Gardening Workshops
Home Gardening for Beginners Workshop Series
Want to grow your own food but don't know
where to start?
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Start with Claire!
Claire Garner NBC-HWC
Organic Gardener
Intuitive Emotional Healer
Claire graduated from the University of Vermont back in 2009 with a degree in Ecological Agriculture and minor in Community International Development. What that means is Claire is a serious gardener, and she can do it just about anywhere! So fresh outta school Claire ran her own farm for three growing seasons in Central Vermont where she had an acre of mixed veggies, a cut flower and herb garden, all the chickens, and three pigs each season.
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Since then Claire has had a lot of different adventures, some abroad and some on the other side of the country, all of which led her back to the Northeast and back to her gardening roots. More recently, since moving to Maine in 2018, Claire has worked as a private gardener for an upscale permaculture garden in Yarmouth, as well as for herself! She now has two gardens, one raised bed garden at home (The Centers for Energetic Healing Forest Garden) and one 50ft x 100+ft one on some land a local family generously allows Claire to grow row crops on.
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Claire loves to get her hands in the dirt, and she loves more than anything getting groups of people together to connect, laugh, learn, and grow. She also loves cross stitching, her chickens, baking, paper crafts, and spending as much time as possible with her nephews in Harpswell.
Getting Started: Planning Your Space and Starting Your Seeds
This is the perfect beginning workshop for anyone who wants to grow their own vegetable garden but doesn't know where to begin.
When Spring 2024
Where The Centers for Energetic Healing Forest Garden
In this fun three hour workshop Claire will bring in the basics:
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Planning your garden space!
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What do you want to grow!?
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How much food can you grow in your space?
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How do you know how much to plant, when to plant it, and how to space it?​
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Starting your seeds!
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Which plants do you start from seed outside? And which plants do you want to start indoors?
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When do you start your seeds?
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In this workshop you will:
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Create a plan for your garden space to take home
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Learn how to read a seed packet
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Start some seeds to take home!
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Learn the basics of indoor seedling care
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Get all your questions about starting your at home veggie garden answered!
Are you ready to garden?
Transplanting & Bed Preparation Workshop
Alright, your plants are started, you've got your garden plan, danger of frost has passed.
Now what?!
Let's get to preparing the soil and getting those little seedlings outside!
When Spring 2024
Where The Centers for Energetic Healing Forest Garden
In this fun two hour workshop Claire will go over:
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How to prepare your garden bed(s)
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What kind of soil do you have? And what does that mean?
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What is organic matter and what does it do?
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Should you mulch or not?
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How to plant your garden!
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How and when do you transplant seedlings?
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How do you direct seed with success?
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How much and how often do you need to water?
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How much do we need to weed, and how do we know what to weed?
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In this workshop you will:
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Get hands on experience preparing a garden bed
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Learn to direct seed from a seed packet
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Get to transplant some seedlings yourself using proper spacing and planting techniques
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Get your hands in the dirt and learn all about it!
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Get all your questions about starting your at home veggie garden answered!
Composting Basics Workshop
This workshop is perfect for anyone who is tired of throwing kitchen scraps in the garbage or paying for compost every year!
It's not called black gold for nothing!
When Spring 2024
Where The Centers for Energetic Healing Forest Garden
In this fun two hour workshop Claire will go over:
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All things compost!
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What is it?
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Why is it important?
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How do we know what to put in it?
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What are the different ways we can compost?
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How to create a compost pile!
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How do you build a hot pile vs a cold pile?
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What to look for to determine the health of your pile.
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How do we turn compost?
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How long does it need to decompose?
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In this workshop you will:
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Learn all about what goes in compost and what really shouldn't
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Get hands on experience selecting compost materials and building a pile
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Dissect a pile that's in progress to look for indicators of health or stagnation
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Turn a pile!
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Get all your questions about compost (and even home gardening if we have time) answered!
Why are these workshops being offered on a sliding scale?
Claire believes that everyone should have access to information and experiences around growing their own food. With the economy being as it is, and the chaos on the planet seemingly continuing to escalate, we need a greater connection to our food and the Earth than ever before. And Claire doesn't want you NOT to participate because of a lack of funds!*
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With food prices increasing all the time, and access to good, clean, whole foods becoming more and more difficult, there's never been a more important time to have greater control over and access to our own food.
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*If you really want to attend this workshop, and $10 is not possible for you, please reach out to Claire. She has a small number of scholarships, which you may be eligible for.
Are you not able to attend, but want to contribute?
Claire hopes to offer these workshops to as many folks as possible,
even if they can't afford even the low end of the sliding scale.
If you believe in this work and want to make a contribution in the spring to help bring these low cost workshops to the community, please check back!