Dustin Chambers and Justin West of Thrive Lot will open the conference with marketing advice every foodscaper needs to hear.  

Presented by Thrive Lot

Thrive Lot empowers professional foodscapers to have more impact, grow, and earn more with less stress through powerful technology, marketing, and community—purpose built for edible and ecological landscapers thrivelot.com

About Javan Kerby Bernakevitch, All Points Design, Regenerative Living.online, Oregon State University

Javan is a specialist in life and land design, collaborating with clients globally to foster abundant, diverse, and increasingly profitable lives, landscapes, and businesses. He leads All Points Land Design, providing expert consultancy for regenerative farms, homesteads, landscapes, and developments, from vast 6500-hectare projects to efficient urban spaces, helping clients achieve thriving, sustainable systems. Grounded in the belief that "if you don't design your life, it'll be designed for you," Javan empowers clients to align their decisions with their values, rethink entrenched beliefs, and create or pivot regenerative businesses that embody their essence. As the founder of Regenerative Living, Javan collaborates with world-class practitioners and educators to teach transformative skills "to live on the planet as if we intend to stay." Since 2015, he has worked with Oregon State University as an instructor for the Permaculture Design Course PRO, contributing innovative curriculum and content development. A multifaceted professional—speaker, educator, author, filmmaker, course designer, and publisher—Javan champions harmony with nature in every aspect of his work.

www.allpointsdesign.ca

www.regenerativeliving.online

Presented by Stark Bro's. Nursery

Stark Bro's nurseries and orchards are a recommended retailer for high quality edible landscaping plants. starkbros.com

Join a team of professional foodscapers as they show you how to create a client bid for an edible landscape.

Using a mock client case study—including a proposal, budget, goals, and design—the panelists will walk you through their bidding process, sharing insights and strategies for arriving at a final cost.

After their presentation, they’ll answer your questions.

Bonus: You'll receive the mock case study a week before the conference. Build your own bid to compare with the panelists' bids—because learning happens by doing!

Panelists include:

Mike McCord of Community Foodscapes, Melissa Wilsford of Rustic Hills Garden Co., Meredith Sheperd of Love and Carrots 

 Mike McCord, Founder, Community Foodscapes

Permaculture Designer, Certified Arborist, Georgia Certified Landscape Professional, and hold a Bachelor's of Science in Agriculture from UGA. WWOOF'd at farms around the world. Worked with Trees Atlanta for over 5 years and managed the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill, the largest publicly-owned food forest in the nation. Created Community Foodscapes (CoFo) in 2015, stewarded the Edible Neighborhood and Anti-Ivy League programs, and currently the Director of Operations at CoFo. CoFo is an edible landscaping company serving Atlanta by helping people from all backgrounds to grow food and restore native habitats. The CoFo Nursery was born in my backyard years ago, before moving to Memorial Dr. I volunteer with my local neighborhood association, lead fruit tree picks with Concrete Jungle, and serve on the Board of Directors for Unearthing Farm & Market. In my free time I foster dogs, play frisbee, enjoy spending time in the oceans, and searching for fossils!

Melissa Wilsford, Owner, Rustic Hills Garden Co.

Melissa Wilsford is the owner of Rustic Hills Garden Co., a company that focuses on creating beautiful and productive spaces that benefit people and the planet. Originally launched with a focus on growing food, the Rustic Hills team has expanded its expertise to include native landscaping, rain gardens, food forests, fencing, hardscapes, irrigation and water catchment. One of Melissa’s favorite things to do is encourage other potential business owners to “go for it.” With a degree in communications-journalism, a work history in the nonprofit world, and almost a decade “lost” to being a stay at home mom (not a loss at all, by the way!), she can attest that all kinds of life experience and just some simple gusto can get one far in starting a business. She is thankful to the people who have pushed and inspired her along the way to make the “impossible” happen: a profitable seasonal business (in Minnesota!) that does meaningful work, provides a living for her family and others, and is a lot of fun!

