Keyline Design: Water and New Topsoil for Every Farm

October 29 and 30, 2007

9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Instructed by Darren Doherty, Principal of Australia Felix and accomplished Keyline landscape designer.

Location: Cimarron Farm, St. Albans, Vermont. This farm is currently building a Keyline Flood Flow irrigation system, so course theory will be backed up by on-the-land examples.

 This two day workshop with will cover the basics of Keyline farm design and Keyline topsoil formation.  In practice around the world for over fifty years, the Keyline Plan is farm and city design based on the water shapes of the land.  The Keyline Plan enables fast flood irrigation of flat and hilly land.  Keyline topsoil formation involves using a subsoiler plow on pasture land in combination with planned grazing and irrigation or  rainfall to rapidly convert subsoil to topsoil.  Theory and practical subsoiling and landscape construction will be covered.

Cost: $250. Lunches, refreshments and educational materials will be provided. Free to member Carbon Farmers of America.

Pre-registration and deposit are required. To register, or for more information, please contact Abe Collins at (802) 527-2913 or abe@carbonfarmersofamerica.com

Directions to Cimarron Farm

From I-89 North, take exit 20 to St. Albans. At the end of the off-ramp, go left. You’ll go for a few hundred yards. At the stop light on route 7, take a right. Pass a drive-in movie theatre on your right, and then take the next real left, across from Warner’s Snack Bar, which is Jewett Avenue. Cross the railroad tracks, and the road will end in a T. Take a left. Go to a four-way intersection, take a right. You are now on Lower Newton Road. Go about ¾ of mile, and on the left you will see a large white “superstructure” greenhouse type barn. Cross a small bridge, and take either the first or second left. The workshop will be held upstairs in the Quonset hut, behind the large white solar barn.