The No-Till Micro-Scale Flower Farm with Jonathan & Megan Leiss
Have you ever wondered how to manage a farm without a tractor? Interested in micro-farming but aren’t sure it can be a viable business? This course offers over 4.5 hours of information on the steps and experiences you can follow to do it.
In this On-Demand course, Megan and Jonathan Leiss of Spring Forth Farm share their firsthand experiences including practical business management and the flower growing techniques they have learned over the years from their own micro-farm and homestead. Micro-farming is an excellent way to have a rewarding farm business that doesn’t take over your life, but it requires different business strategies than a larger farm.
The strategies shared are applicable for a range of business sizes from a few beds in your yard up to half an acre (or larger). Learn about farm design, sales, and planning. Megan and Jonathan introduce the system for no-till farming that they use on Spring Forth Farm.
No-till is an especially good fit for the micro-farm due to its low infrastructure investment and efficient use of space. Covering everything from bed making and cover cropping to crop planting and eventually, clearing out your flowers. This class provides a comprehensive overview of their no-till farming techniques.
In this course you will learn:
- Ideas for designing your own micro-farm business to fit your life
- Which sales outlets are viable for a micro-farm
- Techniques for growing and harvesting flowers with no-till methods
- The steps to build and manage permanent raised beds
- How to prepare, plant and clean out your no-till garden beds
- Different methods to seed and terminate cover crops with no-till methods
- How to use occultation as a way to break down cover crops and suppress weeds without disturbing the soil
- See the course syllabus here.
While this class is geared towards flower farmers, the growing methods you will learn are easily transferable to any type of garden in many different settings. See you in class!
What is NOT Included in This Course:
This course is focused on specific practices relevant to succeeding with a no-till, micro-scale flower farm. It is not a comprehensive flower farming course. For an in-depth dive into flower farming topics such as specific flowers’ growing requirements, seed starting, and other aspects of farming, consider our Flower Farming Schools.
Meet Megan and Jonathan Leiss
Megan and Jonathan Leiss are the flower farmers and homesteaders of Spring Forth Farm in Hurdle Mills, NC. They grow a half acre of cut flowers plus a large vegetable garden along with their one-year old helper daughter, Julianne. The Leiss’s tend their cut flower micro-farm and sell wholesale to florists and designers in the Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina area. They have chosen to focus their business on spring flower sales, which has helped them to better manage their labor throughout the year. Read more in the BIO tab above.
How Online Courses Work:
Do you have questions like “Do I have to watch at a certain time?” or “How many times may I watch the course?” Checkout our Frequently Asked Questions here.
The Difference in “On-Demand” and “School” Courses:
On-Demand courses are available for purchase year round and give immediate access to the course content. Courses vary from sixty minutes to over four hours of instruction, see individual On-Demand courses for details. On-Demand courses do not include live Q&A sessions with the instructor.
School course registration is only open once a year and for a short period of time. Schools content is rolled out over six weeks of classes, see individual School courses for details. School courses include weekly Live Q&A sessions with the instructor during school.
Megan and Jonathan Leiss are the flower farmers and homesteaders of 
Margaret –
Great class! Plenty of how-to videos that are well thought out. Megan and Jonathan share many practical tips to help you succeed! I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed taking this class!