We host classes in gardening, animal production, and natural building. Every age is the right age to build a connection to our mother, so we extent classes to children and adults. We host all Mother Nature Gardens classes at our home gardens so students can see urban sustainability at work. Our goal is to connect people with the earth in body and soul, by teaching them to produce food at their feet and to “plug in” to natural energies that promotes and sustains life.
This Year’s Course — Dryland Urban Farming
Neighborhood after neighborhood, subdivision after subdivision, you see grass or gravel and very few people. Green lawns stress our freshwater supply, while gravel-scapes create hot barren biodiversity sinks. At the same time as we invest money and resources into these low functioning spaces, we spend hard earned money on foods, often from far away, and sometimes with questionable history. There is a third option to the land around our home. Urban farming.
Through the “Dryland Urban Farming ” course, Bard Edrington and Zoe Wilcox will show you, step by step, how to create a lush and buzzing landscape that produces the most nutritious food available with way less water than an average Albuquerque landscape. You will learn hands-on techniques for garden design, harvesting rainwater to grow a diversity of food, raise chickens, and keep bees.
Summary of Classes:
April 9th, Permaculture-Ethics and Design: In the first class, we will discuss how to design your farm. We will introduce Permaculture, explore some of its principals, and discuss how to use it in your yard. You will leave with a beginning plan for your backyard transformation.
April 10th, Rainwater Harvesting – Earthworks: We will talk about and implement dryland techniques to passively harvest rainwater such as raised pathways, planting basins, swales, streambeds, and sponges.
April 30th, Rainwater Harvesting - Cisterns: You will learn all the aspects of active rainwater harvesting. We will discuss types and sizes of tanks, where to put them, and all the components to the tank. In the afternoon session we will install a cistern.
May 1st, Edible Landscapes: Now we start growing. We’ll cover food forests, organic gardens, soils, sheet mulching, planting guilds, and fruit tree guilds.
May 14th, Chickens-Coops and Chicken Care: Your own farm fresh eggs start with chickens. This class will look in depth at how to prepare for, choose, raise, reproduce, and harvest chickens.
May 15th, Intro to Honeybees: Honeybees give us delicious honey, practical beeswax, and healing propolis. To make all these great products for us, they must pollinate the neighborhood fruit trees and flower beds your veggies. Good gals to have around the farm. We will introduce you to bees and beekeeping in this class.
- Class times: Clases are 4 hours long. 10:00am-12:00pm is classtime followed by 1:00pm-3:00pm, hands-on or site visit.
- Dates: April 9-10, Apr. 30 & May 1, May 14-15
- Cost: $350 for all 6 classes. $100 is due at the time of registration, and then the remaining amount is due by April 30th. We extend classes to everybody.
- Registration Info.: Space is limited, sign-up by April 1, 2011. To register, call 505/242-4803, or email zoe@mothernaturegardens.com