Land Camp: Saturday Series
Come curious. Leave with new eyes and new tools.
Five full-day Saturdays of learning to read the land you tend, in the field and at the table, with a small group and a coach rather than a lecturer.
Five full-day Saturdays
Up to 20 people
Spring 2027, dates to come
To be announced
Learn to read the land you tend
Land Camp is a hands-on way to understand the place(s) you steward or will one day steward! Across five Saturdays, you move between the field and the classroom: observing, sampling, doing activities, playing, and working things out with your hands and with each other.
The approach is coaching-based, not lecture-based. You leave with your own way of seeing, plus practical tools you can use on any land.
Each is approached on its own and as part of the whole.
The five Saturdays
Each day builds on the one before. Details may shift as this is a living, dynamic course.
Soils
- Arrivals, introductions, and setting intentions together
- Soil science, physical, chemical, and biological
- Out to the field to sample and walk your first transect
Microbiology and compost
- The soil food web under the microscope
- Learn the language of soil microbiology
- Compost methods, from hot piles to worms to bioreactors
Plants
- Plant succession and disturbance
- Botany introduction
- Reading what plants tell you about mineral deficiencies, pests, and disease
Water
- How water moves across a landscape
- Modeling water flow
- Capturing water, aggregate stability, and more
Closing the loop
- Soil testing: chemical, biological, and sap or tissue
- Animals and how they fit into the whole system
- Land transformation brainstorm
What you take home
Skills and habits you can use on your own land or any land you care for long after the last Saturday.
- Frameworks for observing a landscape
- Hands-on soil assessment skills
- Experience investigating plant health
- An introduction to microscopy
- Practice with understanding water dynamics
- A personal field journal of your own
- A follow-up coaching session after the series
Philosophy and approach
A few principles that shape everything at Land Camp:
Everyone is an expert in something. The room knows more than any one person in it. Part of the facilitator’s job is to surface that and put it to work.
The land is the teacher. We are facilitating a conversation between people and place. The field is not a backdrop…it is the curriculum.
Questions over answers. The best land stewardship begins with curiosity. Land Camp is structured to develop the practice of asking better questions, not just accumulating more information.
Questions
No. Curiosity is the only prerequisite.
No. You’ll practice on the ground we’re on and take the methods home, whether that’s acres, a backyard, a community plot, or the land that you don’t have yet but are dreaming about.
No. There is a mixture of teaching blocks, discussion, group activities, and fieldwork. The facilitation is coaching-based.
Up to 20 people, in order to foster community and targeted learning.
I’m still deciding how to offer this. Tell me what you’d prefer when you join the early list.
Instruction, extra goodies for full participants, plus a follow-up coaching session at no extra charge.
A design course teaches a design framework. Land Camp is built around observation: learning to read what the land is already telling you, with coaching in place of lectures. There is certainly crossover, but this experience will be unlike any other out there.
Be the first to hear the details
Dates and tuition are coming. Leave your email and I’ll write as soon as they’re ready, with first choice of seats.
Join the early list
It takes about a minute. Tell me how you’d like to attend and what you’re curious about.
No commitment, no payment now.