Education
We are dedicated to providing educational workshops, retreats, and speakers for guests and members of Boulder Town. We believe that more knowledge can only help us grow to interact more positively with our planet, ourselves, and each other. Education has been wide spread from food foraging, to wetland construction and compost tea and the microbiology of soil. Our continued efforts in creating opportunities to learn better land practices has been the driving force to bringing this education both locally and globally. We are always open to hosting new speakers, retreats, or events related to these topics and many others. It’s an ideal setting for a classroom or workshop. For information on hosting an educational event with us, please see our Host a Group page.
PDC 2013
In 2013, BMGR hosted a Permaculture Design Course that brought in a lot of locals. Permaculture integrates people into nature's design. A permaculture design provides us with shelter, food, water, income, community and aesthetic and spiritual fulfillment within a balanced and healthy biological community. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. It seeks to provide a sustainable and secure way for us to live on this earth.
Katrina Blair
In June of 2015 and 2016 we hosted weekend-long Wild Edible Weeds workshops with master medicinal botanist and southwestern forager Katrina Blair. Over the past two summer seasons she has helped us to identify the many wild, nutrient rich plants that are growing on this 168 acre stretch of land between the mountain and desert. In addition to teaching about what wild plants are delicious and healthy to eat, her workshops focus on sustainable harvesting, preparing, cooking and storing this great bounty of earth’s “hidden garden”.
Dandelion Fest
In June of 2016 we hosted a Dandelion Festival, to celebrate this under-appreciated, often misunderstood plant. This idea comes from Katrina Blair’s annual Dandelion Festival in Durango, Colorado. We had face painting, a salve making class, guided meditation, and a talk about the “weed”. We also celebrated with food from dandelion green salad and fresh made pizza topped with dandelion pesto and dandelion flowers.
Soil workshop with Dr. Elaine
In July 2016 a large group of people came together at the Boulder Mountain Guest Ranch for a 5-day intensive course on soil. Dr. Elaine Ingham taught us about how healthy soil retains and cycles nutrients to build soil structure, suppresses disease-causing organisms, promotes plant growth, and decomposes toxic compounds. During the workshop, participants learned how to use the soil food web to analyze and improve their own soils. Students saw how to create compost and compost teas, which will give their plants the biology they need to improve growth and increase moisture retention in the soil by 30-50%.