Farming Beyond Frost: A Winter Season Education Program

Commodities

Practices

"Farming Beyond Frost" addresses
the challenges facing small-scale and urban growers: the decline in
production, education, and community food supply once temperatures
drop. In Northern, cold regions like Michigan, frost effectively
shuts down most farm operations for months, limiting farmers'
income, disrupting educational programming, and reducing the
availability of fresh, local produce. For beginning and even
experienced farmers, the winter season often becomes a period of
financial instability, skill stagnation, and disconnection from
customers and collaborators.

This problem is not unique to
our farm-winter downtime is a widespread barrier for growers across
the Midwest and other northern states. Many farmers lack the
infrastructure, training, or technical knowledge to extend their
season, maintain revenue streams, or make winter a productive time
for learning and planning. Without support, farmers often enter
winter unprepared, missing opportunities to build skills that
improve long-term viability.

"Farming Beyond Frost" aims to solve this by
transforming winter into a season of structured, farmer-friendly
education focused on crop planning, protected growing systems,
financial stability, soil health, and on-farm infrastructure. By
providing practical tools and hands-on training, the project
supports our farm while creating a model other farmers can
replicate: strengthening year-round capacity, sustainability, and
food supply across regions.

"Farming Beyond Frost" offers an
innovative, regenerative, education-centered solution to the winter
shutdown that challenges small farmers across Northern, cold
regions. Instead of treating winter as a period of dormancy, our
project transforms it into a time of structured learning, hands-on
demonstrations, and regenerative infrastructure building. The
program will equip beginning and urban farmers with the knowledge
and confidence to grow more during winter and throughout the full
season.

Our approach is grounded in
regenerative agriculture practices that rebuild soil health,
increase food choices, strengthen ecological systems, and expand
farmers' long-term viability. The program delivers these practices
through workshops, farm-based demonstrations, peer learning
circles, and a winter "learning lab" housed at Nurturing Our Seeds
farm.

Key regenerative agriculture
practices embedded in the program include:

• Winter Soil Protection & Cover Cropping:
  Participants learn to select seed, and manage winter cover
  crops-including oats, rye, clover, and winter peas-to prevent
  erosion, feed soil microbes, and build organic matter.
  Demonstrations will compare different mixes and termination
  strategies.

• Protected Growing Systems: Hands-on
  sessions with low tunnels, caterpillar tunnels, cold frames, and
  small hoop houses will show farmers how to extend the growing
  season regeneratively without relying on heavy energy inputs.

• Composting & Waste Reduction: Winter is
  ideal for building and managing compost systems. Farmers will learn
  how to integrate food waste, crop residues, and materials into a
  regenerative nutrient cycle.

• Perennial Bed and Orchard Preparation:
  Winter planning and dormant-season pruning demonstrations will
  emphasize long-term soil and plant health.

• Regenerative Crop Planning: Participants
  will create crop rotations that rest and heal the soil while
  maximizing productivity and minimizing pest pressure.

• Water Stewardship: Workshops include
  rainwater catchment planning, winter system protection, and
  water-efficient strategies for early-spring planting.

• Financial Stability Through Regenerative
  Models: Sessions cover budgeting, enterprise analysis, and
  CSA or cooperative marketing strategies that support soil-first
  production.

Teaching methods include
interactive workshops, demonstration beds, side-by-side comparison
plots, peer-to-peer learning, digital handouts, and simple
replicable systems farmers can adopt on farms of any size. Each
session is designed to be practical and farmer friendly-ensuring
that farmers leave with tools they can immediately implement.

By integrating regenerative
practices into winter education, "Farming Beyond Frost" strengthens
soil health, expands farmers' skill sets, and builds a community
network of growers capable of producing food more sustainably. This
solution benefits Nurturing Our Seeds while offering a replicable
model for farms across Michigan and the Midwest.

Objectives

1. Deliver a 10-session winter
   education and demonstration series focused on regenerative
   agriculture, season extension, and soil health.

2. Adapt temporary growing
   structures (row covers, low tunnels or cold frames) for hands-on
   learning and demonstration.

3. Establish regenerative
   comparison plots for crops and rotation designs-for participant
   observation.

4. Train at least 25 farmers in
   winter growing skills, regenerative planning, and financial
   scale.

5. Supply 20-25 farms with
   fall/winter transplants and cold-hardy seeds to support real-time
   adoption of winter production.

6. Produce a replicable Winter
   Regenerative Farming Toolkit.

7. Strengthen
   year-round production readiness for Nurturing Our Seeds and
   regional growers.