Brett's Blog

 Disturbance and Succession at High Rock Nursery High Rock Nursery has been lucky to have never been hit by a tornado, earthquake, or forest fire. The main ecological disturbances for High Rock Nursery is windstorms, some flooding, and a couple of minor stinkbug accidents. Thomas said that he has had trees, and flowers pulled from the ground in his nursery before. He also said when it rains really hard the pond out back floods but it never hurts any crops just makes traveling around the property harder. He also said he has had some stinkbug problems within the vegetables and berry plants. High Rock Nursery also has an off-property stand on Highway 8 in Lexington where he has never had any problems and that is where the finished products get placed in order to sell without any further harm. Thomas said there are rarely any human disturbances besides his kids messing around when they were younger running through the fields and some minor employee accidents but nothing too costly. The...

 Soil at High Rock Nursery The two predominant soil types the web soil survey identified at my site include clay loam and Davidson loam. The fertility at High Rock Nursery is managed through crops rotation and organic fertilizers that put nitrogen into the soil to builds the soils organic matter. When it comes to the declination of fertility in the world I feel like there is a lot more nutrients coming out of the ground then going in. However at High Rock Nursery because of their practices and care for the soil and their farm I feel like they will have a solid farm kept up and going on for years to come. 

 Biodiversity within High Rock Nursery     The only animals on High Rock Nursery farm are cows, honeybees, and the Penninger family dog. The plant species include trees, bushes, decorative flowers,  strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and a wide variety of vegetables. The biggest dimension of diversity is the genetic diversity because of how many different plant species are at the High Rock Nursery, they aren't just growing crops, they have fruit, vegetables, trees, bushes, and the decorative flowers. The next biggest dimension of diversity would be the abiotic factors that are involved. These include the local climate, the gravel and mulch that they sell on their property, the pond in their back field, and the air itself. The planned biodiversity includes the cows, and honeybees that they have on their farm, along with the nursery that introduces more plant species to be involved with the soil. The associated biodiversity would include deer or other w...

High Rock Nursery My Blog site will be about High Rock Nursery, located in Lexington, North Carolina. I picked this farm because my family has been eating their produce for years and we are good friends with the owners due to growing up with their children and graduating high school with them. The owner is Thomas Penninger, he along with his wife, daughter, and two sons run the farm. They grow Strawberries, Blackberries, Blueberries, and different types of vegetables. They will post on their website each year exactly what they will be growing in the spring and summer. They also have a nursery where they grow ornamental shrubs and trees along with other varieties of plants to help with landscaping in the area. One of the trees in my backyard is from High Rock Nursery. They are also apart of the North Carolina 10% Campaign, which is  a pledge to spend 10% of the farms existing food dollars locally. I am excited to learn about how they run the whole farm by themselves and their story ...