Courses

Learn how to rapidly build soil from low cost or free inputs to produce bountiful crops, from your backyard to a back acre. We will cover together the forces that prevent good soil formation and cause soil loss, how to build soil rapidly, and how to protect and steward it for years to come. A host of skills, strategies, and techniques will be covered, including solarization, weed suppression, compost, cover cropping, incorporating animals in annual spaces, and more.

We have been cultivating several varieties of gourmet mushrooms for 17 years. In this course, you'll learn all you need to know to grow your own Shiitake, Oyster, Wine-cap stropharia and other specialty mushrooms.

Have you heard about the benefits of worm compost, but are unsure how to get started? Or are you a seasoned worm compost maker, wanting to learn additional tips, skills, and options for low cost and flexible infrastructure to take your composting to the next level? This course will cover the basics of making worm compost up to a small farm or homestead level and volume.

Annie Warmke will provide an overview of her philosophy for keeping goats, touching on what to look for when starting your herd, natural goat health, simple remedies for common health challenges, herbal parasite control and the general make-up of a healthy animal. She will demonstrate hoof trimming since it is a major part of goat health. The goal of this course is to gain confidence around goats.

 

Learn to build the proper ratio and grind meat to make your own delicious sausage at home! 

Join Annie and Jay Warmke as they share how they turned a house made of clean garbage into a living
through planning and hard work, and perhaps a little luck with timing. The basics include how to create a
plan that sustains the work, various ways to create a money stream, and more.

The sun is just waiting to be harnessed, and what better time to utilize that energy then when there's no electric energy.  Learn the basics in a step-by-step process of putting together a solar generator, including where to buy the components.  Quiet, efficient, and easy to maintain...solar generators might in your future.  

In Part 2 of her "Goat College" series, Annie shares the keys to maintaining a healthy goat herd.

Join Jay and Annie Warmke as they walks through various aspects of the techniques used in the construction of an Earthship.  Topics include, rammed-earth tire walls, bottle walls, straw bale walls, composting toilets, wet lands and more.  

Learn seed saving from Irena Hollowell. Irena works at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE). SESE currently carries over 800 varieties of vegetables, herbs, cover crops, and other plants.

Fermenting vegetables is a healthy, enlivening practice that will help restore the balance of beneficial microbes in your gut and introduce you to a world of new flavors. Learn how to ferment cabbage, beans, carrots, peppers, and myriad other vegetables as a method for preserving the harvest without the use of any modern conveniences. Zimmerman will discuss his method for making basic sauerkraut and kimchi, as well as pickling vegetables such as cucumbers and beans, and will delve into the vast opportunities in experimentation available to the modern fermenter.

Learn about the amazing elderberry - finding and properly identifying, foraging, and more with elderberry expert John Moody

Learn to make your own mead (honey wine) using techniques that have been utilized by ancient cultures since the first discovery of bubbling honey and its magical effects. Jereme Zimmerman focuses on wild-crafting and spontaneous-fermentation techniques, but also discusses other mead-making practices. Be prepared for an engaging discussion on mead, Vikings, and the simplicity of fermenting your own honey-based alcoholic beverages using local, raw, unfiltered honey, and ingredients harvested from the wild and your own garden. Join the wild mead movement!

Brewing beer is easy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Jereme Zimmerman discusses the simplicity of brewing beer using a basic beer-brewing kit that can be purchased from any homebrew shop, or even with equipment and ingredients you may very well already have in your kitchen. Before the modern homebrewing explosion, “farmhouse brewing” was the norm in nearly every household. Zimmerman provides tips on how to easily and affordably take up this addictive hobby, and he presents information for both beginning and intermediate brewers on using “exotic” ingredients that were once commonplace, before hops was king.