Veganic Farming - Even If You're Not Vegan

Will Bonsall

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There may be a number of reasons for keeping livestock: because you feel you want them for food, fiber, or labor. However, they are not a NET source of fertility.

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Will Bonsall is a subsistence farmer and author from Maine. Will has worn many hats since going "back to the land," including prospector, draftsman, gravedigger, hobo, musician, logger, and artist, among others; however, he considers subsistence farming to be the only true career he ever had. He is the director of the Scatterseed Project, which he founded to help preserve our endangered crop-plant diversity. His first book, Through the Eyes of a Stranger (Xlibris, 2010), is an eco-novel set in a sustainable society of the future. He most recently authored Will Bonsall's Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening (Chelsea Green, 2015). Will lives and farms in Industry, Maine, with his wife, Molly Thorkildsen, and two sons.

 

An Apple a Day: Growing Organic Apples - Part I

Ron Christie

 

Growing organic apples in the Northeast can be a real challenge (some say impossible). But, it can be done if you are willing to explore the apple orchard of the future. This all-day workshop is geared toward the small-acre orchardist and back-yard gardener who want to have success growing high quality, chemical-free apples. We will talk about all aspects of what it takes to create a friendly apple growing environment, including site selection and soils, orchard design, rootstock and variety selection, planting and early care, and disease and pest management.

 

Ron Christie is passionate about teaching people how to grow their own nutritious organic food for better health and well-being. He is an avid four-season grower, and a former NOFA-NH Board Member and Master Gardener who loves sharing his experiences as a gardener and farmer. Ron ran Living Earth Farm, a certified organic vegetable and fruit micro-farm in Brookline, NH, until 2017 when Living Earth Farm was sold. Ron and his family are starting a new organic farm in Concord, NH.

 

Companion Planting

Willamina Coroka

 

Did you know that plants, like humans, are impacted by their proximity to others? Learn which plants help or hinder one another in this garden lecture. Topics covered include: common herbs and vegetables that grow better when grown together, crop rotation, and successional planting.

 

Willa Coroka is a nature gal, her heart its fullest while flitting through the New England forest between the hemlocks, birches and pines. Her method of gardening replicates what is observed in nature: successional planting, companion species, integrated pest management, and the influence of pre-existing topography. She operates a small education center out of her home in Rockingham County where she teaches gardening classes, sustainable practice and introductory herbalism workshops.

 

Grain Production on a Diversified Vegetable Farm

Noah Courser-Kellerman

 

Learn how small scale grain production at Alprilla Farm contributes to our crop rotation, soil health, annual work-flow, cash-flow and marketing. We will discuss the agronomy of small grains, corn and beans, as well as equipment appropriate to various scales and marketing strategies for these niche local products.

 

Noah Courser-Kellerman hails from Cape Ann in Essex, Mass. With his wife Sophie, he runs Alprilla Farm where they cultivate 4 acres of vegetables. In rotation with their vegetables, they grow 2 acres of small grains, some dry beans and corn for meal and tortillas. They also tend a small 100% grass-fed beef herd and make hay.

 

Silvopasture in Practice – Part I

Steve Gabriel

 

Learn the fundamental principles and approaches to integrating trees, livestock, and grazing pasture and planning tools to help you get silvopasture established.

 

Keynote speaker Steve Gabriel is an ecologist, forest farmer, and educator living in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State in the US. Throughout his career, Steve has taught thousands of farmers and land managers about the ways farming and forestry can be combined to both benefit the ecology and the bottom line of the farm. He is Extension Specialist for the Cornell Small Farm Program and has served as guest faculty at Cornell University, Sterling College, Paul Smiths College, and the Omega Center for Sustainable Living. Alongside his wife, Elizabeth, he co-stewards Wellspring Forest Farm, where they produce mushrooms, maple syrup, duck eggs, pastured lamb, and elderberry extract, all from forest-based systems.

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Steve co-authored Farming the Woods with Ken Mudge in 2014, and is author of the new book Silvopasture, released in 2018. He passionately pursues work to reconnect people to the forested landscape and see the value of trees in agriculture.

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School Gardens: Experiential Learning & Curricular Connections

Jess Gerrior, Beth Roy

 

Learn how simple farm to school activities can be aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards and start seeing how to weave the standards into your farm to school and garden based learning. Experience hands on activities such as soil explorers and seed to table.

 

Jess Gerrior, The Cornucopia Project has been gardening with schools in Southern New Hampshire since 2005. We offer a continuum of edible education through our 9 elementary school gardens, after-school cooking classes and middle and high school programs at The Cornucopia Project Farm. Our school Garden Program is designed to support academic goals at each grade-level through hands-on learning. We also provide support to elementary schools interested in building a new garden program or re-invigorating their existing school garden.

 

Beth Roy leads Vital Communities' Food & Farm team, including its Upper Valley Farm to School programming, and also oversees Valley Quest. Before joining Vital Communities, Beth Roy

worked in the environmental and place-based education fields for 17 years in various positions around New England including at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science and as the Director of Education at the Nature Museum in Grafton, Vt. Beth is also serves on her local school board and on the board of the Vermont State-Wide Environmental Education Programs (SWEEP), a coalition of dozens of individuals and organizations promoting sustainability and environmental education in Vermont. Beth is a New Hampshire native and lives in Hartland, Vt., with her husband and two children. When Beth is not working you will find her beekeeping, exploring the woods around her home with her family or cooking up a new taste test (made of local foods, of course!) for her children.

