March Love Notes

And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman?

Sojourner Truth

Happy Spring Family!

We tucked the first seeds into trays of soil in the greenhouse as the snow melted around us. The time has come. 

Farming and Programming Season is picking up, and we are so excited to welcome you to the land for our first community Work & Learn Days and our first on-farm workshop of the year.

The Soul Fire campus and perennial orchard are both evolving. We are enlivened to share our March updates and April invitations below. 

May the seeds you are planting in your life right now push up and reach for the light.

With love and renewal,

Azuré, Briana, Brooke, Cheryl, Danielle, Hillary, Ife, Jonah, Kai, Leah, Naima, Ria and Shay

We have our first community Work & Learn Day coming up! You’re invited to join us at Soul Fire Farm to learn about some of our farming practices while supporting our food sovereignty work and getting your hands on the land.

April 7, 2022, 10:00 AM – 3:30 PM EST Registration Link
April 21, 2022, 10:00 AM – 3:30 PM EST Registration Link

Ethnomycology in Africa and the Diaspora + Hands-on Mushroom Cultivation
April 8, 10:00 – 4:30 EST

For our first 3D, Darren Springer, mycologist and educator based in the UK, is coming to Soul Fire Farm to share his knowledge and passion about the astounding world of fungi! 

Darren will share his research about the use of mushrooms in Pan African society, and their value for nutritive, medicinal and spiritual purposes. After a presentation and delicious lunch, Darren will lead a hands-on workshop to introduce participants to low-tech indoor and outdoor mushroom cultivation techniques for growing gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.

The in-person day-long workshop is a BIPOC event.The 90 min presentation on Ethnomycology in Africa and the Diaspora will be streamed virtually through webinar and is open to everyone.

Register here. 

Applications are open for the Soul FIRE Immersion 2022!

This summer we’ll be hosting four, week-long sessions of our beloved farmer training program.

The Soul FIRE Immersion (Farming In Relationship to Earth) is designed for aspiring, beginning, and intermediate growers of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx heritage to gain basic skills in regenerative farming in a culturally relevant, supportive, and joyful environment. By the end of the program you will have the knowledge to grow and prepare your own food, and the tools to begin a comprehensive commercial farm training if you choose that path. It is our hope that you will also deepen your connection to land, heal from inherited trauma rooted in oppression on land, and take steps toward your personal food sovereignty. 

Read the full program description before applying, and spread the word!

2/22/22 – application opens
4/1/22 – priority deadline
4/15/22 – applications close

APPLY HERE

Hillary, Naima and Danielle planted the first spinach, scallion, purple cabbage and kale seeds in the greenhouse to prepare for the new gardens we’ll establish this year. 

Soul Fire in the City provides raised bed gardens, seedlings, soil, labor, and ongoing guidance at no-cost to community members and groups in the 518. 

We selected 10 more households to receive a new garden. We will additionally provide resources to 20+ returning gardeners, and establish 3 community garden sites to support folks to grow their own food and medicine. 

We are gathering up lumber, soil, and compost in preparation for the builds that begin next week!

Click here if you would like to volunteer to support the effort.

We kicked off the 2022 Ask A Sista Farmer season with Dr. Muhjah Shakir, founder of Nature’s Garden for Victory and Peace. Listen to that episode here. 

Join us on Friday, April 1st, 4:00-4:40 ET for our next episode on instagram live @soulfirefarm with Leslie Woodward. Leslie founded a nut milk company called Edenesque. She will be joining us to discuss entrepreneurship, resilience, and innovation. More at @Edenesqueplantmilks

“Ask a Sista Farmer” is a free online show that supports people who want to grow their own food and medicine for self-reliance and community resilience. Each show features experienced Black womxn farmers dropping their knowledge about gardening, livestock, agroforestry, plant medicine, and food preservation. Learn More

Check out past episodes here (IGTV) and here (FB). Full list of past episodes here. 

2022-2023 FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN!

Learn more and apply by May 1st!

Soul Fire Farm Memorial Orchard

The farm team together with the entire Soul Fire Farm farm-ily would like to make you a special offer from our hearts. As you know, over 950,000 people have died from COVID-19 in this country alone since the start of the pandemic, with Black, Indigenous, and Latine communities disproportionately impacted. As we continue to plant our east field fruit and nut orchard, we would like to dedicate the trees and plants to our beloved ancestors who have been lost in this upending time. If you would like a tree dedicated to your loved one, please let us know by filling out THIS FORM. 

Our infrastructure team is framing the addition that is part of our office renovation. Accordingly, we wanted to take this month’s blurb to appreciate the wonders of wood. What an interesting material! First of all, wood comes from trees (obvious, we know), but whenever we take a moment to actually think about that fact we are overcome with gratitude. 

