiegmann said he wasn't aware of the potential for syrup in the area until he learned about it from a neighbor who regularly taps between 18 and 20 trees.
In addition to offering the workshops, Wiegmann will be offering his own locally produced maple syrup for sale. He will construct Dutch ovens in his greenhouses, which will simultaneously heat the greenhouses while he cultivates early spring plants and boils the sap down to syrup.
"It's a lot of work," he said of making the syrup. "You have to boil off a lot of water. We'll be getting some good syrup. It will taste different than the syrup you get at the store, because most syrup you buy there is mostly sugar and additives."
Wiegmann will be giving maple syrup workshops Saturdays and Sundays through February. He estimated a typical workshop will take approximately two hours and will cover tree species, identification, tapping rules, homemade equipment, weather influences, sap collection, boiling down and storing. Those interested will have an opportunity for hands-on learning working a sugar bush. The cost will be $20 per person.
Additional workshops will include a variety of subjects, including early spring gardening, native plant uses and identification, tree planting and grafting and mushroom cultivation through March and April.
If there is enough interest in the late winter/early spring workshops, Wiegmann will hold additional workshops throughout the year, which may include canning and preserving fresh vegetables and fruits.
"It's part of being as self-reliant as I can, preserving and storing food," he said.
He also has held workshops on natural gardening and permaculture. In addition to running the greenhouse, Wiegmann has begun work on a permaculture farm at his family's homestead on Cole School Road in Avella.
The 20-year-old revived the greenhouses, which his father had operated as Wiggi's Ohio Valley Greenhouse, after they had been closed for a decade. Wiegmann developed an interest in "voluntarily simplistic living" after he hiked the length of the Appalachian Trail alone in two months-long hitches - approximately 2,000 miles between Georgia and Maine - part of which was spent as an internship through the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, photographing the trail between Harper's Ferry, W.Va. and its north end at Mount Kahtahdin, Maine.
Following his hike, Wiegmann moved into a one-room springhouse on his family's farm and investigated a new-found interest in permaculture. Permaculture encourages self-sustaining farming, with crops mimicking natural ecosystems and no use of chemical agents. It utilizes the relationships between plants in nature. He explained when only one type of plant, such as corn, is planted over several acres, it disturbs niche creatures, such as bees, which have nothing to pollenate but corn. Chemicals used on large corporate farms not only kill harmful insects and fungus, but those which are beneficial and have symbiotic relationships with food plants which improve their health, he added.
Wiegmann is developing an orchard which will include several kinds of fruit trees, as well as annual vegetables and other perennial food plants. Many of the plants are grouped together, with larger plants providing shade and ground-creeping plants reducing weeds.
Wiegmann is a certified permaculture designer and has studied natural resources at Hocking College in Ohio.
Wiegmann said that he had spent the holiday season selling handcrafted wreaths and grave pillows, but is now gearing up for the spring. He added that he will be growing a large variety of heirloom plants and produce, focusing on salad green production.
He also will be growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms, native medicinal herbs and paw-paw trees, some of which he will have for sale. Paw-paw fruits are a tropical-style fruit, but not commonly available at supermarkets because they do not travel well, Wiegmann said.
For information, contact Wiegmann at either (724) 587-3822 or isaacwiegmann@gmail.com.
(Wallace-Minger can be contacted at swallace@pafocus.com.)
