Event Details
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Location: Lakeview Hill Farm, 8608 E. Lakeview Hills Road, Traverse City, MI 49684
Time: 8:00am - 4:00pm
*Locally sourced lunch will be provided
Market Gardening 2.0: A half-Day Seminar with master grower JM Fortier
Is it truly possible to achieve financial success through farming on a modest acreage? Explore the fundamental elements, techniques, and design principles that transform small-scale biointensive farming into a profitable endeavor. Over the past 20 years, JM has discovered simple and effective tricks that allow you to feel prepared, organized, and confident that this new season will be a success!
This session will teach:
Identifying key crops for optimal profitability
Learning strategies for team mobilization and streamlining daily farm operations
Life habits you need to adopt to be at your best during the season
Management practices to improve your crop and harvest planning
Tips to better mobilize your teams and facilitate daily work on the farm
Which tools will save you time and increase your efficiency
Our ultimate objective in this workshop is to empower you to cultivate with greater abundance and, most importantly, with increased efficiency. Join us as we embark on a journey toward more prosperous and sustainable farming practices.
Working With Living Soil with JM Fortier
Everyone is talking about soil these days: no-till, no-dig, carbon farming, regenerative agriculture, and so on. What unites all of these philosophies is living soils. In this information-packed workshop, JM Fortier will explain his approach to healthy soils and introduce the practices he has been testing and applying on his 2 acre farm for more than 20 years.
This session includes:
How to set up permanent beds
Working with crop rotation and cover crops in an intensive system
Utilizing micro-organisms to build healthy soil
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Location: TBD
Time: 8:00am - 11:30am
20 Years of Market Gardening: Cultivating Ecology, Community, and Growing Future Growers.
Join JM Fortier, a pioneer in the small-scale organic farming movement, as he shares insights and experiences from his 20-year journey in market gardening. In this keynote, JM will delve into how the transformative power of ecological farming can restore and ignite local communities. He will highlight the success stories of future growers empowered by The Market Gardener Institute and explore the innovative ventures that continue to shape the future of regenerative agriculture. This talk promises to inspire and equip attendees with the knowledge and passion to cultivate a more resilient and sustainable food system.
Regional Roundtable Discussion
Facilitated by JM and the Leelanau Conservation District, we invite you to take part in a broader conversation about our region’s food system—reflecting on our own journey and the possibilities ahead.