In the Wild Garden: Plant Identification Series with Dina Falconi
Spend one hour each week in our wild gardens learning to identify plants using basic sensory skills.
We will be guided by the living plants and learning directly from them, discovering how they are used for food, medicine and pleasure.
The class includes practical information on harvest and preparation.
Who is this for?
This series is for beginners as well as for more experienced plant people who want to practice and develop their plant identification skills. Folks currently enrolled in herbal classes and herb class graduates can reinforce and expand their “hands on” plant knowledge. This is a useful course for outdoor education instructors as well.
About the Wild Gardens:
This class takes place entirely outdoors in our gardens (and a bit in the surrounding meadows and woods).
The gardens, for the most part, are no-till, permanent beds, with year-round mulch that contain over two-hundred diverse species of annuals, perennial herbs, bushes, trees, vines and poultry.
The wild flora are welcome and encouraged in the gardens. We are drawn to these gardening techniques that work with nature to create lively, productive, beautiful gardens with less work.
Another goal along these lines has been to maintain the gardens without the use of any chemical inputs: pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, etc. – which we have succeeded in doing (from our point of view) throughout the gardens’ lifetime. Our homestead serves as an herbal teaching site and botanical apothecary.
Please note: This course does not include lab projects, cooking, or any indoor classroom time.
Program Information:
For: Limited to 15 adults
Dates: Every Wednesday (18 sessions) from May 23 thru Sept 19 (we skip Aug
15)
Time: 5 – 6pm
Location: The lovely hamlet of Lyonsville, Stone Ridge, NY
Cost: $200 ($100 deposit by April 25)
Note: All payments are non-refundable and non-transferable.
Dina Falconi is a clinical herbalist with a strong focus on food activism and nutritional healing. She has been teaching classes about the use of herbs for food, medicine, and pleasure, including wild-food foraging and cooking, for over twenty years. She produces Falcon Formulations natural body care products and Earthly Extracts medicinal tinctures. She is a founding member of the Northeast Herbal Association, a chapter leader of the Weston A. Price Foundation and on the board of Slow Food-Hudson Valley. An avid gardener and wildcrafter, Dina is passionate about ecological agriculture and has completed the Permaculture Design Certificate Course. She is the author of Earthly Bodies & Heavenly Hair: Natural and Healthy Personal Care for Everybody.


ROPES Overnight Camp is a six-day (five-night) wilderness adventure camp for teen ages 14-17.
Wild Earth’s Teen Leadership Experience makes its camp amidst 200 acres of some of the most spectacular and diverse land on High Falls’ Clove Valley Road. The land borders the Shawanghunk Ridge and Mohonk Preserve and features beautiful woodland, rock outcroppings and cliffs, with the Coxing Kill stream tumbling over waterfalls and rockslides on its way north to Wild Earth’s Kestrel camp.
Raven Camp makes its home amidst 200 acres of some of the most spectacular and diverse land in the Hudson Valley. The land borders the Shawanghunk Ridge and Mohonk Preserve and features beautiful woodland, rock outcroppings and cliffs, with the Coxing Kill stream tumbling over waterfalls and rockslides on its way north towards Wild Earth’s Kestrel Camp.
Located at High Falls’ Outback Farm on Clove Valley Road, Kestrel Camp is on 75 spectacular and diverse acres of fields, woodland and rock outcroppings. The land borders the Shawanghunk ridge with the beautiful Coxing Kill stream meandering through.
Each summer, for almost a decade, children have come together at Screech Owl Camp to explore, play and make the woods their home.
Our Parent/Tot half-day Camp is designed for children ages 3 & 4 who wish to play in the outdoors with parental companionship. Together, we will explore the wonders of nature within the fascinating world that surrounds us.
