Rising Appalachia with Barika at Willow Crossing Farm!

A day long, farm-based mini festival, with special guests; irie food; labyrinth walks, permaculture, wild-crafting, and herbal workshops; and opportunities to connect with various environmental and social justice campaigns.

Stay tuned for updates and more details.

Tickets available paypal Keith@Prospectrock.org $25: ‘send money to a friend’.

Tickets will also be available online and by phone through Flynn Tickets ($3.50 service charge) and downtown Burlington at the Flynn Ticket Box Office (no service charge).  You can also buy tickets in person at the farm, downtown Jeffersonville, and soon to be announced locations in Johnson.

Join the conversation, ask questions, and stay in the loop with last minute details at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1633723003574469/

_______________________________________________________

-Vermont’s Community Supported Permaculture Institute since 2000-

Hi Friends- Happy summer to you all!  We’re pleased to announce some new events, some opportunities to share in the fun of our 8th Annual Permaculture Design Certification Course– and a very special FARM BASED CONCERT with RISING APPALACHIA! Join with Food Not Lawns author Heather Flores– presenting free and open to the public on Monday, July 20.

Food Not Lawns: Neighborhood Design Workshop

Explore friendship based community organizing with author & founder of Food Not Lawns, Heather Jo Flores.  Food is central to a thriving community; a hub around which people gather.  Learn through community dialogue, games and envisioning what’s possible for your yard and your community.  Are you ready to start a neighborhood-based garden project or to turn your yard into a garden and your neighborhood into a community?  Then this workshop is for you.

Heather will also join our course teaching team to include aspects of social permaculture.  IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO SIGN UP!  

We’ll be diving in to permaculture design at Vermont’s longest running permaculture research site- and designing the new home for High Mowing Seeds! (FB EVENT PAGE)

Grow Food- Not Lawns!

INHABIT- A Permaculture Perspective     

Screening Free and Open to the Public- Wednesday, July 22, 7 PM

You are also welcome to join us for an all farm-sourced meal- dinner is served at 6pm, and is $14 buffet style.  Reservations are required for dinner.  Please contact head chef Candace Taylor with number in your party and dietary preferences and restrictions (we are happy to meet the needs of omnivore, vegetarian, gluten, vegan, etc.) to make dinner reservations. Candace: healin.irie@gmail.com

___________________________________________________________

Medicine Womyn’s Retreat!

Join us to nourish and nurture your inner divinity. Come gather with sister allies and connect deeply with your authentic self. This will be a day filled with ritual, creative expression and blissful self love! The workshops throughout the day will be based on Aromatherapy, Herbal crafting, Flower Essence, Fiber arts etc…There will also be a medicine walk, a labyrinth journey, rituals and songs, sacred Heartfire Henna, guided meditation, Yoga with Fletcher Boote and a rockin Kirtan to end the evening. $60-75 sliding scale August 8th, 10-5 at Willow Crossing Farm RSVP with Kori Gelinas to reserve your spot:  https://www.facebook.com/events/1084317594930782/

___________________________________________________________

RISING APPALACHIA

-LIVE AT WILLOW CROSSING FARM!  with special guests BARIKA–

Details TBD- Save the Date!  Please help us spread the word.

Also COMING UP:

August 9 – Mayan Fire Ceremony for Families with Mayan Grandmother Nana Wilma

NURSERY PLANTS!

We still have plenty of CURRANTS, SEA BERRIES, BLACK LOCUST, and many other rare FRUITS, NUTS, BERRIES, and VINES available for sale!

Thank you for your support and for SHARING our events with your networks!

-Keith and Family

Nursery Plants Pre-Orders

The information below is from previous years- these varieties and MANY MORE are available for pre-order with plant pick ups beginning April 23 for the 2016 season.

Please add your email to the box on the right and confirm your subscription (‘Following Blog’).

We will have a large variety of select fruits, nuts, berries, and vines proven in the Lamoille Valley of Northern Vermont.  At this time, we do not ship plants.  Plants area available for pickup at the farm in Johnson, VT or our barn in Jeffersonville, VT starting Earth Day- April 22, 2015, and celebrating with Special Events for International Permaculture Day- May 3, 2015.

