GOODS FROM THE FARM
What does the land want to produce?
Useful things can emerge from a place without reducing the place to a source of things.
A DIFFERENT STARTING POINT
Farming often begins by deciding what we want from a piece of land and then reshaping the land to produce it. At Dark Hollow, we are interested in beginning with another question: what does this particular place already have the capacity, character, and inclination to produce?
That does not mean ignoring economics. A farm has to sustain the people who tend it. The challenge is to find crops, animals, and practices that can be both economically useful and restorative: things whose production can increase fertility, diversity, resilience, habitat, or relationship rather than simply extract value from the land.
Honey, wool, native spices, woodland medicinals, perennial foods, and biodynamic preparations are different experiments in that question.
The goods are not separate from the work. They are evidence of the conversation.
MANY THINGS FROM ONE PLACE
What comes from this place?
Dark Hollow is not organized around a single crop. Sheep move through woodland. Bees work the flowering landscape. Food and medicine grow beneath trees. Plants become preparations, spices and teas. Wool becomes fiber. Fungi transform wood.
Permaculture sometimes calls this an overyielding polyculture: a living system whose combined yields can become greater and more varied than any one crop grown alone. The library below is an evolving record of those yields — including things available for sale now, things that appear only in season, and things the farm produces whether or not they are currently for sale.
No goods match that search or view.
COMMERCE AS LAND CARE
Value can flow back toward the place that produced it.
If a spice, fleece, jar of honey, medicinal plant, or preparation can carry real value beyond the farm, that value can help support the practices and landscapes that produced it. The economic question is not outside the ecological one. At its best, it can become part of the same system.
We are still learning what that looks like. Goods from Dark Hollow are one way of testing it in public.
Native Spices follows one small family of these goods more deeply, connecting sassafras, spicebush, and sumac to their landscapes, jars, and uses in the kitchen.
FROM THE SHOP
A few words from people who have used the goods.
“Good quality, arrived fast. Thank you!”
Chicory · Etsy customer
Ground Spicebush Berry Spice
“Added amazing earthy flavor to my gumbo, highly recommend!”
Robert · Etsy customer
Gumbo Filé
“Amazing to find a local Filé in Pennsylvania Dutch Country. As my wife prefers filé to okra, to have such a high quality product from a local farm is truly amazing. A pot of gumbo is on the stove as I write this. Superb flavor and color.”
Lynn · Etsy customer
Gumbo Filé
“So nice to find the biodynamic Preparations I was looking for on Etsy. Thanks for the great service.”
Gwen · Etsy customer
BD507 Valerian preparation
“Excited for the filé to arrive. Smells very good. Never cooked with it, but have a Jambalaya recipe I need it for. Will try as a thickener in other recipes as well.”
Diana · Etsy customer
Gumbo Filé
“I haven’t used yet but I am excited to use this spring.”
Karina · Etsy customer
Horn Silica (BD501)
OTHER THINGS FROM DARK HOLLOW
Stickers, prints & things we’ve made.
Not everything from Dark Hollow grows in a field or comes from an animal. These are the printed, drawn, and made things that travel a little differently.
3
Dark Hollow Biodynamic Insignia Sticker
$4.00
I Brake for Salamanders Bumper Sticker | Fire Salamander Nature Decal 7.5” × 2.75”
$6.00
2
Moon Seal Coaster Set of 4 – 3.7” Coasters
$10.00
2
Rudolf Steiner planetary seal sticker - SUN 3"
$3.00
Mint Leaf Bumblebee Pun Sticker | Kawaii Vinyl Decal (3" x 2.67")
$3.50
1
Aristotle Bust Sticker | Make Scientists Philosophers Again Vinyl Decal (Waterproof)
$3.50
T-SHIRTS
Dark Hollow shirts
Each purchase supports Dark Hollow and helps us continue the work of the farm.
A FEW QUESTIONS, ANSWERED
What does Dark Hollow Biodynamic produce?
Dark Hollow produces native and perennial foods and spices, honey and beeswax, Icelandic wool, plants, woodland crops, and biodynamic preparations. Two of our most popular offerings are gumbo filé, made from dried and ground sassafras leaves, and spicebush berry powder, a native woodland spice that works especially well in dry rubs and sweet baked goods, particularly pastries featuring apples. The Goods Library records these living sources and the different yields they can provide.
Are all Dark Hollow goods produced on the farm?
With a few exceptions, yes. The goods we sell are grown, raised, harvested, or made at Dark Hollow. Some spice blends may include additional certified-organic ingredients that we do not grow ourselves. Dark Hollow also serves as a CSA pickup point for produce grown by organic farmers in the Lancaster area; those CSA shares are not grown at Dark Hollow. Otherwise, the goods represented in our Goods Library come from the plants, animals, and work of the farm itself.
Are Dark Hollow Biodynamic products certified biodynamic?
No. Dark Hollow Biodynamic is a member of the Biodynamic Association, and our farm and products are grown and tended using biodynamic methods. We have not pursued Demeter biodynamic certification. As with many small farms that choose not to pursue organic certification, the cost and administrative requirements do not make sense at our current scale. That may change as Dark Hollow grows. For now, when we say our products are grown biodynamically and without synthetic chemicals, you are relying on our practices and our promise, not a certification label.
Where can I buy Dark Hollow Biodynamic products?
Goods currently available online are identified in the Goods Library. Many can be purchased through our Etsy shop, where you can also follow Dark Hollow and keep up with new and seasonal offerings. We also bring goods to selected artisan markets, farm markets, fairs, and other events around Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna Valley. Some small-batch, seasonal, living, or farm-specific goods are available by request directly through Dark Hollow.
Why are some goods not currently available?
Dark Hollow is a small farmstead, so availability follows seasons, harvests, animals, weather, processing, and what the land actually produces. Many goods exist only at particular times or in small quantities. Rather than treating everything as permanent inventory, the Goods Library keeps the larger record visible even when a particular yield is not currently for sale.
What is the Dark Hollow Goods Library?
The Dark Hollow Goods Library is both a catalog and a field record of the useful plants, animals, fungi, and materials connected to the farm. Each entry can bring together identity, field notes, photographs, yields, current availability, and related guides, making the library a way to learn what lives here as well as what may be available from it.