For Folks who want to learn Herbalism from the Ground Up!
Duration: Meets one Friday a month from April to October
Dates: Begins April 5th, 2024. View all dates, schedule and class descriptions for the upcoming course here
Cost: $1000 with a non-refundable deposit of $250. There are only 13 spots available in this class.
Instructor: Reisha Beck (view bio here)
The Course:
This course is for anyone who is wanting to learn how to grow medicinal herbs from a permaculture perspective, by deepening their relationship to medicinal plants, and by working with and learning from the herbs themselves. For the garden scale home herbalist to a commercial sale grower, each class will provide a strong foundation in the necessary knowledge and experience needed to start their own medicinal herb farm, garden or apothecary.
Class is located at the Ravens Roots Campus and our very own Wayside Botanicals Herb Farm, in Ferndale, WA. Participants will have access to a fully functioning permaculture based medicinal herb farm to learn from and draw inspiration for their own projects. On site is our medicinal herb and food forest gardens, as well as our permaculture nursery with over 200 species of hard to find medicinal and perennial vegetable plants. As part of the tuition, participants will get access to live plants, seeds and bare roots to take home for their own gardens.
What you will learn:
Hands on practical skills on growing over 120 medicinal herbs through an entire growing season from seed to harvest.
Permaculture principles, ethics and techniques and how they apply to medicinal herb growing.
Medicinal herb propagation techniques such as basic and advanced seed starting, lunar and astrological planting cycles, root and crown division as well as soft and hard wood cuttings.
How to ID, harvest, process, dry, ship, make into medicines, and get ready for sale/market of over 120 medicinal plants.
Medicine making and traditional uses of herbs plus how we can incorporate them into our modern daily lives including tincture making, hydrosols, syrups, vinegars, teas, flower essences and salves.
How to set up your own farm or garden using holistic and beyond organic methods.
Soil building, composting, no till regenerative systems, polyculture plantings, and setting up a medicinal food forest garden.
The relationship medicinal herbs have with natural ecosystems and how to increase the health and well-being of our gardens/farms through stewardship and reciprocal relationships.
How medicinal herbs fit in a forest garden/permaculture system.
Farming/Gardening and herbalism for both personal and professional use.
Useful tips on how to start up your own herbal business.
Each class will have hands on projects and lectures on seasonal herb farming tasks as well as medicine making.
Each participant will bring home live plants, herbs we harvest and medicines we make in class.
Participants are welcome to join Impromptu work parties and harvest days at the farm.
Hands on learning and physically active education.
Presently, growing herbs and working with plants directly is often not a part of most herbal programs. And sadly, many herbal practitioners have never even met the herbs they rely on, in person. Our elder herbalists were all gardeners and they developed deep and lasting relationships with the plants they tended to and worked with to promote healing and longevity for their families, communities and cultures. In addition, many of the herbs sold in the herbal trade today, come from overseas and often unregulated growing conditions. This carries a heavy toll environmentally, as well as socially for the underserved workers who grow them. Localizing our herbs, much like our food, is vitally important. My own herbal journey came from the ground up and started with the tiny seeds of change and it has helped me find healing by connecting deeper to the natural world. We need more local herb growers, and I am happy to share my skills and knowledge to jump start them in an ecologically sound way.
After being accepted for the immersion course, we will schedule a personal consultation with you to make sure that you're getting everything that you want and more out of the course. There aren't any pre-requisites, and anyone can sign up. Class sizes stay small so that we can better accommodate students at different skill levels (so don't worry if you're either a beginner or someone who has some experience, because I cater to both). Class size will be capped at 12 this year so that you'll receive plenty of individual instruction.
View the detailed Growing Herbalist Immersion course schedule and calendar here
Essentially, our goal is to give students a value significantly more than what they paid for in tuition. It's the least that we can do and we're intent on doing it.
Apply by clicking the button below and we will contact you with 48 hours via phone or email. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us directly at info@ravensroots.com. Hope to see you in April!
Here are some pictures from the last years growing season:
