Welcome to Zenger Farm

We are a working urban farm that models, promotes and educates about sustainable food systems, environmental stewardship, community development and access to good food for all.

Workshops

 

Unless otherwise noted, all workshops take place in the Zenger Farmhouse at 11741 SE Foster Rd.

 

Teaching a Workshop

Are you interested in offering a workshop at the farm? Please contact Prairie at prairie@zengerfarm.org or 503-282-4245.

 

Scholarships

If you cannot afford the full workshop price, please fill out a scholarship application and send it in with your registration form. We will make every effort to meet your need. We want everyone to be able to attend our workshops, regardless of income level. If you have questions, call us at 503.282.4245. Would you like to donate to our scholarship fund? Click here.

 

Neighbor Discount

Residents of Powellhurst-Gilbert, Lents and Pleasant Valley receive a 15% discount on all workshops.

 

 

Upcoming Workshops

 

More workshops coming soon!

 

 

Past Workshops

 

Worm Composting (Family Friendly)

Saturday, May 15th (10am-12pm)

At this hands-on workshop you will learn how to turn your food scraps into garden compost using red wiggler worms. Learn everything you need to know about worm composting AND build your own worm bin to take home, full of red wriggler worms (a $40 value)! Child care provided. Children can join parents, or participate in our fun kids activities.

Cost: $40

 

Pie Baking

Sunday, May 16th (2pm-4pm)

Learn the secrets of flaky, fool-proof pie crust in this hands-on class lead by award-winning pie baker and Zenger Farm board member, Marie Johnson. Bakers will discuss pie successes and challenges, the relative merits of different ingredients and methods, then roll up your sleeves and try out your new knowledge. Each baker will take away your own pie crust, ready to fill and bake at home, along with a pastry blender and set of yummy pie recipes. Pie and beverages will be served. Please bring an apron, if you have one. All other supplies will be provided. Inspired by her grandmother and the desire to bring back the nurturing powers of home-baked goodness, Marie has been making pies from scratch for over 20 years. Her old-fashioned, back-to-basics pies won multiple awards at Natures fresh Northwest (predecessor to New Seasons Markets). This class is an encore of the popular class Marie taught last fall.

Cost: $35

Register(pdf)

 

Intro to Backyard Beekeeping

Saturday, February 27th (1pm-3pm)

Join the Zenger Farm Beekeepers to learn the basics of backyard beekeeping. Learn about city regulations, bee needs as well as the various hive options, equipment needed, and seasonal tasks. If weather (and bees) permit, we will be taking a closer look at the Zenger Farm hives. Instructor Matt Reed co-founded Bee Thinking in 2008,as an internet resource for beekeepers throughout the world. Bee Thinking is the largest foundationless horizontal top bar and Warre hive store in the world, focused on providing our customers with the high-quality, sustainably built products at reasonable prices. When not reading about beekeeping, building hives or talking the ear off anyone who will listen, Matthew spends his days as an IT Manager for a local software company. Instructor Laura Dalton has been teaching fabrication and running the sculpture shop for Reed College for 9 years. Laura has led community workshops in the past on power tool safety, chicken tractor construction, and building top bar hives. She also helped to found and run the North Portland Tool Library in Kenton. Currently Laura urban homesteads in North Portland with honeybees, chickens, garden and a tiny orchard, and hopes to have her own real farm someday.

Cost: $35

 

Intro to Backyard Chicken Keeping

Saturday, March 6th (10am-12pm)

Craig Clark, the chicken expert of the Eastside Egg Cooperative, will teach you the basics of backyard chicken keeping, covering raising chicks, shelter, feed, municipal regulations and which chicken breed is right for you.

Cost: $20

 

Sausage Making

Saturday, March 13th (1pm-4pm)

Lyonnaise, Tuscan, Boudin, Italian, Cotecino and Meguez. Learn to make your favorite sausage or perhaps something new. . . Mexican Green, Thai Pork, Crab or Lemongrass chicken. Instructor Linda Colwell is a classically trained chef with a thirty year culinary history devoted to local producers, restaurants, markets and school districts. She mastered butchery and charcuterie at Salumeria di Carlo and has raised and butchered pigs on Sauvie Island. Linda is the founder of the Garden of Wonders, Abernethy Scratch Kitchen, and is the founding Director of Eat Think Grow which supports Portland Public Schools in meeting its Wellness Policy through Farm to School and School Garden Education. Linda farms 1000 sq. ft in Portland and works on a 145-acre organic farm in the Willamette Valley. Linda believes that an understanding of how food is grown, its transformation in the kitchen and its place at the table are essential life skills.

