Guest Speaking and Educational Opportunities
Background
Raised in an urban setting in the small city of Stratford with no background in agriculture, it has always been a mystery of what had drawn me to agriculture. From my earliest memories I have always been fascinated with growing things. After completing a master’s degree in geography and settling into the teaching profession, my gardening has grown steadily from a backyard garden to a .75 acre commercial market garden providing a new post retirement career for myself and 3 Am Braigh team members.
Intellectual Influences
I am heavily indebted to both the work of Eliot Coleman and Joel Salatin two pioneers in the organic movement whose practices have informed what we do here at Am Braigh farm.
Eliot Coleman has inspired my goal to provide year round vegetables here in zone 4 with minimal winter protection. Our soil here is thin and very sandy with the bedrock close to the surface, yet through the practices of crop rotation, green manures and compost we have turned Am Braigh into a thriving vegetable farm.
Joel Salatin has been an advocate of how animals are an integral part of a sustainable farm system. Using ideas from permaculture he has devised pastured poultry systems that we have adopted here.
Michael Pollan’s critique of the modern food industry has made the need for a more local agriculture all the more apparent .
Together these three individuals and their ideas have formed the core of our mission here to provide and build a strong local food economy and to provide educational opportunities so that people interested in learning the possibilities that exist building sustainable food systems.
Guest Speaking Topics:
Topic #1 Year round intensive gardening. Over ½ of our sales occur from November until mid June. This talk explores the methods of how to intensive production as well as extend the season.
Topic #2 Regenerative Agriculture: Building resilience in the face of a changing climate. This talk explores how build a regenerative system of agriculture within a market garden
If you are interested in either of the talks, Contact me.
