Many Hands Sustainability Center

On less than 3 acres of vegetable and small fruit land we gross $93,000. On roughly 6 acres for our meat chickens, layers, pigs, steers and turkeys, we gross $46,000. We will cover seedlings, fertility management - manure (including intricate animal rotations), dry fertilizers, biologicals, fertigation and foliars - cover and undersowing crops, mulches and compost. We will demonstrate drip irrigation, foliar feeding, our new vermi-composting experiment in our hoop house, and animal systems.

The workshop includes potluck lunch at noon. Register at http://www.nofamass.org/programs/extensionevents/nutrientdensity.php.

Join with us for a tour of our chicken operation – 450 broilers, 130 layers and 100 turkeys in a certified organic free range system. Examine seasonal range houses on pasture, brooding facilities, winter housing, and talk varieties, feed, security, rotations, equipment, marketing, economics and more. At that time we will have mature layers, nearly mature meat birds, chicks for our second batch of meat birds and poults for our Thanksgiving turkeys. Learn all aspects of raising and marketing organic chicken and eggs.

Participants will have an opportunity to perform hands-on slaughter and cleaning of a bird at the end of the workshop.

We will serve a potluck lunch from noon to 1 PM

Using what is available on our farm on September 22 we will ask you to help us can, freeze, lacto-ferment, wine, dry, leather, jam, juice and pickle. We will also make lard. Additionally we will tour our root cellar and any aspects of our farm that interest you - 3 acres of certified organic veggies, 1 acre fruit, chickens, pigs, turkeys and steers.

Register at http://www.nofamass.org/programs/extensionevents/self-reliance.php.

From this one day field training, you will:

• Learn basic agronomic principles of growing nutrient dense crops in a morning power point presentation.
• Learn key skills like taking brix and conductivity readings, applying base minerals, foliar sprays and nutrient drenches in a field demonstration.
• Walk through the workshop location observing a broad range of crops and discussing historical experience to integrate theoretical principles into practical knowledge.

Since this is offered as part of the NOFA/Massachusetts Practical Skills Workshop Series you will need to register here (pdf).

Learn how you can turn your organically grown fruits and berries into wine for celebrations and gifts. This hands-on demonstration will teach you about each stage in wine making. Help pick and clean fruit, squeeze it into juice, and start a batch of wine. Also learn how to advance a batch already in progress into its primary ferment, and work with a third batch which has finished its primary ferment and learn how to rack it and start the secondary ferment. Finally, see how to siphon a finished batch and bottle it.

Since this is offered as part of the NOFA/Massachusetts Practical Skills Workshop Series, you'll need to register for it on the Practical Skills Workshop page.

Julie Rawson has been farming at Many Hands Organic Farm for 29 years. We'll discuss soil fertility and preparation; when to plant for maximum production throughout the season; raised beds and spacing; timing for things like weeding, harvesting, cover cropping; raising your own transplants; mulches and under-sowing; and practical succession planting systems.

Since this workshop is offered as part of the Massachusetts Organic Gardening Workshop Day, you'll need to register for this workshop through NOFA/Mass.

Come join us on the farm for 3 hours of fun and work in the field. If you always wanted to find out what goes on behind the scenes on our CSA, or if you would like to learn more about how to raise your own food, this work day is for you. Children are welcome if supervised.

Please bring a meal for the pot luck lunch. This workshop is free to the public.

Come join the Many Hands Organic Farm and Sustainability Center staff for our second annual Harvest Festival, free and open to the public. Last year we had lots of fun with games including apple bobbing, pin the tail on the pig and feather on the chicken, egg toss, sack races, treasure hunts, find the egg in the hay, gymnastics, a rotten tomato fight, and the wasp's nest piñata. We also held a country goods and services auction. You can find images of last year's Harvest Festival here.