Please send an email with specific requests- especially if you are looking for wholesale/ orchard/ production/ hedgerow quantities.  Plants are available in bundles of 10 of the same variety for wholesale or farm production planting pricing.

Available as Bare-Root Plants Picked up in Northern Vermont:

Apples      Pears     Walnuts     Hazelnuts     Chestnuts     Hickories and Pecans     Currants and other Ribes     Kiwis      Sea Berries and other N Fixers      Strawberries      Asparagus      Hops      Plums      Cherries     Peaches and Apricots     Hops    Medicinal Herbs and Companion Plants     Grapes     Schisandra     Tobacco     Paw Paws     Honey Berries     

Please see below for some examples of the varieties we had for previous seasons.  We should have all (or most) of these and are looking forward to introducing several more!

Potted Plants:

We have a limited number of plants.

Black Locusts ~2′ tall potted $20.  The exceptionally fast growing Nitrogen Fixing Tree has delicious edible flowers loved by bees.  Its also exceptionally rot resistant and hot burning fire-wood.

Aurora Pear ~6+’ tall grafted Fruit Tree, XL pot- $50

Grafted Paw Paws ~1′ tall in deep pots.  ‘Pennsylvania Golden’ and ‘NC-1’ varieties.

$25 Various Nut Trees ~2′ tall in deep and/ or large pots.  Walnuts, Hazelnuts, Carpathian Walnuts, Butternuts, Buartnuts  $40 each! Sugar Maples  ~5+’ tall potted trees

$30  Kiwis  potted, assorted varieties

$25 Siberian Pea Shrub ~2-4′ tall potted trees.  Beautiful N Fixer with edible flowers and small peas often used as chicken fodder and/ or living fence.   Please stay tuned and follow the blog- our availability and pre-orders for spring 2015 will be announced soon!

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Spring 2014

(for reference only- most of these plants will be available for similar prices Spring 2015)

Hey All! Thanks everyone for your support of our most successful plant sale to date!  By last count we’ve helped place several hundred fruits, nuts, berries, vines, and other useful plants throughout the northeast just this spring! All plants are available for pickup ASAP in Jeffersonville, VT or at Willow Crossing Farm by appointment, unless otherwise noted. All trees are potted in organic compost potting mix.  For the best prices on trees, please subscribe for details about our late April / early May Bare Root Plant Sales. We still have nice, well branched PIXWELL GOOSEBERRIES  $20/ plant- make a small deliciously fruiting, mildly thorny hedge around your garden to keep the critters back! SIBERIAN PEA SHRUB- One of our favorite Nitrogen Fixers, this plant feeds bees, has delicious edible flowers (for people), and its small edible peas are traditionally grown as a chicken feed.  $20/ Plant CONSTORT BLACK CURRANT- widely adaptable, shade-fruiting, delicious- White Pine Blister Rust immune- yum! $20/ Plant HYBRID HAZELS-  One of our favorites for a future crop in VT, now well into production here at Willow Crossing, these multi-stemmed trees will begin to bear nuts in as little as 3 years from planting. They also make nice hedges, living fences, privacy screens, or snow fence. $30/ tree.  (Available for Pickup this weekend by appointment). SILVER MAPLES- 3-4′ bare root trees.  Stately!  $15/ Plant SOLD OUT SUGAR MAPLES- 4-5′ bare root trees.  The classic!  $25/ Plant LODI GREEN APPLE- 3/4″ truck caliper (over 6′ tall) bare root trees- $30/ plant  SOLD OUT NIJISEIKI ASIAN PEAR- 3/4″ truck diameter (~5′ plant) bare root- $30/ Plant. SOLD OUT AURORA RED BLUSHED PEAR- 3/4″ truck diameter (over 6′ tall)- $50/ Plant. ONE LEFT- BIG TREE! BLACK LOCUST- 18″- Permaculture stacking function ‘superhero’: the fastest growing, most rot resistant, hottest burning, thorny, Nitrogen Fixing, bee-supporting, edible flowers. $20/ Plant

Ericoid Mycorrhizae infect the roots of blueberries, and expand their reaches for minerals, nutrients, and water exponentially!