Cost: $50

 

Basic Butchery with the Portland Meat collective

Saturday, February 20th (1pm-5pm)

Learn the lost art of home butchery from Adam Sappington, owner of Country Cat Dinnerhouse and Bar, assisted by the Portland Meat Collective's Camas Davis. Learn how to split two sides of pork into primals, and how to cut those primals into cookable cuts like ribs, tenderloins, ham roasts and shoulder roasts. The class will also include tips on how to cook various cuts, and everyone will go home with $100 worth of meat!

Adam Sappington is the chef and owner of Country Cat Dinnerhouse and Bar in Portland. Before opening his own restaurant he was a chef at Wildwood, and is one of the first chefs in Portland to practice whole animal butchery in restaurants over a decade ago. Camas Davis, an Oregon native, was a magazine writer and editor in New York and Portland for a decade before she decided to switch gears and work with meat and learning butchery. Camas is the founder of the Portland Meat Collective, an organization that is part meat CSA, part meat resource hub, and part travelling butchery school, that will officially launch this spring.

Cost: $200

 

Hands-On Fruit Tree Pruning

Saturday, January 30th (10am-12pm)

Limited to 10 people! Learn basic pruning and training skills in our diverse orchard. We have both young and old trees of many varieties, including 50 trees planted last year. Class includes small group instruction and plenty of hands on practice. Small size means lots of individual instruction and time for questions.
John Iott has over 10 years of experience caring for fruit trees. His appreciation of Fruit Culture started in the Chadwick Garden, Santa Cruz, CA, has taken him to a 5-acre organic apple orchard in New Hampshire and a 40-acre organic walnut farm in California. He currently works with the City of Portland in the Community Gardens Program helping maintain 33 gardens within the city, including several 'urban orchards'.

Cost: $35

 

Organic Gardening

Saturdays, August 15, 2009 – September 19th, 2009 (10:00am to 12:30pm)

A workshop series introducing practical gardening skills through hands-on learning and small group instruction at Zenger Farm’s six-acre field and garden sites.

Taught by Ryan Hofrichter, whose six years of training and experience with plants spans small-scale farming and gardening, design, native plants and restoration, and botanical medicine.

Cost: $20 per class or $105 for all six classes


Home Dairying 101: Elements of Cheesemaking

Offered twice: Saturday, August 1st or Sunday, August 23rd (2:00pm to 4:00pm)

You can make your own cheese! This workshop will teach you how to make a simple, fresh cheese using standard kitchen utensils and ingredients.

Cost: $40

Patrick Barber has been making simple cheeses and cultured milk delicacies in his home kitchen for seven years. When he is not carefully bringing milk to a target temperature, he makes his living as a book designer.

 

Cook delicious, quick and nutritious meals from a well-stocked pantry

Thursdays, February 26th, March 5th and March 12th, 2009 6:00pm to 8:30pm

A three-week series on concepts, techniques and easy combinations to cook with what you have on hand. Classes will be interactive and include some hands on participation and demonstration. A full meal will be served and copies of recipes and additional materials are included. The class is appropriate for a range of experience levels.

Instructor Katherine Deumling is a regional governor for Slow Food USA and was the leader of Slow Food Portland until recently. She has studied food and culture in Italy and Mexico and grew up in Germany.

Read the full course description

 

Crop Planning for Diverse Plantings:

How to effectively use spreadsheets to streamline the process

Saturday, November 7 OR Sunday, November 8 (1pm-4 pm)

 

Josh Volk, of Slow Hand Farm (slowhandfarm.com), will be teaching this course based on a system that he has been developing and refining for the past ten plus years.

Learn a refined crop planning and record keeping system, and general principles for creating your own systems. The crop planning system presented will let you plan out hundreds of separate plantings and keep track of all of them with minimal effort. If you are a professional grower and you want to save time, improve harvests, and keep better records, this is the course for you. If you are a serious gardener and want to grow as much food as possible, this is for you too.

The course will use excel style spread sheets extensively and also cover shortcuts and techniques for using spreadsheets more effectively and efficiently. All of the basic concepts are equally applicable to those still using pencil and paper - although you may be converted.