Gardener to Gardener Conference

Are you planting for home food production, for pollinators, an ornamental garden or all the above? In this presentation, with a hands-on component, we will walk through the steps for successful garden planning, including sun arc mapping, soil, water and space considerations.

Learn the basics of soil health and how your actions in the garden make a difference. Explore practical, easy-to-apply methods to build and maintain healthy soil, and discover how to assess the health of your garden soil.

Whether your yard acts like a sieve or a bathtub, water plays an important role in your gardening success. Learn how to move, store, and absorb rainwater in your yard to keep your plants healthy while conserving your time, costs, and water.

Emily and Heron will discuss the concepts, theories, and ethics behind backyard seed collecting and saving. This presentation will go over the terms and important questions to think about around seed saving of native as well as edible garden species. Emily and Heron aim to help make seed saving in your yards and gardens accessible and ethical. They hope folks will leave with an understanding of basic concepts as well as curiosity around the many nuances of this work.

Herbal gardening begins with a single step. In this introductory class, we explore trusted medicinal plants, how to grow them well, and the ways they can support you and your family. You will learn how to design a small healing garden and create your first apothecary preparations. 

We’ll look beyond apples into the many diverse (and delicious and low-maintenance) possibilities for backyard fruit trees for gardeners in Northern New England. We’ll talk about the basics of successfully growing peaches, cherries, figs, pawpaw, and more – all in a northern climate.

Fundamentals of raising chickens for eggs and meat. To cover breeds, feeding, housing, production methods, and flock safety from diseases and predators. Information on simple poultry processing techniques.

Gardeners in Maine often have an interesting opportunity to manage their gardens to support a variety of insect pollinators that use our state’s diverse landscape. Bees and other insects that visit our gardens often also travel to nearby forests or fields. In this presentation, Erin Cocca, Pollinator Conservation Specialist with The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation will explore how best to support these insects through gardening and broader land management.

In this workshop, you will create your own long-handled wire weeder. These very functional yet inexpensive tools can be customized to your height and weeding style and are highly effective in removing small, thread stage weeds. I will provide everything needed including a selection of local and sustainably sourced, shade grown, wildwood handles,  harvested in the dead stage, and artisanally air dried, all awaiting your personal touches. Tools and fasteners will be available. 

If you’re a current or hopeful tender of backyard livestock, stop in to this session to learn about common injuries and ailments, biosecurity, assembling a livestock first aid kit, and performing basic first aid for common issues.⠀

Learn about the craft of printmaking and build your own garden print!

In this session, receive an overview of hand tools and modifications for a home garden setting. Learn about ways to design the garden, structure tasks, and about tools that help encourage better ergonomics while gardening.

Yoko Takemura and Alex Carpenter started Assawaga Farm in Northeast Connecticut in 2018. As their eighth season comes to a close, they will discuss how they built the farm from the ground up, going from raw land to a thriving no-till market garden. Topics will include finding and purchasing their property, bringing the soil into production, the evolution of their no-till practice, hiring and managing employees, focusing on growth through efficiency rather than scaling in size, and thoughts on the future of their operation.