We understand that using wood means taking life, for which we are ever grateful. We always start our projects by asking the land what her needs are and appropriately making offerings and giving thanks. Our impact on the land is immense, which is one major reason we have chosen to consolidate our human activity through using cluster development to build our campus.

But back to wood… To think that these massive, intelligent life forms not only sustain us by providing us with oxygen, but make up the structural skeleton of most shelters in our bio-region. And knowing they also create a fabric of brilliant interconnectivity beneath the forest floor! Wow! How lucky we humans are to share the planet with these beings!

Wood is relatively flexible and light while remaining incredibly strong. A single 2×4 can bear 1000 pounds vertically. With the right tools it can be shaped, cut, and fastened easily and precisely. With attention to moisture, geometry, and mass, one can build structures from wood that last generations.

We acknowledge with humility and gratitude that our work would not be possible without the labor, brilliance, and sacrifice of the Black farmer legacy organizations of the South, who were the originators of our movement and continue to be the experts on our collective path forward. We give thanks to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, National Black Farmers Association, Tuskegee University Extension, Land Loss Prevention Project, New Communities Inc, Black Belt Justice Center, Black Family Land Trust, Black Oaks Center , Family. Agriculture. Resource. Management. Services. (F.A.R.M.S.), and Southeastern African American Farmers’ Organic Network (SAAFON), among others. We also pay homage and give thanks to Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Cooperative, Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt movement, and the Haitian Peasant Movement. Soul Fire Farm is one in a number of Black-centered and Afro-indigenous farming projects in this country. We are not the spokespeople for the movement, nor the lone stars, nor the principle movers. Rather, we are grateful and committed members of the interdependent web of Black, Indigenous, and POC-led projects that work toward land and food sovereignty. Please join us in uplifting and supporting legacy organizations. 

The Praxis series reflects on how our community can best put our values into action, sharing resources, ideas, and practice toward collective liberation. These will be shared each month in Love Notes and also on social media.

Shannon Holsey, President of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation, delivered the 2022 State of the Tribes Address on Tuesday, February 22nd from the Wisconsin State Capitol Assembly Chambers in Madison. The speech marked the 18th annual State of the Tribes address. Check out the speech HERE.  

Soul Fire Farm is located on unceded territory of the Mohican Nation. We remain committed to working in solidarity with the Mohican people and other Indigenous communities in our region. 

Another offering is Sustainable Gs organization, which aims to “rebuild our connection to land with dignity and encourage new cultural food stories.” Sustainable Gs has two community gardens, one of which is connected to the East side of San Antonio, TX. The work held at this site includes: companion planting with herbs, talking and learning about different vegetation from across the African diaspora, as well as each-one-teach-one workshops from irrigation systems, rainwater catchment and incorporating sustainability into our everyday lives. In all of what Rockie does, storytelling and intergenerational knowledge sharing is weaved throughout their work. Rockie also has a tea sommelier certification, with a focus on African teas. They are currently living into the process of building up relationships and Mawe Apothecary, and hope to work with others this year to have tea circles. 

Enjoy the flavors of summer all year round! Our strawberry preserves feature Certified Naturally Grown strawberries from Soul Fire Farm. We add add a touch of sugar, pectin, and lemon juice to complete the recipe. We use water bath canning to make the preserves shelf stable up to 1 year. 

Each jar contains 8 ounces of fruit preserves. Refrigerate after opening. Enjoy on toast, pancakes, yogurt, oatmeal, or right out of the jar.

SHOP NOW

• Panel with James Beard Foundation with Brooke Bridges
• Podcast on Mountain Rose Herbs with Leah Penniman
• Video on Sprout Up with Brooke Bridges 
• Blog Post on Wishgarden Herbs with Brooke Bridges

April 21st, 2022 – April 24th, 2022 

Women Working for Earth
Leah Penniman Keynote

REGISTER

Now is a time for women to come forward as a force of leadership, in co-creative partnership with nature. 

Do you want to contribute to the cultural shift of our species in a way that is centered, grounded, and connected with the Earth? We are honoring this crucial impulse and creating space for Women to give voice, bring awareness, share wisdom, collaborate, and inspire.

Oppression underwrites our food system, and a tangible action to address food sovereignty in our communities is taking reparations into our own hands through the creation of the Reparations Map for Black-Indigenous Farmers. We recognize that the food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and other people of color. We also know that we cannot wait for the government to acknowledge that stolen wealth and land must be returned. Some farmers have already received funding through this project, and we want to provide that opportunity to other Black and Brown farmers. If you have resources you want to share contact a farmer directly to share them, or if you have a project you want to include on the map contact Northeast Farmers of Color!