Organic Intensives are an opportunity to acquire practical, detailed information over the course of a day with fellow Michigan farmers and gardeners.

Choose one of three learning tracks:

1. Innovative Ecological Farming and Growing with Helen Atthowe, author of The Ecological Farm: A Minimalist No-Till, No-Spray, Selective-Weeding, Grow-Your-Own-Fertilizer System for Organic Agriculture. Helen will share her profound insights from 35 years of farming and land stewardship. Local presenters Brittney Rooney of Beaverland Farm in Detroit and Nate Lada of Green Things Collective Farm in Ann Arbor will build on Helen’s concepts and practical techniques with their own real-life examples. You’ll walk out of the session with a new understanding of growing spaces as living systems and a list of DIY techniques to implement in your own unique environment.

2. Building a Just and Equitable Seed Community This intensive will offer some basic hands on skills to the beginner and enhance the tool kit for more advanced seed savers and growers. Shiloh Maples, an Anishinaabe community organizer, seed keeper and story teller, will present on Seed Matriation and Seed Ethics. Amy Newday, with support from others, will focus on beginning and advanced seed saving techniques. Erica Kempter and Mike Levine of Nature and Nurture Seeds, will share about their breeding projects and the need for high quality organic seed. They will navigate us through the process of growing seed for them or other small seed companies. Michael Lordon, Midwest organizer and educator, for the Organic Seed Alliance, will speak to the OSA’s ongoing efforts to breed open pollinated varieties suited for low input organic growing systems. The day will also include a session on best practice seed cleaning techniques and a panel roundtable discussion on enhancing the seed community.

3. Locally Sourced and Manufactured Fibers: An Important Part of Sustainable Living We all look for locally produced food to make dinner, but what about locally produced animal or plant fiber to make clothes? In this session we will look at some of the possibilities in the world of local fiber production. On Happy Goat Lucky Ewe Fiber Farm and Michigan Merinos (in Mason), Bridget Kavanaugh has gained considerable experience raising Angora goats and Merino sheep (currently 50) for fiber on a large scale. Her talk will range from field rotations and breeding to working with a local sweater company (Fair Enough) and managing retail sales. Natural Cycles Farm of Allegan is where Lori Evesque practices true integration, managing a homestead with components for vegetable, “protein,” and fiber production. With a diversity of sheep flocks and a dye garden, her passions can truly combine in her love of fiber. Knowledgeable on harvesting and processing wool (as well as retailing the finished items), she can take you from sheep to clothing. Come learn about this often-neglected aspect of “local” living, fiber!