Agroforestry Bootcamp – On-Farm Agroforestry Workshop

Agroforestry Bootcamp is a weekend intensive workshop held at Anthill Farm in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The farm is located approx. 2.5 hours from NYC and 3 hrs from Philadelphia.

The workshop will be led by Sky Ballentine, co-owner of Anthill Farm. Sky has 17 years of experience in agriculture, he has spent the past 11 years developing Anthill Farm and honing integrated production strategies, techniques, and skills.

The food will be lovingly prepared by Monique Milleson, co-owner of Anthill Farm and Anthill Farm Kitchen, food will be primarily sourced from Anthill Farm and other local operations.

The focus of the workshop is to spend a majority of the time out in the field learning specific techniques and practices that are are critical to maintaining an integrated agroforestry production system.

We will go over the essentials of planting, something that is often misunderstood and not done properly resulting in massive losses to the grower.

We’ll discuss the critical practice of “disturbance”, how to implement it, the timing, the height, etc. Another aspect of disturbance is the practice of pruning, we’ll go over the basics and also cover the differences between the various tree, shrub, and vine species that grow on the farm.

There will be a session on biological controls, organic sprays, compost tea, etc. We’ll discuss our composting practices, how to make effective fungal compost for perennials that can also be used to make your compost teas. We will do a demonstration on making ramial wood chips <3″ diameter saplings and branches.

There will be a tour and discussion of the necessary equipment for implementing an agroforestry farm.

A session on partnerships, relationships, and distribution networks; the necessities for building the world we all dream of. We’ll share our experience of starting and running a food hub for 5 years and why we believe it’s so important to have these types of entities available to growers.

We’ll discuss the costs associated with establishing and maintaining an agroforestry planting of different sizes.

We’ll share our dreams and figure out how to make them happen!

Accommodations: A limited amount of rooms are available for rent in a separate on-farm house or you can pitch a tent or bring a camper. There is a kitchen and shower available to all attendees.

Sliding scale tuition available, please contact us to discuss further.