We are beaming you love in this season of abundance. As the wild bergamot and coneflowers bloom, and the butterflies and hummingbirds flock to the land to drink, we are excited to share with you some updates, invitations and opportunities to connect.  Flowers are colorful beacons of light that give back sunshine when dark, somber skies blanket our thoughts. We send you the energy of early morning sunrises and sweet floral smells to usher internal peace as we reckon with global catastrophe and collective grief. May this season recommit us to active nonviolence, community and earth care, love and justice. Bright Blessings, Naima, Kavitha, Natasha, Athena, Monti and Taij

WILDSEED provides BIPOC farmers and herbalists no cost access to prime agricultural land. Current cultivators include Sweet Freedom Farm, Catalyst Collaborative Farm, Ancestral Moon Farm & Medicinals, and Sage Herbalz. Below are updates from each project sharing soil, sun and mycelium at WILDSEED.

Sweet Freedom Farm Sweet Freedom Farm grows and distributes vegetables, grain, herbs, medicines, and maple syrup, prioritizing incarcerated beloveds and their families. On June 8th, Sweet Freedom Farm gathered at WILDSEED South, to plant sorghum and corn alongside community members including our partner Carbon Sponge. We enjoyed a meal infused with sorghum, prepared by Beloved Kitchen, and connected with each other. We are deeply thankful for the wisdom and strategies these African and Indigenous plant-cestors offer us, teaching us about resistance and resilience as we navigate world-building in the face of late-stage capitalism and climate change.

Catalyst Collaborative Farm Monti Lawson (Farmer and Site Steward at WILDSEED, and founder of Catalyst Collaborative Farm) joined the 2024 cohort of Rock Steady Farm’s Pollinate Programthis June! Pictured above with Fallon Davis (from STEAM Urban, Newark, NJ). Their time at Rock Steady included visits to neighboring farms, workshops in irrigation, greenhouse management, crop planning, and CSA planning and distribution, all while farming alongside the Rock Steady farm team each morning. In the true spirit of each-one teach-one, they both offered a bounty of knowledge presenting workshops of their own to close out the 2 week program. Both Monti and Fallon are now a part of the ever growing HIVE alumni program where they will continue to learn from their peers, offer teachings, and nourish the thriving ecosystem of beginner QTBIPOC farmers, land stewards, and food sovereignty advocates that Pollinate brings together. Sweet Freedom Farm Sweet Freedom Farm grows and distributes vegetables, grain, herbs, medicines, and maple syrup, prioritizing incarcerated beloveds and their families. On June 8th, Sweet Freedom Farm gathered at WILDSEED South, to plant sorghum and corn alongside community members including our partner Carbon Sponge. We enjoyed a meal infused with sorghum, prepared by Beloved Kitchen, and connected with each other. We are deeply thankful for the wisdom and strategies these African and Indigenous plant-cestors offer us, teaching us about resistance and resilience as we navigate world-building in the face of late-stage capitalism and climate change

Ancestral Moon Farm & Medicinals The garden in WILDSEED South lovingly created and tended by our friends at Linke Fligl, is now under the stewardship of Black farmer and herbalist, Natasha Strickland, the owner of Ancestral Moon Farm & Medicinals. The farm’s mission is to grow healthy food options and create holistic medicine for BIPOC community members. It will be a space where bountiful pollinator flowers are interspersed in rows of tomatoes, onions, collards, okra, potatoes, cucumbers, savory herbs, and three-sister mounds of corn, beans, and squash. There will also be a section on the farm dedicated to the human body where medicinal herbs are grown, where Natasha will use the herbs to make medicine.

Sage Herbalz The mandala medicine garden is teeming with calendula, valerian, echinacea, bee balm and other healing plants that boost immunity and fortify the nervous system. Under the leadership of Sarah Elisabeth of Sage Herbalz, the purpose of the garden is to offer free herb distributions to the local community. Look forward to receiving free products September 7 at the Fall Block Party! Reach Sarah at sarah@sageherbalz.com if you want to join her any Friday afternoon through November to tend to the garden.

Yurt Erected! We’ve been dreaming of a yurt at WILDSEED to have programming space to share with our community for quite some time, and now it’s real! Our 30 foot diameter yurt was made in Mongolia by Bataa and his family members who each played an intricate role in the details from the walls made of sheep fur, to the ropes braided of horse mane, to the beautifully painted toono at the center We are so grateful for all the kinfolk that came through to help us construct it on site, and are blown away by what we were able to manifest together- something of such scale and longevity that will hold so many sacred moments of connection, healing, and creativity. Water Flowing! We’ve been hard at work revitalizing our pond and restoring its ecosystem, removing the nitrogen-rich algae and muck and using it as fertilizer on the farm. Shout out to our ancestor Dr. George Washington Carver who taught Black farmers in the South how to enrich croplands with swamp muck instead of commercial fertilizers. Now the water is flowing, and our soils are enriched.

Apples Fruiting! We are establishing native perennials in a terraced garden and food forest, companion planting apple and pear trees with mushrooms, comfrey, mullein, creeping thyme, tulsi, lavender, rosemary, Solomon’s seal, trillium, geranium, currants, gooseberry, anise hyssop, African marigold, chamomile and more. Big thanks to Krista Speroni and the True Foods Hudson Valley team for helping design and establish these edible and medicinal groves, Clara Agbortabi and Naima Penniman for leading the inoculation of shiitake logs and wine-cap mushroom wood chips, and Jared and Stefanie of Future Fruits who have been teaching us how to care for our apple, pear, and peach trees in the orchard.

