THE FARM
Redwing is a small herb farm located on Howe Island, near Kingston/ Katarokwi. We grow on just under 1/8 acre and share acreage with two other farms: Root Radical CSA, and Doublejay Farms.
Root Radical is a 2-acre organic vegetable farm that has been operating for over 15 years. The rest of the acreage is used for rotational grazing of cattle beef for Doublejay Farms. While 2021 is Redwing's first season, both of us strengthened our farming knowledge through working at Root Radical CSA. We are so grateful to be working alongside these established farms that have deep roots in community.
OUR VALUES
Tending with Care
We strive to engage in reciprocity in the way we work the land, recognizing that our health and the health of the land are interconnected. For us this includes adhering to organic standards, growing bioregional and/or native plants, cultivating perennial species, and working towards regenerative land practices.
We are both settlers on the land of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe and Huron-Wendat nations. We are committed to supporting Land Back movements, Indigenous food/medicine sovereignty initiatives, and learning about other ways we can best engage in decolonization efforts.
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Accessibility*
High quality herbs and herbal education should be accessible to everyone. We provide sliding scale options for all of our offerings. To make herbs available beyond our farm, we also offer a spring seedling sale, and are working towards seed saving and sharing.
We believe that anyone can be an herbalist. Connecting with plants, learning from trusted teachers and peers, and understanding herbal safety are all ways that people can start to use plant medicine for themselves and others. We strive to make the information in workshops and zines approachable, and work to cater to various ways of learning, so that anyone can feel confident incorporating plant medicine into their life.
Community
At Redwing our sense of community is expansive, and includes the communities of plants with whom we work and share space. There is medicine in our relationships with plants and with each other, and at Redwing we hope to help people to deepen these connections.
Individual healing is a part of collective healing. Relating with herbs can deepen our sense of belonging and responsibility towards our broader communities, helping us to better care for ourselves, one another, and the land.
*As we pass on the knowledge that we’ve gained as herbalists and farmers, we also recognize that we are not experts, but continually learning with and from each other, plants, and our broader communities. Both of us have been trained in “Western” herbal medicine, which is largely composed of knowledge stolen from Black and Indigenous peoples. When this knowledge gets incorporated into professional training programs, it may become inaccessible to those in whose traditions it originated. We hope to respond to this by offering at-cost, discounted, or free medicine and materials to our BIPOC community members. Please see our resources section to learn more.
Plants are a part of our communities, and building relationships with them is healing unto itself.
THE FARMERS
Kathleen Moritz
Kathleen (she/they) is an herbalist, farmer, and long time plant lover. She studied clinical herbalism at the Institute of Traditional Medicine and completed the Wild Current Herbal Mentorship program. They were drawn to plant medicine as an avenue for increasing individual and community resilience, but also found that forming relationships with plants was a medicine in itself. They hope, as a farmer, to help others feel the magic of bringing herbs into their lives. She is always looking to learn more, especially related to centering modern herbalism (and farming) in harm reduction and decolonial lenses.
Jane Atkinson
Jane (she/her) is an herbalist, dreamer, farmer, and lifelong learner. She attended Pacific Rim College for her formal studies in Phytotherapy, learned a lot, and has done a lot of unlearning since then too! Jane believes that anyone can build relationships with herbs and learn about their medicine, and centres accessibility and education/co-learning in her herbal work. Her interests include herbalism in end-of-life-care, seed-saving, and the polyvagal theory and how it integrates with herbal medicine. She is learning more about her herbal lineage, and is committed to contributing to the decolonization of plant medicine.