If I were footloose and fancy free – and fit enough for ten weeks in the fields – I might consider this.
Herb Pharm runs three of these programs every year.
In addition to hands on experience (aka serious work) in the fields and in the workshops and barns there’s classroom learning time too.
Topics covered include plant identification, ethical wildcrafting, traditional western herbal energetics, ayurvedic herbology, ethnobotany, plant communications, therapeutic herbalism, medicine making and physiology.
The cost: No cost. Just the ability and willingness to be a useful farmhand and $150 per month towards communal food purchases. (The hands get housing for the ten week program but have to handle their own shopping and cooking.)
Not a bad deal for a budding herbalist or herb farmer who has a strong worth ethic and clear desire to learn.
You can read more about Herb Pharm’s Herbaculture Intern Program here.
There’s also lots of very helpful information on the Herb Pharm site about schools, associations, research, and educational events for practitioners and the public.
– Ken McCarthy
PlantWisdom.org
