Octobellfest Sunday, September 28 at 1:30 pm; arrive early

Craig Floyd is a tenth-generation farmer, and along with his wife Sheryl were owner and operators of Footsteps Farm (CT’s first certified humane farm) in Stonington, Connecticut. Craig recently retired as the Farm Manager of the Coogan Farm Giving Garden in Mystic, CT which produced and donated over 22,000 pounds of regeneratively grown food his final year. The garden has since been renamed the Craig Floyd Giving Garden! Craig is a passionate teacher, a frequent speaker on regenerative techniques, including a TED talk in 2019, and   

recipient of the NOFA Bill Duesing Award.

Feed your garden before 0800

Learn how to fertilize the foliage of your garden through a Foliar Feed. Craig will explain how to find out what your plants need, when they need it and how to easily apply it. Learn how to dramatically enhance the health of your soil without the use of pesticides. This will really bump up the nutritional quality of your food making your soil, your plants and you way more healthy. Combine what you learn from Nigel’s class and combine it with this class for a spectacular garden. Craig’s power point will be made available to you after the class.

Dan Kittredge is the son of prominent leaders in the organic movement, and has been an organic farmer since childhood. His experience managing organic farms and developing sustainable agriculture techniques has connected him to farmers in Central America, Russia, India and here at home, of course. Dan is passionate about raising the quality of nutrition in our food supply through collaboration with committed individuals, businesses, and organizations that support the value of people growing and eating really good food.

When I began to walk, I began to garden. My mother and grandmother would let me help, so I’ve always been a gardener. Then I had the great opportunity to go to Grasso Tech that offered a Bio Science: Environmental Technology program that fosters a true agricultural education which accelerated the drive for doing what I do. I see growing food as a way of giving back to the community, especially highly nutritious food. You are giving back, not only to the people today, but to future generations as well. And you’re teaching the volunteers and interns that want to learn how to do something better for our children, the community and our planet.

Preparing the Land for a Garden  Are you interested in starting a garden from scratch on a piece of land that’s never been cultivated? This talk will cover how and when to begin as well as techniques and the timetable that will reward you with a successful harvest.

Jayne Merner has a passion for enlivening soil. She was raised between the fertile mountains of compost on her family’s Earth Care Farm in Charlestown, RI. Jayne operates Earth Care Farm, which was started by her father, Michael Merner, in 1977.  With the help of 3 generations of Merners and a small dedicated staff, the farm grows produce regeneratively and is most well known for its OMRI certified, high quality Merner’s Gold Compost. Jayne has traveled the world teaching about composting, helping to set up compost facilities and sharing her love of the natural world through her podcast, The Composter and  videos on YouTube.

Compost and the Unseen Soil World

Dive into the hidden universe beneath our feet. This engaging presentation unearths the critical role compost plays in nurturing soil health and sustaining ecosystems. From microscopic microbes to networks of fungi, we’ll explore how compost awakens and feeds a vibrant, living community essential to plant growth and climate resilience. Learn how compost can power a transformation, revealing the profound connections between organics, biodiversity, and the health of our planet. Whether you're a gardener, educator, or simply compost-curious, this journey into the soil’s invisible life will change the way you see soil—forever.

Bryan O’Hara and his wife Anita have owned and operated Tobacco Road Farm in Lebanon, CT for more than 30 years. Bryan was named Northeast Organic Farming Association’s Farmer of the Year in 2016, is the author of the book "No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture,” and travels globally giving seminars on regenerative farming methods. Bryan is known for giving lectures that are concise, practical and full of details that will assist both the local gardener and experienced farmer. 

Controlling Insects and Diseases in Vegetable Crops without Pesticides  Any grower of vegetables is confronted with the impact of pests. The appropriate preventative measures as well as how to respond to a pest outbreak will be discussed. Many of the techniques used in the absence of pesticides include crop rotation, solarizing, row covers, crop timing, sanitization, and foliar treatments.

Joan is the Founder and Director of “The Institute of Sustainable Nutrition”. This hands-on learning experience incorporates the science of nutrition with sustainable, regenerative gardening, culinary skills, kitchen medicine, and sustainable foraging, weaving together

the relationship between soil health, human health, and the environment. She is a community herbalist, gardener, and teaches, “Food as Medicine” at Quinnipiac University.

Resilient People Through Regenerative Ag: Nourishment From the Ground Up,

The Soil Gut Connection

What if a key ingredient to health and happiness was right under our feet, literally.

