Please join us for a very special event at the majestic ThorpeWood Lodge in Thurmont, MD! Come enjoy the gorgeous lodge (made from chestnut wood), a chestnut themed lunch, music, presentations, hand-crafted chestnut beer, fresh roasted chestnuts, desserts, and a silent auction including items & experiences from local, environmentally friendly businesses!

SilvoCulture is partnering with the Downtown Frederick Partnership to bring a holiday classic to Downtown Frederick – we’re roasting chestnuts on an open fire (safely of course) @The Trellis along Carroll Creek, on the corner of South Market Street and Carroll Creek!

SilvoCulture is partnering with the Downtown Frederick Partnership to bring a holiday classic to Downtown Frederick – we’re roasting chestnuts on an open fire (safely of course) @The Trellis along Carroll Creek, on the corner of South Market Street and Carroll Creek!

This workshop is focused on the integration of chestnuts and honey locust into a sheep pasture system to provide shade and forage for livestock and yield a marketable crop. Topics to be covered include:

• tree crops for forage and market

• contour planting

• tree establishment and maintenance

• designing a silvopasture system for your farm

Please join us for a very special event at the majestic ThorpeWood Lodge in Thurmont, MD! Come enjoy the gorgeous lodge (made from chestnut wood!), a chestnut themed buffet lunch crafted by The Common Market Cafe, music, presentations, hand-crafted chestnut beer, fresh roasted chestnuts, desserts, and a silent auction including items & experiences from local, environmentally friendly businesses!

CLICK HERE TO GO DIRECTLY TO TICKETS!!

Farm Tour and Celebration!

Join Button Farm as we celebrate our annual Maryland Emancipation Day Event in commemoration of the day in 1864, when Maryland changed its constitution to abolish slavery six months before the end of the Civil War. The program features speakers, self-guided tours of the farm’s museum garden and animal pens. Snacks and cider are provided! CLICK HERE for details!

Silvoculture is pleased to host Leslie Lewis of Living Systems Soil LLC for a morning focused on soil health for agroforestry & home garden!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

FREE WORKSHOP!!! Join Taylor Logsdon, permaculture practitioner, for a hands-on, how-to workshop on shaping the land for passive water harvesting. Come get your hands dirty digging a swale and planting fruit tree guilds!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!!!

Come help plant a forest that will feed generations to come!

The Food Forest at Button Farm will commorate the tree crops that helped sustain Freedom Seekers on the Underground Railroad and celebrate our region's most well-adapted foods.

Click “View Event” to see photos and a recap of this special event!

Pruning to Restore the Orchards!!!

Come join Silvoculture for an afternoon of pruning and discussion with Michael Judd & Matthew Jacobsen on our 60 year-old chestnut orchard!

Pruning is a time-honored technique to rejuvenate woody plants by creating new growth and increasing light and air flow. With a grant from NorthEast SARE, SilvoCulture is studying the effect of pruning on yield of Chinese chestnut trees. Michael will be speaking on the why and how of pruning and arborist Matthew will be providing a pruning demonstration on the trees in the orchard.

Click “View Event” to see photos and recap from this event!

SilvoCulture partnered with Downtown Frederick Partnership to bring a holiday classic to December Second Saturday - we roasted chestnuts on an open fire (safely of course) right along the beautifully decorated canal! People enjoyed a free tasting of locally-grown and freshly-roasted chestnuts, and bags of chestnuts were sold to the public.

On Nov 13, 2022 SilvoCulture threw it’s 2nd Annual Chestnut Roast at Fox Haven Farm & Learning Center. Though the weather was cold and windy attendees were kept warm with roasted chestnuts and hot drinks. The day included talks on the culture and economics of chestnuts, chestnut sourdough bread, chestnut processing and cooking demonstrations, a tour of the Fox Haven orchard, live music and a delicious chestnut themed lunch catered by the Common Market Co-op.

A big thanks to everyone who helped out and attended! We look forward to seeing you next year!

