It is 14 days before our April 15-16 seminar and attendance is currently about 30. Our Facebook Events page currently lists 71 as going but most of them haven’t contacted me.
https://www.facebook.com/events/752888291541994/
So we still have lots of room for last minute sign-ups. We will probably end up with around 40 people involved.
Full details and to register, go HERE.
My goal during the seminar is to give you an overview of the current situation vis a vis herb farming and wildcrafting. I will tell you about the best resources available to us right now on these topics and list the current and emerging markets. I will outline the farming and wildcrafting methods I have developed over the decades, including my pioneering work with medicinal agroforestry systems.
Images. Through powerpoint and internet we will show lots of photos of herbs, seeds, roots, farms, dryers, etc. The information covered will also be invaluable for home growers and wildcrafters.
I will bring one of my herb dryers and have it plugged in and operating. I will bring lots of processed herbs to look at, my favorite wildcrafting tools, and a big spread of useful books for display and sale. We will visit my one-year old planting just outside of Port Townsend. I will have a lot of herb divisions, rhizomes and corms for sale. If anyone else has plants for sale, you are welcome to bring them.
The event will create an opportunity for networking among all the participants. Saturday evening especially will be a networking session. We all have something we want to network about. The focus will be on collaboration and cooperative efforts. We know we need some sort of sustainable wildcrafter’s group. We need some sort of on-line herb exchange between herb buyers, growers and wildcrafters. We would love to see more workers’ cooperatives. We will look at what is currently out there and lay some groundwork for starting new things.
We now have an Instagram page, thanks to Kira Mardike. We are posting photos of our herb work on a regular basis. This will give a chronology of what herb harvests and tasks happen over the course of the growing season.
https://www.instagram.com/friendsofthetreesbotanicals/
Accommodations:
We know that ten or more people will be locals commuting from home, several people are staying with local friends, one will stay at an airbnb, and at least 3 will camp. This leaves at least a dozen people who haven’t indicated their plans.
Housing at Fort Worden
We are going to rent one of the plush, 4-bedroom suites on Officer’s Row for Saturday night. If you wish a room please let me know asap. ($97.25 per bedroom). More details are on the March 10 update on our website. We can rent two suites if there is enough demand.
Camping. Shana L is renting a campsite for Saturday night. She is happy to share it. The limit is 8 people per campsite. If you wish to share her campsite (and the $40 fee) please let me know.
Food:
It looks like we won’t have enough people for catered meals at The Servery by their April 3 deadline (minimum 16), so we won’t be doing that unless a bunch of people sign on over the weekend.
People can eat breakfast and lunch at Fort Worden’s The Commons Café, open from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 pm. (Next building over from our classroom) It offers espresso drinks and coffee; house-made pastries and desserts; daily lunch specials and flavorful grab-and-go choices, including freshly prepared sandwiches, salads and made-from-scratch soups.
We will arrange a dinner reservation at a recommended restaurant for Saturday evening and probably Sunday dinner as well, for those who wish. We will take a head count the day of.
Quite a few people have mentioned bringing their own food.
It will no doubt be a fascinating collection of herbal people attending. Herbalists, growers, landscapers, wildcrafters. We currently have Native Americans from 4 different tribes attending. The chef at the world-famous HerbFarm in Woodinville is joining us so we will certainly be talking about medicinal food and wild edibles.
I am looking forward to seeing what magic we can create and how much information we can exchange.
I need to hear from some people about housing, payment, and any other questions or suggestions you have.
