Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Living in harmony with the land and learning skills to live well focus of first-time event
Mechel Wall believes anyone can be a homesteader, sustaining their family through their own gardens and other efforts by their own hands.
She and her nonprofit organization, NovaTerra, have set out to offer folks skills and resources for living well during the first Northwest Arkansas Farm School, Homesteading Conference and Gardening Expo set for April 15-20 at the Benton County Fairgrounds. Cost is $50, which gives potential gardeners and homesteaders access to all classes and workshops throughout those few days.
“Our goal is to increase preparedness for our communities and help people reach their family goals, dreams and their own personal needs,” Wall said by Zoom earlier this week.
Don’t automatically rule yourself out of the homesteader running, she urged, just because you live in an apartment or in a small place that doesn’t have much space for a garden. There’s a little something for everyone in the planned events, she said. Apartment dwellers can learn how to grow microgreens, or create a windowsill or patio garden.
So much of what will be offered are classes that Wall has taken herself and found useful, including that microgreens class.
Going to this particular conference will get you a lot more value for your ticket price, she said, since some of the classes cost $50 when taken independently in locations outside of this event. An added benefit this time are take-home kits for the first 20 to enroll in the microgreens course.
“What we want to achieve is to increase preparedness and sustainability in our community,” Wall said. Her perspective began to change when she heard a prominent educator say that our society is nine meals away from anarchy. “He explained that if you’ve missed nine meals, you will do anything for food.”
While Northwest Arkansas undoubtedly has great resources, it also has a “tremendous amount” of food insecurity. As she thought about what it’s like to live in Arkansas, which has an agreeable climate considering its four seasons and an “incredible ability” to grow our own food, Wall felt strongly that Arkansans should not have that level of food insecurity. “I thought, ‘Well, what can we do to address that?’ It’s education; education is power, it changes lives.”
Among the skills Mechel hopes those attending will pick up is the knowledge to occasionally make small extra purchases
of items easily stowed away for a rainy day, whether that’s something dramatic, like a big natural disaster that affects everyone, or something more commonplace, like the loss of a job, or a period of living paycheck to paycheck. Anyone can face those situations, Wall said, but she believes we can all prepare by doing a few simple things.
An information booth at the event can provide help for putting together a 72hour kit or small emergency supply of food, something easily made with a systematic approach, she said, to achieve individual sustainability and preparedness.
Wall also hopes to enable more backyard gardeners, who she believes are the “single most untapped resource for combating food insecurity.”
Classes at the conference will include how to plan a garden and where to start that process, how to build a raised bed and use the tools needed, as well as where you can get free lumber and pallets. Simple enough things like planting fruit trees, starting a small raised bed and taking the resulting bounty and storing it are the focus.
A class on Thursday morning will tell you all you need to know if you want to own chickens, whether for meat or eggs.
“Most communities allow three backyard birds, (but) how do you start and consider their food needs, protection from predators and their comfort, all those things?” Wall said. The speaker is Dr. Clark, who travels the country teaching about poultry disease. Those attending “will get access to incredible educators they would otherwise not have access to.”
Another segment of the community they hope to see are those who have moved into the region from the western states or the East Coast. Wall has noticed that many of these transplants opt to buy acres of land and seem interested in having control over their food supply to be able to take care of their families, but they may not know where to begin.
“As a lifetime homesteader, the best thing I do for myself is to go to conferences and educate,” she said. “Because you don’t know … until you dive in and realize you’re in over your head, or go to classes, workshops, conferences and gain education, then you apply that and have wisdom.”
NWA Farm School and Homesteading Conference aims to bring together all the collective wisdom to share with those getting started or increase participants’ level of education.
Other classes offered will teach functional medicine, about dairy goats, sourdough, essential oils, season-extenders for maturing plants and work-life balance for homesteading so that people can return to a focus on their social life and spiritual well-being.
On Thursday evening, events will kick off with a farm-to-table dinner fundraiser put on by Cowboy Catering Company, who will prepare a feast with locally grown food. Tables will be decorated by children of a local co-op group, whose school is on a farm.
Afterward, guests can enjoy a couple hours of live music. Mechel Wall is most looking forward to a Hawaiian group of mandolin performers, which she describes as a hoot. The group Bob and James, on vocals, guitars and mandolins, will also perform.
“That will repeat on Friday, we’ll have live music (starting at 6 p.m.), the gates will be open, and anyone who wants to come can come.”
April Wallace is Associate Features Editor — Our Town, Profiles, Religion — and can be reached by email at awallace@nwaonline.com or on X @NWAApril.