WATERMAN BERRY FARM ERICOID MYCORRHIZA INNOCULATED MATURE BLUEBERRIES  magic mushrooms for blueberry roots!  MEADER, BLUE GLOD, ELLIOT $35/ Large Potted Plant CONCORD GRAPES– The classic hardy blue grape known for its vigor and disease resistance, and delicious fresh grapes, juices, wine, jams, and preserves. $20/ pot BLACK WALNUTS- 2-3′ bare root trees.  $30 BUTTERNUTS- 12-18″ bare root trees- $25 *CARPATHIAN/ ENGLISH WALNUTS- 2-3′ bare root trees, $40 XANTHOCERAS- 3-4′ bare root trees, $25  SOLD OUT Still just a few potted: KIWIS, SEA BERRIES, ARONIA, ROSES, ARTICHOKES, and some VIKING ASPARAGUS! More details on the plant sale are available here. If you want something left bare root for you let us know! Thanks so much! Keith, Family, and Crew Only a few spaces remain in this summer’s Permaculture Design Certification Course, and we’re able to offer full scholarships to income eligible Vermonters and Women Farmers.  Two spaces will be reserved for ‘second PDC’ students looking to deepen their practice and experience. Happy spring- get planting!

Fruit Tree Grafting Workshop and 3rd Annual Scionwood Exchange- Sunday April 13

Hi Friends,

Please share this with potentially interested friends and networks. Hope to see you!

Fruit Tree Grafting Workshop and 3nd Annual Scionwood Exchange

April 13, 10 am – 4 pm

Willow Crossing Farm
Johnson, VT

Join us for a day of hands-on fruit tree grafting. We’ll begin the day in the classroom understanding the science of grafting, and practice bench-grafting apples, pears, plums, and other stone fruits.

Everyone will have the opportunity to graft their own trees to take home!

After lunch, we’ll go out and tour grafted and ‘multi-grafted’ fruit trees (including peaches grafted onto plums) and ‘top work’ multiple varieties onto pears, apples, plums, and other stone fruit. We’ll discuss some pruning basics, different grafting strategies for ‘fruit salad trees’, healing damaged trees, reworking new varieties, revitalizing old orchards, enhancing cross-pollination, and space considerations. We’ll also look at and evaluate both successful and failed past grafts.

We’ll contextualize our work in briefly telling some history of our farm and touring our incredibly diverse collection of nuts, berries, vines, nitrogen-fixing plants, and regenerative DIY farm infrastructure. We’ll also explore the incredible history of grafting, the range of grafting possibilities, and practice with professional grafting tools which make for more successful grafts by novices and experts alike.

Each attendant will leave with an apple or pear variety of their choosing on semi-dwarf or standard rootstock, or a stone fruit variety of their choosing on native american plum rootstock.

$80 suggested donation sliding scale includes cider and tea, and your own grafted fruit trees to take home. No one will be refused for lack of funds, but everyone must pre-register.

Due to the popularity of this event, you much pre-register. There is a possibility of another event later in March or in April, please send an email to express your interest.
Please RSVP by filling out the registration form and submitting payment via paypal to: Keith@ProspectRock.org, or sending a check to:

‘Prospect Rock Permaculture’

P.O. Box 426

Jeffersonville, VT 05464

We must get your email address from you, as the weather will determine where we park cars. and we will also send you some information about how to best collect scion wood if you want to propagate some favorite fruit trees.

The workshop will be taught by:

Zach Leonard is a master horticulturalist and as been the farm manager of Elmore Roots Nursery for 15 years. He and his family have created High Hopes Farm, a diverse off-grid homestead.

Nicko Rubin is the owner of East Hill Tree Farm, where he has been growing and propagating hardy fruits and nuts in the foothills of the Groton Mountains. He completed the master’s program for sustainable landscape design at the Conway School.

