Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Backyard Foodways: A Workshop Series by ENCM

ENCM will present an 9 part, season-long (February-October), workshop series in an effort to develop the urban food-ways of backyards around Nashville. We believe true food security starts in the backyard, or terraces, or even in the indoor kitchen herb pot: where ever people decide to grow something edible and eat it.


Look for workshops each month beginning in February. Topics and speakers include:

  • February 19--Backyard Fruit Production w/ Tatum Stewart of Stewart Orchard in Ashland City, TN and man with the best peaches in town.
  • March 5--Backyard Bio-Dynamics w/ Dennis Limon, bio-dynamic guru and educator.
  • April 2--Backyard Chickens w/ Ryan Fasani, director of ENCM and backyard shepherd.
  • June 25--Cob Building w/ Howard Switzer of The Farm and Ecoville ArchiTechs, and long time alternative materials builder. (note the date change)
  • July 9--Cob Building w/ Howard Switzer (note the date change)
  • August 7--Season Extension and Cover Crops w/ John Dysigner of Bountiful Blessing Farm and offers one of the only winter CSA’s in Nashville. (note this is a Sunday)
  • August 27--Backyard Herbs for Tea w/ Bohdana Fasani, herbal enthusiast and radical homemaker.
  • September 17--Home Preservation w/ Alan Powell, wild-foods guru, local food artist, naturalist, and man of all things good about food.
  • October 15--Home Bread Baking w/ Justin Owings, garden manager of ENCM and long-time home baker.


These workshops are designed for novice backyard and urban growers. Home gardeners, community gardeners, and those thinking about starting a garden for the first time are all welcome. There is limited space, so RSVP promptly. Workshops are scheduled so that participants can immediately apply what they have learned--they are “seasonally appropriate”.


The workshops will be free. However, donations to those presenting would certainly be accepted.


The first workshop starts Saturday February 19 at 12 noon. It will be on backyard fruit with Tatum Stewart. Look to learn about suitable fruit for this region and varieties for your backyard, potential diseases and preventative measures, pruning techniques, and other basics of fruit production.


This will be followed on Saturday March 5 with backyard bio-dynamics with Dennis Limon, again at 12 noon. This will be a “leaf-day” according to the bio-dynamic calendar, so look to learn about said calendar, seed starting the bio-dynamic way, bio-dynamic preparations, and how it all can make a difference in your garden, your health, and the environment. You will go home with seedling starts for your backyard garden.


stay tuned for details regarding specific workshops as their respective date approaches.


all workshops will be at ENCM located at 807 Main st. 37206.



10 comments:

Unknown said...

can you provide the address to the workshops on this page? it's easy to copy and paste to listservs and the like.

beccastin said...

i'd like to RSVP for the March 5th workshop... Becca Stinson

Rebecca said...

I'd like to RSVP to the March 5th workshop...Rebecca Ratz

Jessica said...

I'd like to RSVP for March 5th as well! - Jessica Bridges

Design Resource - Kevin G. said...

I am planning to come to the backyard fruit production if there is room and also to backyard chickens on April 9

Unknown said...

I'm looking forward to the backyard fruit production workshop this Saturday at noon. Please let me know the location!

Karen Cisler said...

I'd like to RSVP for Feb 19, Mar 5,
and Apr 9

coldweathergirl said...

I'd like to RSVP for the April 2nd (Chickens) event!

sandyf said...

i would like to rsvp for the chicken event on april 2nd.

Unknown said...

I'd live to rsvp the backyard chicken today. Is there still room? what time?