In this free webinar on marketing and messaging for urban farms, Katie Nixon will present. Nixon co-operates Green Gate Family Farm with her husband. It is a certified organic diversified market farm where they produce vegetables, fruits, bedding plants, eggs and flowers. Katie is a founding member and current president of the KC Food Hub, a farmer-owned and farmer-run cooperative serving the wholesale market. For West Central Missouri Community Action Agency, Katie serves as the Food Systems Director. In this role, she has brought in more than $2 million in USDA and other funding to improve the regional food system. Katie has participated in sustainable food and farming work in Washington, Ireland, South Africa, Mexico and New Zealand. In 2020, she was selected as a Zhi-Xing China Eisenhower Fellow.

For more information or to register, visit the event webpage, or contact Tricia Jenkins by email or phone (785-532-6170).

This webinar is part of Gaining Ground, a free webinar series geared toward agriculture educators. The goal of Gaining Ground is to equip agriculture educators with knowledge from national experts that support Urban Food Systems enterprises in the region. Participants will learn technical and systems-level information for successful Urban Food Systems practices through the series.

Each webinar is delivered by experts from the urban core such as urban farmers, nonprofit educators, food policy advocates and government workers. Webinars are one hour in length.

Gaining Ground is presented by the Urban Food Systems program at K-State Olathe.

What is that weed?  Are you a new farmer transitioning to organic production? This webinar will highlight available free tools to assist farmers and agriculture professionals with the identification of weeds and herbicide injuries in field crops. This webinar will also cover the use of the Take Action Herbicide Mode of Action chart for farmers in transition.

For more information or to register, visit the event webpage, or contact the Rodale Institute by email or phone (610-683-1400).

Learn about backyard composting and spring gardening in this free workshop provided by OSU County Extension. Get ready for spring gardening by preparing a good compost to bolster garden and flower bed soil. Composting is also a great way to recycle yard trimming and grass clippings, which are high in nutrient content. These nutrients can be beneficial to soils, plants and and trees in the yard when applied as mulch or a soil amendment. Compost can loosen clay soils and help sandy soils and help sandy soil retain moisture and nutrients when used as mulch. Learn about creating a simple compost pile or a more structured complex composting system. Educational handouts will be provided at the program.

For more information or to register, visit the event webpage, or contact the Southern Oaks Library by email or phone (405-231-8650).

USDA’s National Agroforestry Center is launching a free 10-part monthly webinar series to highlight how different USDA programs can be used to advance agroforestry adoption.

Each individual webinar will include two speakers and one USDA agency representative, as well as one program participant who has used that USDA program to enhance their agroforestry work.

Learn how USDA programs can be utilized to promote and support agroforestry establishment, management, research, and other efforts in your area.

For more information or to register, visit the program webpage.

Hatching a plan to keep backyard chickens in your urban setting? No need to brood over it. Whether you are interested in reducing your grocery bill, concerned about the quality of your food, or just interested in a unique pet keeping backyard chickens is growing in popularity! Shake a tail feather to the Edmond Library where OSU Extension will lead a 2 hour session on how to care for chickens, go over the municipal requirements of keeping chickens in Edmond and Oklahoma City, and how to estimate how many chickens your family needs. Then, check out the library’s collection of book-book-books for more urban homesteading ideas.

Note: This class is designed to fulfill the City of Edmond’s 2-hour class requirement on chicken care for chicken permitting requests, but does not guarantee permit approval. Questions about Edmond’s permitting process should be referred to the City Clerk’s Office at (405) 359-4555.

For more information or to register, visit the event webpage, or contact the Edmond Library by email or phone (405-341-9282).