Through a Chesapeake Bay Trust grant, SilvoCulture in partnership with Button Farm Living History Center and Maryland Department of Natural Resources, hosted the Food Security & the Underground Railroad event at Button Farm on Oct 16th, 2022. Anthony Cohen of the Menare Foundation spoke on how self-liberators used traditional tree crops to assist in their escapes to freedom. Michael Judd spoke on the fascinating world of persimmons, pawpaw and chestnuts. Attendees also got to sample persimmons and chestnuts from one of SilvoCulture’s orchards!

We look forward to partnering with Button Farm Living History Center on future events and for the upcoming installation of a tree crop orchard on the farm!

SilvoCulture hosted a group of about 30 participants for a tour of Middle Creek Farm, SilvoCulture’s main hub. This diverse and beautiful site is a testing ground for all things perennial and nuts. Eric Joseph Lewis, permaculture designer, teacher, and plant enthusiast, led the group on a tour of the property to explore a diversity of thriving perennial crops – chestnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, hickories, walnuts, goumis, willows, pawpaws, elderberries, currants, pears, apples, jujubes, and more. Visitors learned about the contoured earthwork swales that passively harvest rainwater to nourish the orchard and prevent run-off. And everyone gathered by the house for rich conversation and refreshments. Check out the recent article on the event in the Frederick News Post: Myersville area non-profit works to plant nut trees across Frederick County.

SilvoCulture threw our First Annual Chestnut Roast on November 6 at Fox Haven Farm & Learning Center in Jefferson, MD. It was a beautiful, warm autumn afternoon full of sampling roasted chestnuts, touring the orchard, shopping and talking with vendors, eating chestnut chili, listening to live music, and making new community connections – all in celebration of the Chestnut! A big thank you to everyone who helped make this event possible.

On May 2nd, workshop participants joined Michael Judd and the SilvoCulture crew at Middle Creek Farm to learn all about starting a chestnut orchard. Michael spoke on working with contours on the landscape for passive water harvest, planting and chestnut nursery start up, and orchard yields and return on investment. Participants toured the orchard and nursery, checking out swales, pallet and strawbale nursery set ups, and learning grafting techniques.

SilvoCulture was so pleased to partner with the enthusiastic folks at Gratitude Farm. On December 5th, SilvoCulture held a workshop for local landowners and community members who wanted to learn more about implementing nut tree plantings onto their own properties. Michael Judd led the workshop and taught participants about holistic landscape design, passive water harvest, and economically viable tree crops such as chestnuts. Participants learned how to mark out a line on contour and then machine-dug a large swale, which is a basin followed by a berm for absorbing water into the landscape.

SilvoCulture is thrilled to be partnering with Mount Saint Mary’s. On November 7th, SilvoCulture held a workshop at Good Soil Farm LLC, a farm operated by the Mount’s Professor Stephen McGinley who teaches within the agro-forestry program. Michael Judd led the workshop, teaching students about holistic landscape design, passive water harvest, and economically viable tree crops such as chestnuts. Students learned how to mark out a line on contour and then hand-dug a swale, which is a basin followed by a berm for absorbing water into the landscape. Trees planted on the berm or downhill from it have more consistent access to water, making plantings more resilient in drought, as well as decreasing rainwater run-off pollution into our waterways.

On October 3, we welcomed a diverse crowd of folks from the mid-Atlantic region all with different backgrounds and ideas for integrating chestnuts into their lives! We started off the day with a talk from Michael Judd on setting up a chestnut orchard – the ecological and economic factors and the how-to. We took time to appreciate the power of the chestnut as a species in how it interacts with us humans – so much potential to embrace that relationship moving forward! After some time for touring the grounds and enjoying roasted chestnuts and bread from the earthern oven, participants dove into chestnut harvesting, processing, storage, and cooking preparations with Eric Joseph Lewis. We learned and shared a great deal – including how chestnut weevils are a tasty part of the package with a macronutrient profile like bacon and a taste like a peanut butter rice krispie treat!