Dandelion! Purslane! Horsetail! Nettles! Chickweed! All farmers, gardeners, and growers deal with the challenges of weeds—plants growing in the place of a different desired crop and “choking out” their resources. How many weeds do we pull out in a single season? And how much do we really know about the weeds that are most abundant on the land we tend and how they got there? This session is all about medicinal weeds! We’ll discuss how we can use the ones on our land as medicine for ourselves and communities, and the potential of utilizing them as a lucrative part of your farm business. We’ll also discuss wildcrafting and foraging, invasives vs. naturalized plants, and examine a few plant profiles (and their look-alikes).

This class is organized by Rogue Farm Corps, a nonprofit organization training and equipping the next generation of farmers, and will be taught by Iman of Baylasan Botanicals, a farmer, herbalist and RFC alum.

INSTRUCTOR BIO:

Iman (she/they) of Baylasan Botanicals is a guest on unceded Chinook territory, and has called the lands of the Tongva (orange county, los angeles) and Ohlone (bay area) their home for most of their life. Her ancestors are rooted in Damascus and Aleppo, Syria and she comes into this work carrying their resilience and knowledge of land tending. She began her farming journey in early 2020 after a few years of gardening and hearing the calls of plant medicine. Iman is currently tending land at Scout Bee Farm on Kalapuya territory (gales creek), with a focus on medicinal herbs and ancestral foods of the SWANA (South West Asia + North Africa) region. The name "Baylasan Botanicals" comes from the Arabic word for elderberry, Baylasan, and was inspired by the opening lines of the iconic Fairuz's song, Wahdon. The song is a poem written by Talal Haidar as a dedication to three assassinated Palestinian freedom fighters. With Baylasan Botanicals, Iman hopes to honor and pay respects to indigenous sovereignty and people fighting oppression globally against colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, and patriarchy.

Iman is elated to be teaching The Medicine Around Us - a workshop on how growers of all sorts can honor and use wild weeds as food and medicine. She feels passionate about knowing and being in relationship with all the plants and beings around us as a means of returning to land-based ways of life.

TICKETS:

Tickets are sliding scale $10-30, with $20 suggested.

After you purchase a ticket you will receive a confirmation email with the zoom link for this workshop.

To request a full scholarship, email abigail@roguefarmcorps.org.