WELCOME SPRING, talk seeds and learn about edible landscaping–unusual fruit, vegetables, herbs and even mushroom-growing. Shop for organic seeds from Hudson Valley Seed Library and Turtle Tree Seed, and garden goodies from Hillsdale General Store. It’s all on the schedule for the 5th annual Seedy Saturday, at the Copake (NY) Grange Hall on Saturday, March 21. Last year 100 gardeners joined us for shopping, networking, and social time, with proceeds benefiting the Friends of Taconic State Park.
Get a ticket now at this link for the lecture, the workshop, or both.
- Shops open at 1:30 PM
- Our shopkeepers are expert growers, so come prepared with your questions! Lia Babitch and Ken Greene and I will be there to help, as will our guest speaker, permaculture and edible landscaping designer Michael Judd.
- 2:30 PM slide talk on “Edible Landscaping: How to Have Your Yard & Eat It, Too,” by author and noted edible-landscape designer Michael Judd of Ecologia Design. (Remember my interview with him on mushroom growing?)
- …followed by reception and more shopping till 5:00.
- ALSO: Michael is giving a hands-on workshop on “Backyard Mushroom Growing,” from 9:30 to noon (separate ticket; limited to 20 participants).
about michael’s edible landscaping lecture
AT OUR 5th Annual Seedy Saturday, we’ll go beyond growing from seed only, and talk about all manner of edibles, and how they combine into a garden that is a feast for all senses, and sustainable, too.
“Edible Landscaping” is a lively, inspired presentation for both budding gardeners and experienced ones. Prepare to come away with a new way of looking at the form and function of your outdoor environment. Michael will offer dynamic ideas for easy-to-follow, ecologically sensitive projects, and guide you to having your yard and eating it, too. Edible landscaping projects he’ll showcase include:
- building herb spirals
- creating a food forest
- carving raised beds that harvest rainwater
- growing tasty outdoor mushrooms (the ultimate shade perennial that also mitigates pollutants)
- discovering uncommon fruits that match your site
- installing an earthen oven, and more…
about michael’s mushroom workshop
“Wild About Mushrooms” is edible and ecological landscape designer Michael Judd’s most popular workshop, on growing delicious and nutritious culinary and medicinal mushrooms in your own garden or landscape. Learn to inoculate logs for shiitake and oyster mushrooms (like the one Michael’s holding, above) and to grow wine cap mushrooms on wood chips, while improving your garden’s health. (Margaret Roach recently interviewed Michael on some of the basics in this story.)
The class will also cover the basics of mushroom science, and how fungi functions in nature and how to work with fungi to help restore our local ecologies.
Location details will be sent to each registrant; the workshop takes place in Copake Falls, New York, about 5 minutes from the afternoon seed sale and lecture venue. Morning coffee and baked good will be served on arrival at the workshop, to be held rain or shine. All students will go home with an inoculated log to start their own mushroom planting.
About Michael Judd: Growing up between northern England and the Appalachian mountains of Maryland, Michael Judd’s roots have touched diverse landscapes and fertile culture. Mix in a decade of running a grassroots non-profit in rural Latin America, heading up an arid-lands research project in the Spanish desert, and extensive study at New York Botanical Garden and also of permaculture, and he has become an eclectic designer who melds form, function, and productivity. He is the principal of Ecological Design, and author of “Edible Landscaping With a Permaculture Twist,” and founder of Project Bona Fide, an international non-profit supporting agro-ecology research. He teaches sold-out workshops on topics from mushroom growing to natural building and edible landscaping at his Maryland home, and around the country.
