Greenhorns and Smithereen Farm partner to offer educational seaweed harvest events. This is our seventh year of offering Low Low Tides Seaweed Programming.

These events are multi-day educational and social experiences; at dawn we teach you to harvest responsibly and process wild algae for culinary use. In the afternoon we host teachers for lectures, and there are delightful shared group meals for those who stay on.

Our purpose with this programming is to share our love of the seaweed and wild ecology of the inter-tide, to keep learning and to learn and work in an embodied community of practice. The teachers join us in the water. Kacie Loparto has been learning / teaching seaweed for more than 12 years. The teachers we have chosen reflect some of the areas we feel are important for seaweed stewardship- read on for the afternoon workshop descriptions.

For more information on our theory of change, please read the Seaweed Commons position paper and articles www.seaweedcommons.org. Our goal is to grow a vibrant community of care to protect our access, our coastal ecology and our beloved ocean.

Harvesters must register with the Low Low Tides 2025 — Registration Form, and must obtain proper licensing. (We’ll help!)

We hand-harvest from Cobscook Bay and the nearby Bold Coast. We dry in our greenhouses, for Smithereen Farm to process in for commercial, value-added products like seaweed sprinkle, salt, broth mix, bath soak, and newly added this year… kelp soap! We think that the beautiful and intense physical practice of seaweed wild harvest is a great time for those who are passionate and/or curious on this subject to come, in person, and expose their thinking to the cold water and extreme tides. We offer simple indoor lodging for those interested in joining, and for committed harvesters who can join for the duration, we guide you in obtaining the appropriate licensing and pay for your harvest.

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SCHEDULE

May 26: Arrival

May 27, 2pm 
Feini Yin, Communications Director at North American Marine Alliance
A conversation about fisher-advocacy, values-based seafood, and defending the ocean commons. For those who are new to the 'ocean space' it's not always clear that there are many civil society organizations working to represent the stakeholders of the ocean. Conservation organizations have played a role with environmental lawsuits to block salmon farms, protest toxic waste dumping, and address overfishing, but there are other kinds of organizing that are worth knowing about. Feini Yin will give us a talk about the ecosystem of such advocacy across the US, many of whom are partners with the North American Marine Alliance. NAMA's theory of change, approach to movement building, and outcomes of past campaigns can help us orient in our work with Seaweed Commons.

May 30, 3-4:30pm Reversing Hall 4 Leighton Point Road, Pembroke ME 04666
Virtual Artist Talk: Amy Franceschini (Future Farmers): 
Amy Franceschini is an artist and designer whose work facilitates encounter, exchange and tactile forms of inquiry by calling into question the "certainties" of a given time or place where a work is situated. An overarching theme in her work is a perceived conflict between "humans" and "nature". Her projects reveal the history and currents of contradictions related to this divide by challenging systems of exchange and the tools we use to "hunt" and "gather". Using this as a starting point, she creates relational objects that invoke action and inquiry; not only to imagine, but also to participate in and initiate change in the places we live.

May 27-30: Harvesting, drying, processing, learning!

Registration required: Low Low Tides 2025 — Registration Form