Boston Flora

Tag: Lost Nation Orchard

  • Saturday, March 23, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm – Orchard Management

    Successfully growing fruit for your family becomes straightforward when you narrow the big picture down to getting the basics right. This Berkshire Botanical Garden workshop on March 23 from 9 – 4, led by expert Michael Phillips, of Lost Nation Orchard in northern New Hampshire, covers complementary sprays backed by biodiversity and soil health to set the stage for successfully growing tree fruit in the western Massachusetts/tri-state region. Learn how fungal disease becomes manageable with wise variety choices and enhanced soil biology. Even major insect challenges can be resolved safely when you perceive who, what, and when. All sorts of fruits–from apples and pears to peaches and cherries and onward to berries–make for a diverse home-orchard planting.

    Instructor: Michael Phillips, of Lost Nation Orchard in northern New Hampshire, is the author of Mycorrhizal Planet:How Fungi and Plants Work Together to Create Dynamic Soils, The Apple Growers: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist, The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way.

    BBG Members: $110, Non-Members: $125. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/orchard-management

    Image result for holistic orchard by michael phillips

  • Friday, March 8, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm – Growing Fruit in a Healthy Orchard Ecosystem

    The morning Berkshire Botanical Garden program with orchard health expert Michael Phillips will have participants embracing a whole new way of thinking about growing fruit holistically, as well as understanding the principles and practices for growing healthy fruit. The afternoon session will be an offsite field study in a home orchard, where the instructor will conduct an orchard evaluation and discuss how major insect challenges can be resolved safely and organically. He will discuss how to deal with disease from a holistic perspective, so that challenges faced at your locale will become far more manageable, as you build a system that keeps trees healthy from the get-go. Pruning for fruit production will be demonstrated.

    Michael Phillips is known across the country for helping people grow healthy apples and understand the healing virtues of plant medicines. He helped found a “community orchard movement” that provides a full immersion into the holistic approach to orcharding (www.GrowOrganicApples.com). His Lost Nation Orchard has two acres of trees and supplies local families with many varieties of organic apples. The program takes place Friday, March 8, from 9 – 4, and is $150. You may register on line at www.berkshirebotanical.org.

  • Saturday, November 19, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm – The Organic Home Orchard

    Join holistic orchardist Michael Phillips at the Berkshire Botanical Garden on Saturday, November 19, from 1 – 4,  for an intensive program on growing all kinds of fruit in the back yard. Successfully growing fruit for your family becomes straightforward when you narrow the big picture down to getting the basics right. Harvesting sunlight through smart pruning is what renews fruit buds. Fungal disease becomes manageable with wise variety choices and enhanced soil biology. Even major insect challenges can be resolved safely when you perceive who, what, and when. All sorts of fruits—from apples and pears to peaches and cherries and onward to berries—make for a diverse home orchard planting. Confidence to integrate tree fruits into your landscape begins with embracing biodiversity and knowing how to steward system health. This program will be useful for both backyard growers as well as small-market fruit growers with a focus on growing healthy organic fruit. Michael’s new book The Holistic Orchard, published by Chelsea Green Publishing, will be hot off the press and available for sale at the lecture.

    Michael Phillips is known across the country for helping people grow healthy apples and understand the healing virtues of plant medicines. Information about the “community orchard movement” he helped found is available at www.GrowOrganicApples.com and provides a full immersion into the holistic approach to orcharding. His Lost Nation Orchard has two acres of trees and supplies local families with many varieties of organic apples. Michael was honored by Slow Food USA to receive the first Betsy Lydon Ark Award for his work promoting healthy ways to grow fruit.  The fee to attend is $45, and you may register online at www.berkshirebotanical.org.

  • Saturday, January 15, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm – NOFA/Mass 24th Annual Winter Conference

    Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts will hold its 24th Annual Winter Conference on Saturday, January 15 from 9 – 5 at Worcester Technical High School, 1 Skyline Drive in Worcester. The Keynote Speaker will be Michael Phillips (below)  of Lost Nation Orchard in Groveton, New Hampshire. There will be all day seminars by Michael and by Nancy Phillips on Organic Apple Orcharding and Herbs for Family Health. Over 60 workshops, dozens of exhibitors and vendors, a children’s program, potluck lunch and annual meeting round out the day. Open registration at www.nofamass.org/conferences/winter/index.php. For more information about the conference, contact Cathleen O’Keefe, Winter Conference Coordinator, at wc@nofamass.org. For information on the workshops, please contact Michal Lundsen at michal@nofamass.org.