Dave Johnson is a timber framer with a passion for fruit trees. His competence with sharp tools and wood translate readily into many successful grafts and a legacy of multi-grafted old wild apples throughout the hills of Vermont.

Keith Morris has been collecting and experimenting with rare fruits, nuts, and medicinal plants since 1996, and is professor of ecological design at the University of Vermont. He’s slowly built his family’s farm debt-free with sweat-equity and has contributed to creating resilient and diverse food systems on 5 continents.

Thank you,
Keith
(802) 734-1129

Willow Crossing Farm
Johnson, VT
http://www.WillowCrossing.org

As a reminder- only a few spaces remain for our 7th Annual Prospect Rock Permaculture Design Certification Course, July 20 – August 1, 2014.

Our Fruit, Nut, Berry, Vine, and Medicinal Plant Sale will be Saturday, May 3- Please pre-order to ensure you can get the plants you want!

Nuts for the Northeast- NOFA VT Winter Conference, Sat. Feb. 15

Hardy Organic Nuts for Farms and Yards

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Keith Morris at

NOFA VT 32nd Annual Winter Conference

3:45 – 5:00 pm

Silver Maple Ball Room, Davis Center UVM

     Since the dawn of time, nuts have been some of the most important food plants for human beings.  Nut trees and shrubs offer some of the most nutrient dense foods, provide habitat, show the potential for a ‘carbon-negative’ and flood resilient agriculture, and are economically valuable for a variety of products in addition to nuts themselves.

Join with grower and international farm designer Keith Morris to explore the fascinating ecology and mythology of a few nut trees particularly suited to growing on farms and in neighborhoods throughout in the northeast.  We’ll focus of hardy proven nuts, and introduce some of the breeding, trailing, and hybridizing happening at Willow Crossing Farm in Johnson, VT to select for disease resistance, organic production, high quality timber, oils, medicinal properties, and to migrate some important nuts typically grown in warmer regions.  Participants will leave with a deeper understanding and appreciation of some trees commonly found in towns and hillsides, and be introduced to promising less common nuts.

Keith Morris is the founder of Willow Crossing Farm and is Professor of Permaculture Design at the University of Vermont.  As a grower, builder, and designer, he has created ecologically regenerative and economically viable food systems in New Zealand, Colorado, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Quebec, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nigeria, Ghana, Denmark, and the Netherlands- working regularly throughout New England and in New York City.  He has spent over 20 years developing permaculture with farms, towns, schools, indigenous peoples, squats, activists, and in solidarity with exploited populations.

Willow Crossing Farm is Vermont’s longest established permaculture research and education facility, and a debt-free ‘financial permaculture’ working family farm.   We host one of the most diverse collections of tree crops in the northeast, offer farm-based dining and educational opportunities to the local communities, and host annual events that attract people from across the country and a surprising variety of international students. We grow a variety of fruits, nuts, berries, and vines in an organic nursery; experiment with new crops, techniques, and regenerative farm infrastructure; manage production to create wildlife refuge and pollinator sanctuary; and have been focused on developing ‘productive buffers’ to reforest floodplain and riverside banks with marketable production.

 

Also- subscribe to our blog (just enter your email above to the right) to receive announcements about Farm Tours and to view our fruit, nut, and medicinal plant collections, view the listing for the Spring Nursery Sale, and other related workshops and conferences.

_____________________________________________________

Stay tuned for details about our February Pruning Workshop, March Grafting Workshop, Farm Dinners, and other upcoming events.

__________________________________________________________

Our 2014 Summer Permaculture Design Certification (July 20 – August 1) is filling fast- please be in touch if you would like to reserve your space!

This is Vermont’s oldest independent Permaculture Design Certification Course, with the most highly regarded PDC and teaching team in the Northeast.  Prospect Rock Permaculture has largest body of PDC alumni/ graduates in the North America!  We hope you can join us.

Its almost full!

__________________________________________________________

With the Happiest Wishes for your New Year, and Warm Winter Blessings, 

The Prospect Rock Permaculture Family and Crew