Noami Brautigam

"After my semester at Ecosa I began to really invest my energies in the creation of healthier food systems. This began with an apprenticeship on an organic farm in Maine for the summer and then back to Baltimore to finish up my degree in Anthropology, where we continued to expand the gardening and composting program at my school.

I had a professor who had an old friend coming to visit- Darryl Berlin from Emerald Earth in California, so we rounded up some student money and hired him to give students a week long natural building workshop. The tool shed for the garden (pictured in its not yet finished stage) was the outcome. The roof does have sedums living on it, but you can't really see them there. We used different techniques on different walls, my favorite being the waddle and dob where you weave waddles of mud and straw through vertical saplings and then smooth with dobs of the same mixture.

After graduating, I lived in the city for another year where I taught an urban gardening class at an after school high school program. Then I bicycled through Europe exploring the cities, the agrarian countryside, and the in-betweens. After working on a string of organic farms, this spring I have the unique opportunity to run my own vegetable farm, Sprouted Acre, near my childhood stomping grounds in New Hampshire. I still dream about moving back to the city to be an urban farmer someday."