Description

Growing, Restoring & Regenerating Soils – Sunday 18th June – 10am – 4:30pm

This workshop is for people who are interested in exploring ways to regenerate and nurture soils for optimum health and fertility. Soil is at the origin of almost all of the food we eat, clothes we wear, paper we write on, fuel we use and natural medicines we need. But – soil can be dead or soil can be full of life. This workshop will help you understand all the components of a healthy, living soil and how to best restore and enhance your own soils. We will explore practical ways you can incorporate regenerative and agroecological techniques into the management of your own garden, farm, forest, balcony, estate or whatever space you have available.

Living soils can produce high yielding crops, healthy animals, reduce pests and disease, build thriving above and below ground ecosystems, improve food nutrient density and human health, increase farm business profitability and sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Let’s bring our soils back to life!

 

Learning outcomes

  • A day in the life of living soil – the relationship between plants, roots, microbes, fungi, and nutrient cycling.
  • Principles and practices of regenerative agriculture and agroecology as they pertain to soil regeneration.
  • The connection between soil health, animal health, human health and planet health.
  • Understand all the components necessary for a living, thriving soil and how all those components are connected.
  • Better appreciate why it is of the utmost importance to urgently restore the planet’s soils.

 

Practical skills

  • Practical techniques to start your own living soil restoration.
  • Be able to identify the practices of modern land use that degrade soil.
  • Have a toolbox of options for how to revive dead soil at a multitude of scales.

 

Tutor – Mimi Crawford

Mimi Crawford is an environmental geologist and organic farmer who is chronically curious about the role of living soils in functioning ecosystems and is passionate about nutrient dense food and food sovereignty. As an artisan food producer of dairy and meat products, a forager and a gardener, Mimi combines her professional geological and environmental work on soils with her experience of farming and procuring food in the modern world to explore context specific challenges and opportunities brought about by climate change and biodiversity loss. As part of the Talamh Beo Soil Biodiversity EIP she recently completed Dr. Elaine’s Soil Food Web Approach Course and is working her way through the certified Soil Food Web Lab-tech programme. You can find more about Mimi and her farm at www.crawfordsfarm.ie.

 

Cost : €80

 

Bookings & Information

Our courses always get positive feedback from participants and you will benefit from on hand expert tutors with years of experience in their field. It’s a great opportunity to meet like-minded people and spend some time in our gardens, orchards and woodlands in beautiful East Clare.

You can book courses online or you can telephone us on 061 921866 or 921856.

  • Workshop prices: from €80
  • 10% discount for supporters.
  • Workshops suitable for adults only – children under 18 years are not permitted to attend.
  • There is a 100% refund for cancellations made at least 2 Weeks prior to the course date. No refund after that time.
  • Café serving lunch and refreshments

The Night Orchard Pop Up Café will open onsite at Irish Seed Savers on each course day serving hearty lunches, soups, homemade cakes and tea / coffee. The café is vegetarian and uses organic, locally sourced, in-season ingredients to produce healthy and nutritious food.