Consulting


Schedule time with me

My consulting work takes many forms. I’ve done work with folks who have everything from small gardens up to hundreds of acres of production. My focus is small, diversified vegetable growing for direct markets but I’m open to interesting projects of all sizes.

I offer services from hour long meetings in the office, to years long relationships in the field. I’m based in Portland, Oregon, but many of the consulting services are available remotely, without extra cost, through the wonders of telephones and the internet. Below are a few of the most common options:

NEW – Virtual Group – Record Keeping and Crop Planning Coaching

Zoom allows us to get together as a group once a month to check in about our record keeping and planning approaches. Join an existing group or create your own group of farmers. Sliding scale $20-40 per 40 minute group session per farmer, $60-120 for six successive sessions. There are no current recurring sessions but they will likely start back up in the fall so fill in the form below if you’re interested in that format.

To sign up for a group session please fill out this google form

Virtual Meetings by the Hour

Set up a meeting by the hour to ask specific questions, or general ones, and to get opinions, ideas, and resource suggestions from an experienced grower. These can either be over the phone or internet. $75 per hour, billed after the session

On-site Consulting

Sometimes it’s useful to have me out to your site to look over the land, infrastructure and equipment you have and to give my feedback and thoughts on those topics. Pricing depends on travel requirements but is based on a rate of $75 per hour plus expenses.

For a consultation 

If the scheduling popup at the top of this page isn’t working for what you want e-mail me at josh@slowhandfarm.com  and let me know what you’re looking for.

My experience is in organic vegetable production systems but the systems that I can help you with are applicable to most farms and gardens.  If I can’t help you, I’ll try to be up front about that as well, and do my best to find you someone who can.

Sharing Information Freely

During my apprenticeship in farming I was introduced to the tradition of sharing equipment and information freely with neighbors in need.  So much of my farming knowledge has come freely and generously from farming friends, neighbors, and friends of neighbors.  This free dissemination of knowledge is crucially important to maintain, although it comes slowly.  Paying for a consultation is simply a way for you to speed up the process and to guarantee that it comes in a more timely and cohesive manner.  I am still happy to talk to anyone about farming, absolutely free, when I have the time. The truth is that my time is limited and there’s not as much of it as I’d like. Conferences between sessions, workshops, and farmer meetings are great places to get free or low cost information from myself andothers.  I love growing food and I always learn something from talking to other growers.  I’m also working on putting up as much information on production as possible at joshvolk.com.