 

Herbal And Natural Support for Pain & Inflammation

Maria Noel Groves

 

Pain is a task-master that demands our attention, and herbs as well as other natural approaches can help us manage and alleviate many different kinds of pain. In this talk, Maria will share herbs that can be taken internally and/or applied topically to support a healthy anti-inflammatory response, joint mobility, and the relaxation of muscle tension. She’ll focus primarily on backyard herbs that can be easily cultivated in the garden or foraged from the wild. Herbs to be discussed include blue vervain, wood betony, cramp bark, Solomon’s seal, horsetail, mullein root, meadow arnica, and peppermint, as well as tropical herbs turmeric and ginger.

 

Maria Noel Groves is the bestselling author of the award-winning Body into Balance and Grow Your Own Herbal Remedies and owner of Wintergreen Botanicals in Allenstown, NH. She has more than 20 years of experience, is a registered professional herbalist with the American Herbalists Guild and a clinical herbalist certified by the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. She writes and teaches nationally about herbal medicine and offers both on-site and distance herbal study courses and health consultations.

 

Basics in Beekeeping

Troy Hall

We will cover the basics on what one needs to know to get started with keeping bees. Topics will cover basic honey bee biology, equipment, apiary location, protective clothing, and a brief run through on basic seasonal management along with how to harvest honey.

 

Troy Hall is owner of Hall apiaries located in Plainfield, NH. Troy manages a small commercial apiary of 500 colonies where he specializes in breeding queen bees, and provides the local community and beyond with raw honey, beeswax, propolis, and nucleus colonies, and has done so since 2010 without the use of any chemicals or treatments of any kind.

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We Made A Thing: A Collaborative Effort to Reclaim Creative Time

Sarah Hansen

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For farmers, creative time is fleeting. When you get an idea, does it materialize? This workshop will discuss finding creative time, sharing your perspective, and our universal excuses. We’ll help each other make creative commitments this year by utilizing a strategy of cooperative accountability including check-ins and monthly prompts. Our objective will be a final publication in 2021 of prose, poetry, and artwork as a compendium of our collective experience as Earth lovers in the year 2020!

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Sarah Hansen moved to New Hampshire seven years ago to make maple syrup and never left. Since then, she has been farming full-time time at Kearsarge Gore Farm in Warner, assisting with Local Harvest CSA, and most recently has helped to co-found Warner Public Market, an owners’ cooperative market focused on bringing community together around local food, art, and learning. She is currently taking new music recommendations.

 

Developing an Energy, Food, and Community positive Agricultural Neighborhood

Ian McSweeney; Carter Scott

 

Jacobson Farm is an embodiment of TransFarmations Inc. True to our mission this farm will be a regenerative agricultural neighborhood: a community that heals the earth. Net Positive Homes create more energy over a year’s time than is used by the occupants of the home over the same timeframe. Carbon storing farming means that on average, more carbon is put into the soil than is released by the soil. Resiliency is the ability to bounce back after an unexpected event.

 

Ian McSweeney’s life’s work is focused on human connection to land and food. From social work focused on developing outdoor experience based education programs, to real estate brokerage and consulting prioritizing conservation, agriculture and community within typical land development, to leading the Russell Foundation supporting customized approaches to farmland ownership, conservation, management and stewardship. Ian is now the director of Agrarian Trust and is focused on transforming how land is owned.

 

Carter Scott is a developer of energy positive and resilient homes. He was President of Transformations Inc, a sustainable development and building company in Massachusetts from 1986 through 2017. In 2009 he received award for its entry in Zero Energy Challenge competition and in 2013 was a winner of two Housing Innovation Awards from the Department of Energy. A Northeastern University graduate with an industrial engineering degree, he has been a leader in the Massachusetts zero energy movement.

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Organic Certification 101

Alice Tuson

 

Learn the basics of Organic Certification from Inspector Alice Tuson, of NH Department of Agriculture, Markets, and Food (NHDAMF) Division of Regulatory Services.

 

Previous to her job as an inspector with the Division of Regulatory Services, Alice Tuson farmed full-time at Red Manse Farm (Loudon, NH), where she shared responsibility for operating all aspects of a certified organic vegetable farm, including planning, plant propagation, field operations, packing and grading, sales and marketing. She enjoys the diversity of her job responsibilities as an inspector and working with producers throughout NH who produce a variety of agricultural commodities.

 

Building a Regenerative Agricultural System using No-Till Permanent Raised Beds

Jennifer Wilhelm

 

The term “Regenerative Agriculture” seems to be everywhere today. But what is Regenerative Agriculture and how can you employ regenerative practices on your farm? Our farm’s no-till permanent raised bed system has proven to be an effective way to passively manage weeds, without the use of herbicides, plastic mulch, or time intensive manual weeding. This system also improves soil structure, builds soil organic matter, and sequesters carbon, which are important aspects of Regenerative Agriculture.

 

Jennifer Wilhelm is a small fruit and vegetable grower at Fat Peach Farm, and a research and network coordinator for the NH Food Alliance, a statewide food system network supporting the emerging local food economy. She is passionate about small scale, low input farming; regenerative agriculture; and no-till systems to decrease labor, while increasing yields and carbon storage.