Starting on March 27, 2010, Red Wing Farm will be offering a 4-part series of classes on basic organic gardening, meeting one Saturday per month for the months of March, April, May, and June. The classes are highly interactive, hands-on, participatory, experiential classes to help students learn what they need to know to create a beautiful, abundant, healthy, and productive organic garden and gain some experience with the basic elements of organic gardening.
The cost for classes is $40 per class or $140 for the series. Students who take all four classes will take home 48 greenhouse plant starts for free.
To register or for more information:
(Phone) 828.298.0957
(E-mail) redwingfarmer@gmail.com
(Website) www.redwingfarm.net
Red Wing Farm is a small farm 15 minutes from downtown Asheville in the Swannanoa Valley with a diverse, four-season vegetable, herb, and flower garden specializing in heirloom varieties grown with “deep organic” methods.
Class schedule:
1. Starting From Seed Saturday, March 27, 1:00-5:00 pm
Learn to make homemade seed-starting mix, start your own vegetable, flower, and herb plants from seed, and care for seedlings for your garden. Explore seed basics, germination, direct sowing, starting seeds indoors, choosing varieties for seed-saving, heirloom preservation, seed sovereignty, and becoming a seed steward.
2. Building Healthy Soil, Preparing Beds & Planting Saturday, April 24, 1:00-5:00 pm
Learn how to build and retain soil fertility for a healthy, productive garden. Explore biointensive methods, lessons from permaculture, soil stewardship, and techniques for designing your garden. Emphasis on intensively-planted, no-till, raised bed gardening using heavy mulch, compost, and animal manures.
3. Strategies for Success in the Garden Saturday, May 22, 1:00-5:00 pm
Learn about setting up your garden for ongoing harvest throughout the year, and how to keep your garden healthy and productive throughout the seasons for many years to come. Explore tools and strategies including: companion planting, succession planting, crop rotation, season extension, polyculture, perennial plantings, and more.
4. Insects in Your Garden Ecosystem Saturday, June 19, 1:00-5:00 pm
Learn to identify major insect pests of our area and discuss organic pest control methods, as well as methods for attracting and keeping beneficial insects in your garden, getting beneficials working for you for effortless pest control, and creating a healthy garden ecosystem to keep pests and beneficials in balance.
“The Organic Gardening Basics classes with Red Wing Farm were inspiring. I’m a beginner gardener and I felt the more experienced folks were getting just as much out of it as I was. It is abundantly clear that Beth and Christopher love what they do and that they have a sincere respect for the earth and their chosen field. And that made us all just want to dig in!” ~Tarleton Brooks
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