Meredith Sheperd, Founder, Love and Carrots

Meredith has been working in organic agriculture and environmental sustainability for 15 years. Before founding Love & Carrots in 2011, she was the manager of Chaily Farm in VA, which produced organic herbs and vegetables for DC restaurants. Meredith received the 2013 DC Mayor's Sustainability Award, 2014 Green America Award, and Business Insider's Top 50 'Coolest' Businesses in America

Stay tuned for details!

Hilary Dahl, CEO, Seattle Urban Farm Company

Join us for a full Q&A with Erik to discuss anything related to starting, growing, or managing a foodscaping business or campaign.

About Erik:

Erik Ohlsen is a master of regenerative design, an internationally recognized Permaculture teacher, a landscape contractor, author, farmer, herbalist, storyteller, and practitioner of Nordic folk traditions. He is the author of the award-winning book The Regenerative Landscaper , a 500-page manual for regenerative design and implementation. Since 1999 Erik has founded numerous organizations that regenerate ecosystems including his award-winning design and build firm Permaculture Artisans and The Permaculture Skills Center where thousands of students around the world learn ecological landscaping and regenerative agriculture. Working as an internationally renowned regenerative designer, he has committed decades to repairing ecosystems and connecting people with the land throughout the globe. He has designed and implemented hundreds of regenerated landscapes ranging from small urban lots to large tracts of land. His many years of experience observing and listening to landscape patterns while managing installation crews have led to an extensive knowledge of ecological land development and planning. He is a specialist in water harvesting systems, food forest design, community organizing, facilitation, vocational education and much more.

permacultureartisans.com

erikohlsen.com

Experiences, insights and case studies as a first year professional foodscaper.

Shlomy Goldman officially started Regenerative Foodscapes in 2024. After years of building skillsets in his interests of farming, building, teaching, gardening and landscaping, he is excited to package these skills in a professional manner, offering his clients design, install, maintenance and coaching services. Regenerative Foodscapes seeks to create beautiful gardens and landscapes that nourish all lifeforms, from the microbes and fungi to the insects, and all the humans who inhabit and interact with these outdoor spaces.

How can foodscapers making a living through the winter months? Learn how!

Matt is most passionate about creating magical food moments. He is driven by the belief that food connects us all. By cultivating food crops with a reverence for Mother Earth he believes we can begin to heal our bodies and the land. Matt got his start with farming as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, where he was initially bit by the gardening bug. He went on to study ecological design and work on several farms. For five seasons Matt worked at the EarthDance Organic Farm School until he left his role of farm manager in 2017. Now with Custom Foodscaping, Matt is a practitioner and designer of edible landscapes and gardens.

Watch and learn how Katie designs beautiful client designs using Canva. 

About Katie:

I’m a certified Permaculture Designer, Master Gardener, Master Urban Farmer, garden educator, and a mama to the sweetest doggy ever. I have grown food on half-a-dozen different farms and large gardening projects, including rural farms, edible schoolyard projects, urban gardens in food deserts, and organic production farms.

I started Columbus Foodscapes after seeing how many of my community members desperately wanted to garden, but came back from their local garden center with their heads spinning. My life’s work is to help folks grow their own fresh, delicious fruits and vegetables close to home, in any space, and at any level of experience. 

I’ve done it all — grown food in recycled pantyhose, 5-gallon buckets, cleaned-out kitty litter containers, toilet paper tubes, and in raised beds made from bricks that I scavenged from abandoned worksites — and I’m here to make sure you don’t have to do all that just to grow delicious food! These days I garden in my urban plot on the east side of C-bus, where I maintain raised beds, hügel mounds, garden rows, and more. 

I’m so excited to help you create your own organic Foodscape close-to-home and I can’t wait to grow with you! 

Join Ashley Joyce, owner of Bend Urban Gardens (BUG), as she shares how her company's plant starts program and hands-on garden lessons work to better serve her clients while bringing in additional revenue. Ashley will cover BUG’s diverse revenue streams, show photos of her incredible solar greenhouse, and talk about her process for growing starts. She'll also share about the structure and content of her garden lessons for folks wanting to offer their own garden education to clients. 

Note: this will be a recording of a live webinar happening on February 6 as part of The Toolshed, our free continuing ed series.