In-Person Session: 2 Hours

Online Session: 1.5 Hours

Let’s remove some of the overwhelm and confusion that comes with starting a vegetable garden! This class is a beginner-level class designed for new and intermediate gardeners who want to grow their own fruits, vegetables, and herbs close to home.

In this class, you’ll learn the basics of:

• Selecting the right location for your vegetable garden

• Making a landscape sketch of the space and how to decide where to add gardens

• Deciding on what soil mixture to use, and how to amend existing garden beds

• Selecting raised beds, pots, and other containers for gardening

• Creating a basic planting plan that aligns with Central Ohio’s seasons and your experience level

• Organic vegetable garden maintenance (and concrete tips & tricks for maintaining & planting)

In-Person: 2 sessions, each 2 hours long

Not offered online

If you’re wanting to transform your lawn or existing garden beds into an edible paradise, but are overwhelmed with where to start, we’re here to help!

Led by local permaculturist & Foodscape designer Katie Carey of Columbus Foodscapes, this class will teach you how to design a beautiful “foodscape” (AKA a landscape that produces food!) from scratch, including:

• Creating a base map of your space

• Incorporating raised beds and how to design a kitchen garden

• Differentiating between perennial and annual beds

• Designing & Building out a basic food forest

• Using ecologically-friendly gardening methods like sheet mulching to build soil

• Selecting materials, like garden borders or raised beds, that fit your aesthetic and budget

• Creating the ideal spacing and layout for your specific space and goals

• Where to source and how to select materials like gravel, soil, wood, and others locally

• Planning out your garden installation

All students will leave class with tons of garden inspiration, many of our plant lists and resources, a “Garden Planning workbook” used during class to take home and get started right away, and a clear idea of how to assemble their dream garden plans. This is a whopper of a class, but very detailed, and you’ll leave feeling confident about designing and installing your dream garden that you’ll absolutely love!

An important note: while we do touch on planting your annual vegetable garden briefly, we do not cover in detail how to plan or plant your raised bed garden once it’s in- there’s just too much to cover in one class! Once your garden is installed, you can take our Planning, Planting, and Tending an Organic Vegetable Garden 101 class to jumpstart your planting.

In-Person: 2 hours

Online: 1.5 hours

You have a garden space set up, you’ve made up a list of all the stuff you’re dreaming about growing, maybe even ordered a seed catalog or two… now what? This is a class designed for brand-new and beginner vegetable gardeners who want to learn how to plan, plant, and tend their own vegetable garden.

In this comprehensive class, students learn:

• How to prepare your garden beds for a new season

• What fruits, vegetables, and herbs to plant in your garden and when to plant them

• A step-by-step for how to map out and plan out your raised bed garden for the season

• The difference between planting with a seedling vs planting with a seed, and why it matters

• How to select seed & seedling varieties

• The gardening tools we recommend having in your tool bucket (and what’s probably not worth buying)

• The most common pests & diseases to look out for in your vegetable garden in Central Ohio

• Specific guidelines for tending to, harvesting, and fertilizing different types of fruits and vegetables organically

• Transitioning your garden between seasons so you can continue to grow

• How to use “garden infrastructure” like insect netting and trellising systems

• The basics of pruning fruits and vegetables

• Basic companion planting 101- planting, or avoiding planting, certain things next to each other to improve yield

• Where to source plants, seeds, soil amendments, and other gardening supplies locally in Central Ohio

Students also receive a wealth of invaluable resources for planning their garden:

• A copy of Columbus Foodscapes’ 12-page planting calendar

• A resource list of our favorite sources for plants, seeds, and soil amendments, specific to central Ohio

• A comprehensive Care & Keeping spreadsheet of over 50 of the most common fruits, vegetables, and herbs, specific to Central Ohio

To our friends joining us for this class: We highly recommend that you have an existing garden space set up for this class- if you don’t, consider taking our How to Start a Vegetable Garden class, or our super-comprehensive Design Your Raised Bed Garden & Edible Landscape class.

Please come with measurements and photos (printed or digital) of your existing garden space. You’re also welcome to bring a wish list of what you’d like to grow, specific questions for the instructor, and anything else you think might be helpful!

In-Person: 2 hours

Online: 1.5 hours

Only offered September & October

Let's make this year the year you harvest carrots, turnips, radishes, spinach, arugula, lettuce, kale, and other yummy veggies well into December & January!

In our season extension class, students learn how to effectively use season-extension (aka: growing into the winter) techniques to continue to grow and harvest food year round. Those who join us for this class will learn the basics of:

• What season extension is and how it works

• Choosing plants for season extension

• What to seed & plant now to continue growing into the winter

• Types of season-extension techniques and the different materials you can use

• How to decide what season-extension techniques are best for your garden and budget

• Where to source season-extension equipment and fall crops/seeds

• Tips & tricks for gardening in the fall and winter

Students who attend this class will also receive a complimentary copy of our full-season planting guide (a favorite of our clients'!) and our winter growing 101 packet.

In-person: 2 hours

Online: 1.5 hours

Have you ever walked past a gorgeous, full, garden that has the "Certified Wildlife Habitat" sign out front? Certification can be overwhelming, but absolutely possible. And you don’t have to give up your edible garden to do it! We walk through step-by-step how to transform your regular lawn, or existing garden, into a wildlife habitat.

In this class you will:

• Learn about our favorite native plants that are also edible

• Discover the specific steps needed to transform your space into a Certified Wildlife Habitat

• Receive a clear checklist of what to include in your wildlife habitat, and how to decide which checklist items might work best for your space

• Learn how to still grow food for yourself while supporting native habitat and restoring ecosystem

• Create a sketch and come up with clear ideas & feedback from instructor of how to implement these practices in your specific space

• Receive a list of different plant nurseries where you can source native plants

Students leave with a copy of our Native Edibles Plant Guide, Local Plant Nursery List, a copy of the Certified Wildlife Habitat checklist, and clear ideas and a sketch of their space to jumpstart their yard transformation.