National Good Food Network webinars

The third Thursday of each month, 12:30 to 1:45 in WA State
Excellent information and advice on multiple farming-oriented topics,
primarily dealing with the business end.
Archived presentations go back to 2009.

Bee Keeping Courses in Snohomish County

Monday evenings from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the WSU Snohomish County Extension Cougar Auditorium in McCollum Park, 600 - 128th St SE, Everett. $70 per participant. PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED - class size is limited!
Session 1: 7 Nov thru 5 Dec 2011
Session 2: 9 Jan thru 13 Feb 2012
Session 3: 27 Feb thru 26 Mar 2012

FOR KITSAP COUNTY RESIDENTS: For bee keeping classes closer to home, West Sound Beekeepers Association in Silverdale will be conducting their next series of classes starting in February 2012.

Northwest Agriculture Business Center Newsletter Archives

WSDA Farm Wisdom: Managing Risk on Small Farms Video Series

11 on-line videos, 3 - 6 minutes each, featuring innovative and practical ways to improve operations or mitigate risks.

La Biondo Farm (Vashon Island)

Check on-line for upcoming classes.

WSU Kitsap Classes:

October 2011 Calendar

Nancy's Green Garden Classes for Gardeners

All classes at the Cleo's Landing Learning Center.

Environmental and Sustainability classes in Seattle

This link is to Antioch University's list of classes.

Quillisascut Farm Training Classes

Quillisascut is in Rice, WA, in the very northeast corner of Washington State.
The offerings are often 5 days in length, so make it a family holiday!
http://quillisascut.com/farm-school/

Classes at Friendly Haven Rise Farm http://www.friendlyhaven.com/classes.html

The farm is located in Venersborg, in southwest Washington State.

Deep chicken bedding: fir cuttings better than fir chips

Monica of At Wits End Homestead in Victor, Montana (a bit south of
Missoula) talks about her deep bedding system for her chickens. Her
chicken coop uses chopped up used christmas trees.

She also talks about her experiments with deep bedding. Originally she
used leaves and then she tried wood shavings/chips. But she found she
was having to put down more every few days.
With the chopped up christmas trees, she was adding more just once
every month or so.
Deep bedding is where you throw more bedding down all winter long
without mucking out the coop. Then you muck out the coop once a year.

She also shows off using buckets for nesting and how this helps with
mite control.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwjPj1p1Azo
Link provided courtesy of:
Cascade Harvest Coalition
http://www.cascadeharvest.org

Paul Wheaton PODCASTS

• Stinging nettles as a cash crop
• replacing irrigation with permaculture
• Urban Permaculture
• Farming with Minimal Intervention (45 minute podcast)
• Chickens
• Refrigerate Without Power
• Cutting Your Electric Bill
• What Is Permaculture
• On planting native plants. "There are people out there that are as passionate about
  healing the earth as we are, and I would very much like to see them work with us rather than against us."
• More on Permaculture

American Farmland Trust: FRPP Final Rule

Here is a link to the Office of Farmland Preservation Notices (includes a link to the text of the Final Rule).

Ag and the Tax Relief Act of 2010 – Key Changes for Farmers and Ranchers

Agriculture in Uncertain Times webinar.
Go to http://www.farmmanagement.org/aginuncertaintimes/,

"The Tax Relief Act of 2010 has a number of changes to the tax code important to agricultural producers.
In the Ag in Uncertain Times webinasr, we discussed the key changes in the new Tax Law
and how they affect agricultural producers. Many of the changes will have a direct impact on depreciation
and expensing options available to businesses. The discussions are useful for all sizes and types
of farms and ranches."

Webinars are archived as video, MP3 audio, and SWF files on the Ag in Uncertain Times web site.

WSU Kitsap County Extension Program Classes

are listed at http://kitsap.wsu.edu/
You can also get on the Master Gardener's waiting list from this site.

WSU in Jefferson County - class opportunities.

Just across the Hood Canal Bridge -
http://jefferson.wsu.edu/

WSU in North Central Washington - class opportunities (PDF format.)

The Organic Seed Alliance

(locally headquartered in Port Townsend) offers classes and links you to more.
They also offer on-line publications and research results.
Check out their offerings at http://www.seedalliance.org/Events/

Stillwaters Ongoing Discussion Courses

Ecologically - oriented topics, at the Environmental Center on Barber Cutoff Road, just outside Kingston..
For details, go to http://www.stillwatersenvironmentalcenter.org/SustainabilityClasses.htm

American Farmland Trust

Cultivating Success

Offering ongoing training courses in Washington State, at http://www.cultivatingsuccess.org/coursecalendar_WA.htm

WA State Dept of Revenue Farmers Page

The Department of Revenue (DOR) has created a site just for farmers and agricultural business (http://dor.wa.gov/farmers). The intent is to have one location where farmers can go for updated information on taxes, incentives, rules and other changes that affect them. DOR has been making a real effort to make information easily available to taxpayers, and this is one example.

This really isn't a "class site" per se, but the information is valuable if you are running your farm as a business.