Classes at Heartsong Farm

Nancy and Michael will offer an Herbs for Family Health "Summer Camp" in 2009 for those of you just starting with the healing herbs. We will fill three days of intensive learning with loads of fun on July 10-12. An Organic Apple Intensive with Michael will take place the weekend of June 6 & 7 for those wanting an immersion into everything apple. We hope you can join us!

Three Fun Days of Learning
About Herbs, Health and Healing

We welcome you to join us for a midsummer herbal getaway on the farm. Come be introduced to the practical skills essential for every home herbalist. Reaffirm your relationship to the world of healing plants. Make new friends who share that same passion for wellness empowerment. Play in the brook and revel in the healing aura of wildflowers and trees. Grown-up kids deserve a chance to go to "summer camp" for a few days too!

Nancy and Michael Phillips's lively approach to teaching about the healing plants makes every program at Heartsong Farm fun. Nancy guides you down many delightful and sometimes transformational avenues of herbal exploration. Emphasis is placed on learning by doing, by experiencing and through instinctive plant communication. Michael shares life skills from years of homesteading, organic orcharding and gardening, and wildcrafting medicinal herbs. Together we will meet numerous plant allies, learn their principle uses, make an assortment of remedies, discuss holistic approaches to influenza pandemic, introduce body system therapeutics, and delve into the "constituent synthesis" underlying the medicinal actions of herbs.

July 10, 11, & 12, 2009 We start Friday at one and end on Sunday at 4 pm. Delicious farm fresh meals are included on Saturday and Sunday. (Friday night is an herbal pot-luck meal.) Some people say they'd come just for the wholesome meals at Heartsong Farm! You are welcome to camp on our land which is 58 acres of forest, fields and meadows nestled in the northern White Mountains of New Hampshiree. A list of local motels can be found here. We'll send out a detailed agenda and directions to get to the farm at the end of June. Family Herbal "summer camp" costs $280 per person, and includes instruction, class supplies, handouts, camping, and meals. Class size is limited to twenty. Send a non-refundable deposit of $120 to secure your place ASAP. Payment in full is expected prior to the start of class on Friday, July 10.

Our dynamic intermediate training program for herbalists will resume in 2010 as this coming summer is simply too full with conferences. Plans are already taking shape with some of our favorite herbal teachers. Both Kate Gilday and Kathleen Maier have indicated a willingness to spend a weekend furthering our herbal wisdom here at Heartsong Farm. We'll have more to share about this exciting series once we confirm weekend dates and course topics. Gourmet herbal meals by Nancy will always be part of these learning experiences. What fun!

We'd love to have you join us!
Email us with any additional questions.

Organic Apple Intensive

Hands-on Learning with the author of
The Apple Grower

This "organic apple everything" weekend with Michael at the farm inspires people to pursue their own orchard dreams. Come gain the practical insights needed to establish your own fruit planting based on the biological systems approach used here at Lost Nation Orchard.

Holistic orcharding involves a wide breadth of knowledge and timeliness, yet one fact stands clear - we can have beautiful apples grown without chemical intervention. Sustainable agriculture works only when we have fun and get people involved with growing healthy food. Michael's workshops point the way for organic apple growers to meet their unique site challenges.

Michael will lead participants in a walk through the orchard season. He will discuss the key role understory management and soil health plays in an organic orchard, and look at varietal and rootstock choices. Tree planting, pruning, grafting, branch training, and trunk protection will be woven into our time together along with a look at righteous equipment for the small-scale orchard. Michael will also identify insect and disease dynamics from a holistic perspective aimed at achieving maximum diversity, pointing out a few of the culprits and beneficial allies on hand around bloom time. The weekend ends with a rambunctious wassail sure to kindle those hopes of offering the "good fruit" to one's own family and community.

The apple intensive will begin on Saturday morning, June 6, at 10 am and run through Sunday afternoon, June 7, till 4 pm. Meals will be included (lunch and dinner on Saturday; breakfast and lunch on Sunday) along with a cider tasting on Saturday evening. The cost for this orcharding weekend will be $275 per person.

We aim to be as accommodating as we can when people come to the farm for one of our classes. Setting up a tent to camp in the orchards and pastures can be a great part of the herbal experience. Just as the wooden floor of our post'n'beam barn makes for cozy slumber parties. Our family bathroom is open to all, and there's an intriguing outhouse by the gardens as well. Understandably, some of you may want to spring for a real bed with private facilities. Here are several places to stay (all within 20 minutes of Heartsong Farm) that come complete with a fair share of northern New Hampshire character:

• Stark Inn: (603) 636-2644
• Applebrook Inn: (603) 586-7713
• Jefferson Inn: (603) 586-7998
• Mountain View Grand: (603) 837-2100
• Cabot Motor Inn: (603) 788-3346
• Mountain Lake RV Park: (603) 788-4509