Location: Camden Hills Regional High School
Three Wednesdays, starting March 18, 6-8 PM
Course fee: $40 ($30 for students 65 and up) plus $10 fee for materials paid to instructor
Want to start a garden but don’t know where to begin? Planning and preparation are essential to the creation of productive, efficient, and beautiful vegetable and perennial gardens. Learn about garden design, plant varieties, seed starting, mulching, composting and fertilizing. Emphasis on organic and “low-till” practices, native plants attractive to birds, bees, butterflies and other beneficials. A $10 fee for materials (handouts) is to be paid to the instructor. This class will also include a visit to the instructor’s nursery in Washington.
Location: Camden Hills Regional High School first week, then each other’s gardens!
Eight Wednesdays, starting April 8, 6-8 PM (may vary after first class per students’ needs)
Course fee: $139 (no senior discount) plus $10 fee for materials paid to instructor
Spring is a great time to plan, prepare, and plant trees, shrubs, and perennials! Whether you're starting from scratch, needing to renovate existing plantings, wanting to plan a new vegetable or flower garden or create a special habitat for birds and beneficials, this field-based class is for you! First meeting is mandatory and at CHRHS; subsequent classes at each participant's property to explore individualized, site-specific options. Organic practices emphasized along with incorporation of native plants important for birds, bees, butterflies, and other beneficials. Class will also include a meeting at the instructor's nursery in Washington.
Instructor Sharon Turner owns Crystal Lake Farm and Nursery in Washington, Maine. She specializes in open-pollinated vegetable and flower seedlings, native perennials, shrubs, trees, and cut flowers. She grows for Fedco Trees and the Knox-Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District. She has been a certified Master Gardener Volunteer for more than twenty years.
Permaculture Month by Month
Each month from March through July Permaculture Garden Designer Joan Herzog gives a Thursday afternoon classroom presentation and a Saturday morning visit to the nearby ¼ acre lot she transformed into a bird and insect haven with over eighty-five native plants and large beds of fruits and vegetables. Come see for yourself!
Choose your month(s):
Complete Five-Month Series: $150
Classroom: INTRODUCTORY PERMACULTURE, PART 1 Permaculture Principles and Creating Your Home Garden Design. Steps to logically transform your yard into viable, productive native gardens. Bring your favorite empty book to start your garden journal.
Greenhouse: INDOOR NATIVE PLANT & VEGETABLE PROPAGATION Learn easy techniques for growing successful, inexpensive, prolific seedlings. We will also be looking into winter sowing early results. You will leave with new skills and healthy seedlings.
Classroom: INTRODUCTORY PERMACULTURE, PART 2 Creating Your Home Garden Design continued. Plus Tools/ Techniques for Building Your Soil and Beds. Essential earth- building steps for successful gardens.
Greenhouse: SOIL/BED BUILDING SKILLS Soil testing, collecting materials, composting, hugelkulture, key holes, path plucking, plus trellising and other productive techniques. You will leave with many new skills and some native plants selected for your site.
Classroom: INTRODUCTORY PERMACULTURE, PART 3 Creating Your Home Garden Design concluded. Planting Successful Food Gardens and Spring Maine Natives: Selecting, proper location and planting techniques. Turn those ideas into a doable plan.
Greenhouse and Garden: EARLY OUTDOOR PLANTING Techniques using a grow room, greenhouses, tunnels, and cold frames will be examined. Soil augmentation plus multipurpose garden tools that last decades will be discussed and tested. You will leave with your finished 2026 Garden Plan and, surely, some plants.
Classroom: PERMACULTURE FOR YOUR COMMUNITY Growing Food, Spreading the Wealth, and Rewilding Your Neighborhood. There are so many different ideas, this could be an entire series, but the goal is to implement small, productive changes that can ignite huge, healthy changes all around! Also How to Plan Your Herb Beds.
Greenhouse and Garden: COMMUNITY GARDENS IN ACTION Help create community beds for early harvests. We’ll review HERB GARDENS: DESIGNS, GROWING AND HARVESTING. All will leave with healthy herb plants and neighborhood ideas.
Classroom: EARLY HARVESTS AND LATE PLANTINGS Creating large harvests that last throughout the growing season. Also, what can go right and what can go wrong even when you have great soil, proper location, adequate nutrients, water, and sun; we’ll dig into challenges like bugs, diseases, and crop failure diagnoses and solutions.
Garden: SUMMER FOOD HARVESTING and PUTTING FOOD BY Staying on top of harvesting, garden chores, and saving your harvest using dehydrating and canning systems. Also Eco-Friendly Xeriscaping, Water Barrels, Mulch, and Other Water Saving Ideas.
Instructor Joan Herzog is a Permaculture Garden Designer, retired Registered Dietitian and health columnist with a passion for organic gardening. She has taught hundreds of food/nutrition workshops and is thrilled to transition to teaching permaculture gardening techniques. Recently, she has been diagnosed with a brain injury that has changed her life in surprisingly positive ways. She swears that gardening is your best bet against an aging body and brain.