Inside A REAL Hobbit Hole!

Look at where I am! You guys will not believe this. I'm in a hobbit hole, and you guys can come and be a hobbit for a night at Forest Gully Farms. Yeah, you're seeing that right, a hobbit hole. Today, a permaculture agritourism kind of place with— you got it— hobbit holes that people can come and stay in. Forest Gully Farms. Oh, we ring the doorbell. We're here. Who are you guys?

Mandy Gifford.

Okay, our host Ash is actually— we've been staying with Whistlepig Hollow and And John Giffen. Okay, you guys ready for this tour?

Yeah, let's do it.

Okay, let's see it.

I think what we try to do when we have people out here is to kind of open their eyes to a different way of looking at things that you can eat. We try to work with nature, not against it. Two of the plants that a lot of people don't realize are edibles that we have around here, stuff like oxalis or wood sorrel right here. A lot of people think this might be clover, but it's not. If you look at the heart shape, it's oxalis and super edible.

Also super edible. Not just edible, no, super edible, folks.

Well, I'll tell you what, man, there's a lot of edibles out there that don't actually have a good flavor to them, but oxalis has a nice citrus flavor, whereas a lot of our edibles might have a bitter flavor or no flavor at all. And so this is one of those— this is one that people think is a weed. And so you can eat the, the pods as well, the seed pods. And then also we have over here a rock crop or stone crop. This is another crop that people have in their gardens. They don't realize that you can eat it. It's a sedum. A lot of sedums are edible. The ones that you want to look for that are more edible would be the red-flowered ones, which you can eat raw, whereas the ones with the yellow flowers are something that you might want to cook down. These have less of a, uh, you know, delicious citrus flavor, but they're still super edible. I like that they're not, uh, they're not bitter. So, you know, there's a lot of things that are edible that are bitter. This is not.

So super edible, I take it, is actually— it actually tastes good, right? You'd be good at salads.

Yeah, so Jonah would say I would eat this if I had to.

Sour.

A bunch of different types of trees. We have a pawpaw in the middle, we have agumi berries on the sides, there's indigo, we also have serviceberries, black-eyed Susans, persimmons on the back side. The whole— the goal is to eventually get it so dense with all these plants and beneficials that we don't have a lot of weed growth. But as you see, we kind of let it grow up because we're not, we're not too, uh, worried about some of the stuff that pops up because a lot of times you'll get a beneficial— the blackberries that pop up, as long as we don't have anything specific we want there, I'd rather that there than bare, bare, uh, soil. Over here we have— we're experimenting with interplanting goumi berries with our blueberries.

You guys want to try blueberry? Look, here's some ready. You want me to do it? Come on, you know you want it. You know you want it. Do you want to taste it? Hey kids, come on, blueberries! Where? Right here. You want to pick a blueberry off the tree? Doesn't even talk, goes right back at it. This one hasn't even said a word. What do you think, Mr. Brown? Shove it in, buddy! Shove it in! You are a hobbit. Oh, you ate it! It's red. You ate a red one. Here, try this one. Help the little man out. Here you go. Second breakfast. Hold it out. Look at this guy, he's sporting it.

So these are our trellises that we've planted mostly muscadines on, but we also have some other things that we've kind of interplanted and planted along with them, which is kiwis, hardy kiwi plants. And the trellises were actually made of cow panels to make it super easy. And one thing we found with growing the muscadines is They really are pest-free compared to cultivated grapes. You'll have a cultivated grape and a muscadine right next to each other, and all the bugs and the Japanese beetles go straight to the grapevines and pass up the muscadines. So we've kind of started switching over to growing mostly muscadines just because there's no need to spray or worry about pests.

Here, here, a pink blueberry! Isn't that something? How is it? No response. Oh, but she goes back, she goes back, going back for seconds. Don't even have to say.

Another interesting plant we have is a jujube. When it fully ripens, is about the size of a blueberry but has the texture and taste kind of like an apple. So you crunch it into like a real small crunchy apple, uh, super delicious. And they do really well in the sun.

I've noticed that this is in a circle. What's up with that?

Uh, we were just trying to— it's just more design element than anything else. We're kind of growing in a wild manner, and I thought kind of doing it in a circle kind of, you know, I thought it would look interesting and cool. We have all sorts of different stuff growing. We have goumi berries, of course. There's serviceberries. We have some stuff that's been growing up that's wild. We have Carolina buckthorn over there. We have dogwoods starting to pop up. Wild persimmon growing over there. We also have plums. We have both cultivated hazelnuts, which are a little bit bigger, the nut size, and then the smaller native ones. We also have persimmons, Asian variety persimmons. There's an apple tree over there. We have choke cherries. Our goal is really diversity and density, kind of letting some stuff grow up and see if what we have growing up will work with the stuff that we've planted.

Come here, guys, come here. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Everybody line up here in this circle. Come on, you want to race? You want to race? We're going to race around the circle. Okay, you ready? You don't want to do it? You don't have to. We're going to run around this way and come all the way back to the end, okay? On your mark, get set, go! This is cool and maybe an option for people who don't have much room. Chickens on this one side, tilling, fertilizing, and then they're moved out and a garden is planted. Let's go see this garden bed. They have the chickens on the one area for 9 months, move them out— I guess that would be during the winter— put put them in here, nothing's growing, and then that spring they would plant the vegetables in here, and then it ends up looking like this. Look at this cage. Red cedar off of the land, no need for chemicals. I guess it's like a locust or something like that, it's naturally rot resistant.

Exactly. Yep, yep, this is all red cedar as well. Okay, so once again, a rot-resistant wood that'll last longer.

What? Look at this. Oh, this is legit. Go ahead, go to that other one quick. Let's check out the bedroom. Could you guys sleep in here? Yeah, would this not be awesome?

That's a Murphy bed, man. You want to show them how it pulls down?

Hey, do you really have to cool it that much because it's under the ground?

Uh, in the hot summer months, yes. For like 9 months out of the year, it's perfect with nothing. Wow. But we have the AC units for the— when it's like— when it doesn't get any cooler than 80 degrees or something, you really need it. Okay. And in the winter, it's cool. These things are built for winter, but they stay super warm in the winter.

Yeah, what's the heat source? That's also the heat source?

That's also the heat source.

Okay, cool. Mini split.

Yep.

Whoa! Who did the ribs on this?

That's Wooden Wonders out of Maine, and they're great. They're some true artists.

The end? The other bedroom. Let's do this. Ah, much the same. A little smaller. Oh, how appropriate. The Hobbit. Cool chair. Nice curtains. Big budget, big budget on the curtains.

Yeah, recycling a little bit.

It looks so good though. It looks so good. It's the look.

That's a blueberry and those are blueberries. Red bud.

Wait a minute, he's got blueberries growing in his houses, his Hobbit holes. Look at that. What a cool idea. Wait, grass on top of the roof? Let's do this. Can I go on top of the roof? Yeah, yeah, of course. What? What?

So cool.

Look at this roof. He could totally have a garden up here. I guess he does. Thanks so much, John, for the tour. This is great. This is so inspiring. Now tell us, if people want more of you, if they want to stay in a hobbit hole or come for a tour, where do they go?

Forskullyfarms.com, or they can go to Airbnb or glampinghub.com.

Look at the playhouse! Mr. Brown, you want to go in the playhouse? Yeah, you guys go play, have fun!