Join us as we explore the connection between the health of the microbiome and

the health of the soil’s rhizosphere. We will review how diet and lifestyle affects the amazing ecosystem we call the microbiome, the connection to food grown in healthy soils, and how these can help change mental and physical health for the better.

Think a discussion about fiber is as boring as it gets? Think again as we link

the building of carbon in our healthy soils to our consumption of fiber, one of the unsung superpowers available in the quest for health and happiness. It is, we are, all connected… nourishment from the ground up.

 Nigel Palmer  is a lifelong gardener and author of “The Regenerative Growers Guide to Garden Amendments.” Using nature as its guide, this book brings to light the enormous diversity of material available that can be used to feed and nourish soil and plants at virtually no cost. He can be found on YouTube, teaches internationally, is a frequent podcast guest and offers Regenerative, Sustainable Grower’s workshops. 

Introduction to Regenerative Agriculture: A Plant Soil Model 

Photosynthesis energy drives the world we live in. It is responsible for the food we eat, the oxygen we breath, the top soil we plant in and the energy that runs our economy. Conditions continuously change within plants as photosynthesis energy flows from leaves throughout the plant and into the soil. Controlling these conditions is how plants protect against pathogen and insect damage and establish mineral availability.

The complexities of mineral availability, biological diversity and net soil organic matter are all important factors when growing healthy plants. The role that local redox potential and acidity play in establishing conditions required for pathogen and insect damage provides insights into the effects of agricultural actions as well as how energy flows from plant leaves into the soil.

A plant soil model will be presented that links all these concepts forming a framework for understanding the true costs and effects of agricultural interventions and the net ecosystem energy balance needed to evaluate regenerative growing practices.

Hands on Mineral and Biological Amendment Making: Laboratory Analysis and Sustainability Evaluations 

This hands-on program will demonstrate how to make vinegar extractions lactic acid bacteria and fermented plant juices using simple tools found in the kitchen and ingredients often available for free or low cost. We will review amendment laboratory mineral analysis, discuss their uses and costs. Work sheets used to evaluate sustainability and regenerative agricultural practices will be presented.

Ruben Parrilla is a soil health, educator, natural farming practitioner, and advocate for ecological land care. With a background in sustainable agriculture and community based food systems, Ruben supports farmers, Gardener, and landscapers in understanding soil as a living system. His work integrates Korean natural farming, peasant farming, microbiology, and practical observation techniques to help people build driving soils from the ground up. 

Soil Life Under the Lens: An Introduction to Soil Microbiology and Microscopy 

Healthy soil is alive –teeming with microscopic organisms that drive nutrient cycling, plant health, and ecosystem resilience. In this introductory workshop, we’ll explore the vital role of soil microbes in growing nutrient-dense food and restoring ecological balance. Through hands-on microscopy, participants will learn to observe bacteria, fungi, and other members of the soil food web, gaining a deeper understanding of soil as a dynamic, living system.

Microscopy offers a powerful tool to witness life in the soil directly—helping growers make more informed decisions, monitor compost or natural farming inputs, and connect more deeply with their land. Whether you’re a farmer, gardener, or simply soil-curious, this session will empower you to “see” soil in a new way and begin cultivating abundance from the ground up.

Yoko Takemura owns and operates Assawaga Farm in Putnam, CT with her partner, Alex Carpenter. Assawaga Farm is in its eighth season selling Certified Organic vegetables and cut flowers on less than one acre, very intensively. The farm is on Nipmuc land and is bordered by the Five Mile (formerly Assawaga) River. We do everything we can to promote a healthy and diverse population of all organisms, macro and micro, above and below ground, to which we employ regenerative practices such as no-till, multi-species cover cropping, on-farm “Static Aerated Pile” composting, compost tea brewing, and perennial hedgerow installations.

Cover Cropping on an Intensive, Small-Scale, No-Till Farm 

At Assawaga Farm, each bed typically gets two cover crops, in addition to cash crops, in any given year. During this workshop, participants will learn the how, what, when, where and why of integrating cover crops into their regular crop rotations using no-till approaches.

 Hannah is a plant biologist, plant breeder and farmer working at the  intersection of food systems and climate resilience. Through her work  with Aurelia's Garden and The Marion Institute, she employs  agroecological philosophies to cultivate land stewardship that improves  the environment and grow food for emergency hunger relief outlets.  Through her work at the Freed Seed Federation and Aurelia's Garden, she  conducts and coordinates crop variety trial research and plant breeding  projects. The goal is to identify current plant varieties that perform  well in northeast organic production systems, preserve culturally  important crops from the region, and to breed new varieties that are  better adapted to New England and meet the needs of the northeastern  farming community.