Edible Landscaping with Pat Randle
On a recent Saturday, Patrick Randle was collecting eggs in his chicken house with his wife and son. What may feel like a chore to other people was quality family togetherness to Patrick.
“It might look like work, but it’s just the family hanging out; it’s just part of our lives,” he shares.
Summer or winter, there is always something to be done on the Randles’ property: 4.5 acres of ground, which half of it is wooded with a large creek bottom that ties into 600 acres of woods.
Over the years, Patrick and his family have learned about and developed their land for gardening, beekeeping, raising chickens and much more. Now, it’s the woods that they are trying to rejuvenate with an edible native landscape.
Historically, wooded areas in Illinois are very open, with giant trees like oak, sycamore, walnuts and locust. In recent decades, invasive plants and shrubs like the honeysuckle are threatening to take over, growing under the large trees and choking out the native understory.
“There are many ways to get rid of invasive species, and my method is a very slow, passive process,” Patrick explains. “This time of year is the best, so from October until April, I’ll go into the woods to work. For bushes less than 8 feet, 1.5 thick at the base – it’s fairly easy to muscle those out of the ground and get the root system out when it’s wet. I’ll cut off larger ones with 2-3 feet of trunk exposed. Then the root system rots, and I can get those out the next year.”
With his passive process, Patrick now has half of his wooded property completely cleared out. So, what does he do once the invasive species are gone?
Topeka, Ill., has a large tree nursery with native trees available for $10 under a partnership with the Department of Natural Resources. The Randles bought native fruit trees to plant in their woods this year and will purchase native nuts trees next year. They plan to buy 20 trees a year for the next 10 years.
“We’ve cleared out the unnatural ‘second story’ and need to establish a new canopy for the woods, so we planted fruit trees, like pawpaw, persimmon, native plum, serviceberry (which is a cousin of the blueberry). Wildlife thrives on these trees because of the high sugar content,” Patrick says. “We’re hoping after a decade that we’ll have 50-100 trees that have survived, and we’ll be able to harvest from these trees as a food source.”
If there any dead or dying trees, Patrick leaves them alone, so they can fulfill their process in the ecosystem. There are dozens of animals, birds or insects that use dead trees for habitat. Then when the tree falls, it can become a “mushroom garden,” Patrick says.
The Randles currently harvest five or six different species of edible mushrooms. They also recently started a mushroom garden, inoculating logs with certain types of mushrooms spores that will hopefully sprout and can eventually be eaten.
“There are a couple trees that have fallen, so I’ll put spores into the actual logs. So one day, we hope to see mushrooms popping out of the logs,” Patrick says.
The Randles also are trying to tap their sugar maple trees for the first time to make their own maple syrup.
“It turns into a stewardship, passively and easily cultivating these woods and keeping invasive or undesired species away,” Patrick says. “When we work in our garden space, that’s an intense amount of man hours. We’re expecting a result: We put sweet potatoes in the ground and then harvest them in a certain amount. But woods are much more passive. We plant trees one day, do light maintenance, and let them establish themselves, and then, maybe one day they provide food to us. It’s a way of having a symbiotic relationship with nature.”
Recently, when Patrick was on his land, a little animal scurried past, and he realized it was a mink.
“It’s very unique to walk out my back door and see an animal like that,” he shares. “And then in the springtime, our creek will fill up with water, and we can go down every day, to see box turtles emerging from their burrows and wood ducks looking for a nesting spot.
“I’m experience-driven, and those types of experiences bring me so much gratitude in life,” Pat says.