2024 Summer/Fall Session July 1 – October 31 (Currently Full)
The Summer and Fall session at the Farming Institute will cover a broad range of farming activities. The main focus will be on planting, caring for, and harvesting vegetable, grain, and fruit crops for staff and their extended families. You will get exposure to the wine grape harvest season and participate in a few night harvest as part of your experience. The grazing portion of this session will be assisting in our Silvopasture (forest grazing) program where you will learn the importance of being good stewards to our native forest lands and how to care for and manage grazing animals in this complex system. Below is a brief on some activities you may experience during this session but does not represent a complete list.
· Seed starting (indoors under lights, greenhouse, and direct sow in field)
· Field planting
· Plant trial planning and proper labeling
· Organic and Holistic approaches to fertility, biological diversity, and farm well-being
· Irrigation install and maintenance
· Plant trellis install and maintenance
· Suckering, pruning, tying, training various plants
· General landscape design and flower garden maintenance
· Raised bed development
· Growing plants in raised beds vs field rows
· Weed fabric vs mulching installation and trials
· Weeding (lots and lots of weeding!)
· Fence building and maintenance
· Tractor/implement use and safety training
· Forklift certification
· Tractor and farm equipment maintenance
· Animal care, food, shelter, water systems, breeding
· Basic carpentry and building projects
· Basic plumbing, water source systems, and design
· Basic farm electrical
· Small tools operation and maintenance (weed-eater, chainsaw, table saw, etc.)
· Vehicle maintenance (oil changes, battery replacement/charging, etc.)
· Plant-based composting
· Soil temperature and moisture monitoring
· Plant tissue analysis
· Wine grape harvest, sorting, and winemaking activities