How To Grow Medicinal Herbs - Chimacum, WA

2026 Schedule. 10am–4pm

• Spring Session: April 25
• Summer Session: July 18
• Fall Session: October 3

Come to 1 or all 3 sessions!

About the Workshop
Join us for a full-day, hands-on workshop designed for anyone interested in cultivating medicinal herbs — whether you’re a beginner or looking to expand your existing herb garden or small farm.

Now in its 8th year, this popular workshop focuses on practical skills, seasonal tasks, and systems inspired by agroforestry and permaculture. You’ll get both classroom instruction and field-based experience, including tool demonstrations and getting to know many of the plants we grow.

What You’ll Learn

• Garden & farm design and layout
• Choosing & planting medicinal species
• Harvesting methods and timing
• Root digging of many medicinal root crops
• Irrigation, weeding, and soil care
• Strategies for marketing medicinal herbs
• Crop planning: rhizomatous bed crops, annuals, biennials, 4-year roots, long-term perennials, sub-shrubs, and trees
• Establishing new plots: from hand tools to tractor prep
• How to achieve strong production in year one — and every year after

Location

• Meet at: Friends of the Trees Office 📍 10644 Rhody Dr., Port Hadlock, WA 98339
• Field trip to our Medicinal Herb Farm at Finnriver Farm & Cidery in Chimacum (just 2 min away)

Most of the day will be outdoors, with some time indoors for discussion.

What to Bring

• Lunch (brown bag style)
• Water bottle / thermos
• Garden gloves
• Notebook & pen
• Umbrella (if rainy, for note-taking outdoors)
• Brown paper bags (to take home plants we’ll be harvesting)
• Weather-appropriate clothing

*We will have farming/ herbal books, herbs, plants and seeds available for purchase. Bring cash if interested.

About the instructor:

Michael “Skeeter” Pilarski is a farmer, educator, author, and longtime permaculture instructor dedicated to teaching how people can live sustainably with the Earth. Since 1972, he has grown a wide diversity of medicinal and food crops in permaculture and agroforestry systems, blending restorative ecology and ethnobotany into his land practices. For the past 34 years, Skeeter has specialized in small-scale, low-capital medicinal herb farming in Eastern and Western Washington. His ¼-acre micro-farm in Chimacum grossed $45,000 in its third year (2020).

www.friendsofthetreesbotanicals.com