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Friday Intensives

Walk-in registrations will be accepted for each intensive at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center.  Lunch is not guaranteed. Please Note: intensive workshops begin at various times; please arrive 15 minutes before the start of your desired workshop to register, and leave extra time for parking. Cash/check only.

These seminars take place on the waterfront in downtown Burlington, at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center. All prices include lunch for pre-registered attendees; lunch not guaranteed for walk-ins.

We recommend parking at the Hilton/Marroit garage ($8), on the street in a brown-metered spot ($4), or at the Perkins Pier lot ($5-8), a 10-minute walk away.

Click here for a map of the Burlington Waterfront showing parking options.

Improving Blueberry Yields & Longevity
9:00–12:30 • Main Street Landing
$45 members; $60 non-members
(Both berry workshops: $80 members/$95 non-members)
BlueberriesThe profitability of blueberries depends on site selection, cultivar selection and specific cultural practices. This workshop for the intermediate blueberry grower will provide the most current research on dealing with soil and nutrient issues, establishing and renewing plants, pruning, controlling weeds, disease and insects, including our biggest threat, Drosophila. There will be time to troubleshoot with this expert panel of researchers and growers.

Presenters

  • David Handley is a vegetable and small fruit specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
  • Laura McDermott  is an Extension Associate with the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Capital District Vegetable and Small Fruit Program.
  • Helen Whybrow owns and operates Knoll Farm in the Mad River Valley, a diversified organic farm that includes a small orchard of highly productive high-bush blueberries. The berries are marketed through a farmstand, CSA, Pick-Your-Own and to local restaurants. Helen has been offering a workshop on growing blueberries at her farm for the past 5 summers. 

 

Increasing Strawberry Profits 
1:30–5:00 • Main Street Landing
$45 members; $60 non-members
(Both berry workshops: $80 members/$95 non-members)

This intermediate-level workshop will provide important organic and IPM approaches to help you deepen your understanding of this sensitive crop. Presenters will begin with a discussion of site selection and varieties, followed by nutrition, weeds, renovation, high tunnel production (briefly), low field tunnels (briefly), insects and diseases. Growers Jake Guest and David Marchant will offer insight throughout the workshop through the lens of their matted row or annual culture systems, respectively, and will present on their evolving strawberry production systems towards the end of the session. Focused questions will be welcome throughout.  

Presenters

  • David Handley is a vegetable and small fruit specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
  • Laura McDermott  is an Extension Associate with the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Capital District Vegetable and Small Fruit Program.
  • David Marchant runs River Berry Farm, an organic vegetable and small-fruit family farm located on the Lamoille River in Fairfax, Franklin County, VT.  He converted from an IPM strawberry management system to organic and uses a matted row system.  He sells strawberries through Pick-Your-Own and his CSA. 
  • Jake Guest has run Killdeer Farm since 1979.  They grow organic strawberries using an annual production system with plugs and sell them at their farm stand and in their CSA.

 

Farming for Resiliency in a Changing Climate
9:00–4:00 • Main Street Landing
$75 members; $90 non-members

Winters are getting warmer, summers are getting drier, diseases and pests are changing, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent - what's a farmer to do? This intensive workshop is designed to present a background on the new challenges that climate change is bringing to farming in our region, and tools that can go beyond mitigation to greater on-farm resiliency in extreme weather. Presenters will offer both global and local strategies – from methods to building soil resiliency, managing weeds and enhancing crop adaptability, to enhancing buffers on flood plains and in riparian zones by using perennial crops, to using mapping systems as a tool in risk management in whole farm planning.

This workshop will also offer farmers an opportunity to apply the new information and tools to their farms in an interactive whole-farm planning session with presenters at the end of the day. NOFA-VT in collaboration with Middlebury College will provide demonstration of on-line mapping tools, as well as maps, for the participating farmers to use in a farm planning exercise in risk management that they can take away from the workshop and employ on their farms.

Presenters

This workshop has been made possible by the High Meadows Fund and is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under award number 2010-49200-6201.



Fermenting the Harvest
10:30–5:30 • Main Street Landing
$75 members; $90 non-members

Vegetables fermenting in mason jarsThe process of fermentation for preservation was realized by ancient cultures around the world. This intensive workshop will begin with a look at the socio-cultural role fermented foods have played throughout history. Next, a series of demos will show you how to make sauerkraut and kimchi, lacto-fermented fruit beverages, hard cider, yogurt and fromage blanc. The day concludes with an in-depth discussion of the microbial processes that make fermented foods safe, healthy and delicious.  For beginner to intermediate fermentation enthusiasts. All presenters will save time to "troubleshoot" your fermentation questions. 

Presenters

  • Jason Frishman is a Family Therapist and co-proprietor of Folk Foods, a vegetarian food business centered at the Burlington Farmers' Market. He touts eating fermented foods every day for their health benefits and complex flavors. 
  • Caroline Homan is the Food and Nutrition Education Coordinator at City Market/Onion River Co-op and the Burlington Chapter Leader for the Weston A. Price Foundation (Nourishing Vermont).  She regularly teaches workshops on fermented beverages, vegetables and grains at the Co-op. 
  • Andrea Chesman is the author of numerous cookbooks, including her latest, The Pickled Pantry.  An avid gardener, many of her cookbooks focus on fresh vegetables and eating seasonally. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and cookbooks.  She gardens and pickles in Ripton, Vermont.
  • David Buchanan is a plant collector, cider maker and author based in Portland, Maine. His latest book is Taste, Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors, and Why They Matter.
  • Lindsay Harris is a farmer who runs the Family Cow Farmstand, in Hinesburg, VT. They deliver fresh, unpasteurized milk through their Milk Share program and sell to drop-in customers at the farm stand. 
  • Dr. Robert Luby is a 20 year practitioner of family medicine, with teaching appointments at UVM, the University of Massachusetts and Tufts University medical schools.

 


Stretching Your Meat Dollar
Cancelled

We regret to announce the cancellation of this workshop. We hope to offer it again in the near future. If you pre-registered for this workshop, NOFA-VT will be contacting you soon about your refund.