Events & Workshops – Many Hands Organic Farm

Upcoming Events and Workshops

Many Hands Sustainability Center Workshops

Pruning and Managing an Orchard
Trees, Grapes and Small Fruit

When:
Saturday, April 1, 2023
10 am – noon, followed by potluck lunch

Where:
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA

What We’ll Discuss:
Few things agricultural give you as much joy and satisfaction as a bountiful crop of healthy fruit. Yet it takes a few years of time and steady effort to achieve these results. Make sure that time is well spent!

Learn how to manage and prune tree fruit, berries, and grapes at our Spring workshop. We have 100 trees in our orchard and produce apples, pears, peaches, paw paws, mulberries, grapes, blueberries and raspberries every year.

We will discuss our fertility management practices and share our foliar and drench recipes.

This is a hands-on event. We will supply tools.

Cost:
Donations gratefully accepted on a sliding scale: $25-$75 per person
Pay by check: Mail check made out to “MHSC” to 411 Sheldon Rd. Barre, MA 01005
Pay by PayPal: (Please add 3.5% plus $.50 processing fee to your payment) Pay here.

Questions:
farm@mhof.net
978-257-1192

Building and Using a Chicken Tractor

When:
Saturday, April 22, 2023
10 am – noon, followed by potluck lunch

Where:
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA

What We’ll Discuss:

Pasturing poultry gives your birds access to the extra nutrients only Nature can supply best. Yet how do you protect them from predators out on grass? A well-designed range-house “tractor” offers security from hawks, owls and four-footed varmints.

Each year we raise 500-600 birds in these “tractors” on pasture. Two people feed and water the animals and move their range houses by hand every day to fresh grass.

We will be moving some for this workshop presentation, as well as building one so you can get up close and learn how it is done.

Questions:
farm@mhof.net
978-257-1192

Growing Shiitakes Mushrooms on Logs

When:
Saturday, May 13, 2023
10 am – noon, with potluck lunch at noon

Where:
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA

What We’ll Discuss:

Come learn how to easily grow your own mushrooms at home! In this 2-hour hands on workshop we’ll be plugging our latest batch of oak logs with shiitake spawn. We’ll tour our mushroom yard in the woods and talk about managing logs for production throughout the season.

Questions:
farm@mhof.net
978-257-1192

All-Day Vegetable Farming Intensive

When:
Saturday, June 10, 2023
10 am – 3 pm, with potluck lunch at noon

Where:
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA

What We’ll Discuss:

Thinking about diving into no-till farming or increasing the quality of the food you are raising? Come spend a day with us at Many Hands Organic Farm to learn all aspects of our vegetable production. Our goal is to raise the highest quality food possible while incorporating management practices that are in balance with nature while having a good time. Spend the day with farmers Julie Rawson, Clare Caldwell, and John Duke for discussion, hands on work, and a pot luck lunch. We’ll start seeds, prep beds for planting, discuss foliar nutrition management and use our sprayers, and spend an hour observing soil through the microscope with John.

Cost:
Donations gratefully accepted on a sliding scale: $50-$100 per person
Pay by check: Mail check made out to “MHSC” to 411 Sheldon Rd. Barre, MA 01005
Pay by PayPal: (Please add 3.5% plus $.50 processing fee to your payment) Pay here.

Questions:
farm@mhof.net
978-257-1192

The Permaculture Farm and Agroforestry Hedgerows

When:
Saturday, June 24, 2023
10 am – 3 pm, with potluck lunch

Where:
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA

What We’ll Discuss:

With Jono Neiger as our workshop leader we’ll first look at Many Hands Organic Farm through the lens of permaculture and whole systems design looking at the farm as permaculture in action. We will explore, and literally dig into, areas of the farm to see how the complexity of soils, water, vegetation, microclimates, and more are interwoven and incorporated into farm management. Finally, we will look at specific field edges to see how they might become multi-functional hedgerows. We’ll walk through hedgerow design- looking at specific edges, identifying trees species, installation, and management strategies.

Hedgerows are an agroforestry strategy the goes far back into human landscape management- where trees, shrubs with other plants are employed and orchestrated to function in many ways. They can function for windbreaks, fuel, fodder, pollination habitat, carbon sinks, and much more. These field and farm edges provide an opportunity to separate and interconnect parts of the landscape. Design and planning of hedgerows is both simple and complex and a chance to diversify the farm.

Jono Neiger is a founder and agroforestry planner at of Regenerative Design Group Cooperative, in western Massachusetts with 30+ years of professional experience in agroforestry, permaculture, ecological land and site planning, conservation, and restoration. He holds a B.S. degree in Forest Biology and a Masters in Landscape Planning and Design and authored The Permaculture Promise. He operates Big River Chestnuts, a chestnut agroforestry farm in Sunderland, Massachusetts.

Questions:
farm@mhof.net
978-257-1192

Cooking With Your CSA Share

When:
Saturday, July 22, 2023
10 am – noon, followed by farm lunch

Where:
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA

What We’ll Discuss:

Taking the large step to buy a CSA share is sometimes followed by overwhelm, especially for those who may not center their eating around vegetables. Clare Caldwell and Julie Rawson, farmers at Many Hands Organic Farm will take the share from the week of July 17 and turn it into a delicious lunch for us all to eat. Last year the CSA received these items during that week – chard, parsley, lettuce, chives, kale, summer squash, cucumbers, beets, sugar snap peas, radishes.

Limit – 12 participants

Questions:
farm@mhof.net
978-257-1192

Food Preservation with Many Hands Organic Farm

When:
Saturday, September 16, 2023
10 am – 2 pm, with potluck lunch at noon

Where:
Many Hands Sustainability Center
411 Sheldon Road, Barre, MA

What We’ll Discuss:

We preserve hundreds of pounds of food each year enough to fill 7 freezers, 400 mason jars, a root cellar, and cupboards with dried foods. Join us at the height of the food preservation season to preserve our way through the day. We will freeze vegetables, can tomatoes and grape juice, make applesauce, start some lacto-fermented sauerkraut, dry some herbs and garlic and discuss best methods for canning, freezing, drying, lacto-fermenting, and root cellaring. At lunch time we will share a pot luck lunch.

Limit – 14 participants

Questions:
farm@mhof.net
978-257-1192