Summer 2024. Space is limited. Registration required! Catalyst Collaborative Farm welcomes you to join their Summer Series of Community Work Days at WILDSEED! Help tend to the Shade Garden, Herb Mound, Food Forest, and Production Field. Activities will include weeding, irrigation installation, and more. Dress comfortably for warm weather and get ready to get your hands dirty! Registration required. Please RSVP so we can prepare for your arrival and share updates. We are Made of Stardust Join us August 10-11 during the peak of perseids meteor shower on the sacred lands of WILDSEED for stargazing, foraging, fishing, fire, storytelling, dance and celebration. We will gather around the campfire for cacao ceremony and music, activate the new yurt with art and performances, peer through telescopes overlooking the eastern horizon, and have ample opportunities for nourishment, rest and play. After sleeping in tents under the stars, there will be an option to awaken our bodies for Sunday morning dance church and go to nearby Rudd Pond State Park for fishing, grilling and swimming.  We hope you can join us for this celestial gathering that orients our beings in the vast ever-expanding universe. RSVP here Intergenerational Play Date Awakening our child spirits for people of all ages in playful communion with nature. Join us at WILDSEED on August 24 from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm to rebuild our connection with nature by befriending plants and making infused herbal honey. Get playful with water games. Create by using your hands to sculpt clay and weave baskets. Gather in community for water rituals that inspire alignment, relaxation and balance. Families and children of all ages are welcome. RSVP Here

Intergenerational Play Dates  Our first and second WILDSEED Intergenerational Play Dates were brimming and bubbling over with joy! In May, we nurtured our curiosity and imaginations through storytelling, drumming and theater around a crackling campfire, made herbal-infused honey and decorated a cake with edible flowers from the land.  In June, we dipped beeswax candles, made cordage from cattails, floated origami paper boats, and enjoyed the most delicious feast.

Thank you Suanny, Natasha, Marcellina, Ko, Ebony, Vanessa, Alysia, Nkoula, Angel, Laurel, Ma Badila and Naima for holding space for the magic that bloomed!!

Lilac Brunch Catalyst Collaborative Farm hosted its annual Lilac Brunch on May 19, where community members nourished their souls with delectable spreads featuring culinary creations infused with the essence of lilac, celebrating its fragrance and flavor. From lilac-infused pastries to refreshing lilac beverages, the menu tantalized everyone’s taste buds and awakened our senses to the wonders of spring.

Food Forest and Perennial Planting Days Members of our community came together across 2 weekends to invest in the long term vision that perennials nourish. Together we formed beds, weeded and planted in the Shade Garden and Herb Mound, and transformed the Orchard into a multistory agroforest to encourage biodiversity and grow food and medicine to support the health of our community via future harvests. The work days were hosted by Catalyst Collaborative Farm and facilitated by Krista Speroni and Sarah Elisabeth.

Community Pruning Day  We joined our hands together to prune apple, pear, and peach trees in the orchard so they could blossom into something beautiful. Our facilitators Jared Williams and Stefanie Geisel of Fresh Fruits provided us hands-on instruction, and the apple trees are now producing fruits!

Gathering of the Nations The Indigenous Mothers Community Land Trust hosted the Gathering of the Nations, gathering as a community of practice to share ancestral wisdom from its federation of members. The L’nu wisdom sharing was led by Mikmaq elders and members of Soil & Souls for 2 days.

Radical Imagination Residency WILDSEED offers one to two-week residencies at no cost for Black, Indigenous and other People of Color creatives, artists and cultural workers whose work strives for a more just and livable world. If you or someone you know could use a creative sanctuary learn more and apply here.  Shared Purpose, Shared Space As justice-workers, we know that our efforts to build a more liberated world are intertwined. And we know that we need space to recuperate, strategize, and fortify the skills, visions, and insights we need to be effective stewards of necessary change.  We are honored to offer indoor and outdoor space at WILDSEED to mission-aligned groups for trainings, retreats, movement meetups, innovation labs, cultural gatherings and celebration. To make a request for subsidized space rental for your organization’s internal gathering or community event, please fill out this form.  Friends from Linke Fligl, a former queer Jewish chicken farm and cultural organizing project that operated on WILDSEED lands from 2016-2022, returned to the land to put up a plaque on the chicken coop that honors their rich history and blesses future land stewards. Through growing nourishing food, cultivating land-based community and organizing for reparations, Linke Fligl co-created Jewish cultural practice for collective healing, resilience and liberation.

WILDSEED Community Farm & Healing Village is a creative sanctuary rooted in reciprocal relationships with land, water and ecology in the Mid Hudson Valley, NY. Centering the leadership and radical imaginations of BIPOC stewards, we grow food, medicine, and love as infrastructure for solidarity economies to nourish our ancestors, ourselves and generations to come.

In case you missed it, read the Spring 2024 newsletter here. Check out this Visual Presentation of WILDSEED highlights from 2023. Dive even deeper into WILDSEED’s history, vision and direction and check out who’s who to learn about past & present key players and contributors.

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