Join food forest guru Ben Friton from the REED Center for a morning workshop on permaculture design followed by an afternoon of tree & shrub planting at the new Montgomery College food forest site.
In the morning session, Ben will cover the fundamentals of how to approach a new space: how to read and observe the land, and how to assess a site’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
In the afternoon, Oluwatoyin Tella from Wildseed Permaculture will explain how she designed the site and the choices she made, giving a deeper insight into permaculture design. Ben will then give a tutorial on how to plant trees and shrubs, and then we’ll get our hands in the soil as we kick off the planting of the college’s new food forest site. This is a great chance to plug into the work we do.
The two sessions will take place in two separate locations. You can join for both sessions or just one. There will be a 1.5hr break for lunch in between the sessions. Please bring your own lunch. Alternatively, there is a cafeteria right next to the location for the Montgomery College afternoon session.
Morning design 101 session: 10am to 12.30pm. We’ll meet at 1200 Prospect St, Takoma Park, MD 20912 at 10am.
Lunch break: 12.30pm to 2pm, please make your own arrangements (there is a student cafeteria right next to the Montgomery College location).
Afternoon tree planting session: 2pm to 4pm. Montgomery College Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus, 7676 Fenton Street, Silver Spring, 20910
The morning session is by donation only and the afternoon session is free. Donations are sliding scale so whatever you can afford (please click the button below).
Please wear good shoes and bring a notebook :)
And please RSVP by filling out the form below. Thanks so much!
About the instructor:
Ben Friton is the director of the REED Center, a 150 acre food forest in Maryland.
In 2010 Ben began designing, and later patented, vertical growing structures to help those living in densely populated food-insecure regions of the world. It became quickly apparent that these vertical food production systems were extremely valuable to many groups, including the elderly, people with differing ability levels, urban dwellers and people living with limited contact to the natural world. To expand upon this work, he co-founded the non-profit Can YA Love.
In 2014, Ben joined Forested, a 15-acre research-based food forest located in Bowie, Maryland, growing hundreds of species of edible, medicinal and otherwise useful plants in an intentionally integrated way. This food forest has increased its productivity year over year without the need for synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Within a few short years, the practices employed at Forested began to restore the land that had been badly degraded by 300 years of conventional farming practices.
For more than a decade, Ben has been consulting, teaching, and speaking to audiences of all ages on four continents about the past, present and future of humanity and agriculture. Beginning in 2018, he was given a unique opportunity to put into practice his vision of how to heal wounded lands while providing for the well-being of human and wildlife communities connected to that land. The REED Center for Ecosystem Reintegration is now the vehicle for carrying this vision forward.
Ben currently resides with his family on the 150+ acre land called Morning View Food Forest that serves as the headquarters for The REED Center. The land is actively being transformed from what was once a conventional farming site to a beautifully diverse, increasingly densified and productive forested ecosystem. It is a hub for innovation, research, education, community-building and networking for all who wish to live in harmony with each other and with natural ecosystems, while building a future of abundance.