Want to grow food or transform your yard, but not sure how? Learn how to create, cultivate and enjoy a home garden through the lens of a changing climate in our 5-week Permaculture workshop series, starting February 22, 2020.
With more extreme temperatures, UV rays, and unpredictable water on the way, set up your garden for success by learning about soil management, choosing the right plants, and making other productive decisions. Regardless of the size of your garden, you'll learn how to be more self-sufficient, conserve water and energy, and build community with your fellow gardeners.
Students will work on shaping and re-designing their own growing spaces. See your yard in a whole new light! Take classes individually or register for the series at a discounted price.
Here's an overview of what you'll be learning from superstar instructor Marian Woodard:
2/22 Class 1: Planning a Garden in Contra Costa County - climate change affects on plant growth, how to read your land (balcony, patio, tiny plot or large), permaculture design
2/28 Class 2: Soil: More critical now than ever - Evaluating & improving soil, compost & vermicomposting, soil amendments, product labels at the nursery.
3/7 Class 3: Seed and Plant Selection - How to source, seed, and choose a seeding medium. Plant placement: the tall, the short, the early, the late, the sipper & the glutton.
3/14 Class 4: Guilds, Companion Planting - improving yields and plant strength.
3/21 Class 5: Cultivation: Watering, Feeding, Pest Management - irrigation, ollas, filters, swales; what and when to feed plants; natural forms of pest management.
Growing your own food and other plants can be very rewarding. The process of tending the land, as well as eating from it, nourishes the mind and body. It can bring enjoyment to life, connect us to nature, and can save money. We know exactly what we are putting into our bodies and reap the health benefits of this. In a changing climate, it has many other environmental benefits as well.
So how does climate change affect gardening and farming?
Global warming has helped extend the growing season for plants in some parts of the world. But in others, the greater frequency of extreme heat and volatility of precipitation has damaged forests and food crops.
How we use land affects the climate, and changes in the climate affect how we use land. Current farming methods can also degrade soil more than 100 times faster than new soil is formed. That’s fueling desertification, which will make the more than 500 million people living in degraded areas more vulnerable to further changes in the climate.
With declining land quality in some parts of the world, farmers have to devote an increasing amount of resources to growing food: more energy, more fertilizer, more water. That is also creating more demand for new land, which then drives people to repurpose more pristine areas
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