Begins April 2024
ONLINE COURSE
Design & Grow Your Herb Garden
Whether you're a complete beginner, or a few seasons in - this course will give you the skills to design, build, plant and harvest your dream herb garden - for life.
There is so much joy and satisfaction in growing a herb garden.
Fresh herbs through the summer, preserved herbs through the winter. Homemade herbal tea blends, infused oils, tinctures, and syrups… endless possibilities of fun creating and cooking.
You know the benefits of eating homegrown food, using natural remedies, self-sufficiency, and spending time outdoors.
But you’re lacking the confidence and knowledge to get started, or you’ve had some failed attempts in the past.
Soil, water, sun, existing trees or gardens, kids, animals… every landscape space has a lot of factors to consider.
…where to put things, how to know what to plant to suit your ecosystem, or when to harvest.
It’s overwhelming…
DESIGN • BUILD • GROW • HARVEST • PRESERVE
We have distilled our decades of learning & experience to give you the hands-on skills to create your dream herb garden.
From a holistic, permaculture-inspired perspective, we will guide you through setting your garden goals, to creating a site layout, sourcing & starting your seeds, planting, harvesting, and what the heck to do with herbs so they don’t just go to the compost bin.
You will get our professional mentorship and guidance along the way, a chance to ask questions, and a a community of support from fellow gardeners.
Hey – We’re Phil & Kate Collins.
We run a herbal tea & tincture business, in which we grow 40+ of the ingredients ourselves at our farm in Ontario, Canada.
For the last 10 years, we have jumped head-first into the wonderful world of herbs - which neither of us grew up learning about.
There’s been a lot of trial & error over the years, and now we’re excited to share our wisdom to help you love growing and playing with herbs too!
Meet your teachers:
Phil Collins
Phil is a licensed Landscape Architect and horticulturalist who has been designing thriving edible ecosystems from small urban backyards to large commercial spaces. He is also a seasoned educator, and has taught in Kindergarten through high school classrooms and facilitated student-led design of numerous gardens & outdoor spaces. He manages the day-to-day operation at Foggy River Farm, and can be found serving up tea at the weekend farmers market. There’s no shortage of dad-jokes in all facets of his work.
Kate Collins
Kate is an ex-9-5’er - who took the leap from city life to rural life back in 2013 to start Foggy River Farm…. without any prior gardening experience. A number of health issues sparked an interest in herbal medicine, and it was love at first tea. Through hundreds of hours in the garden, researching personal ailments, customer’s questions, and caring for two kiddos, it’s been a deep-dive into the world of herbs and how to grow, prepare and use various remedies for the home apothecary.
So what’s inside the course?
Video Lessons: Broken into 5 modules that will be released as the season progresses, these videos will teach you what you need to know from initial design to final harvest, along with demonstrations from our own garden. And you can re-watch as often as needed.
Downloadable Resources: A variety of written guides, charts, and ‘how-to’ downloads will help you apply the video lessons to your garden, and take action!
Customizable Spreadsheets: Our years of growing experience have been distilled to to create our comprehensive spreadsheet planners. With these resources, you'll be able to organize your crop plan, seed starting, plant spacing, and harvests like a pro.
Live Q&A Sessions: You’ll be invited to our monthly live online Q&A sessions, where you can ask questions and we can dig deeper into herb gardening together. Don’t worry - if you can’t make it, we’ll record them for you to watch later. There will be 5 sessions, each 60 minutes long.
Private Facebook Community: Once you join this course, you'll have access to our Private Facebook Community - where you can share pics of your garden, get feedback and support, meet other gardening folks, and stay motivated.
Unlimited Access to Course Materials: Gardening is a journey, and each season it’s own adventure. We want you to be able to go at your own pace and refer back to these resources well into the future.
We’ve created 5 online modules to guide you from concept to storing your harvests.
Each module will be released as the season progresses - from early April through July.
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We’ll help you get really clear on your goals, so that you can pick the plants that will best suit your unique lifestyle. Then we’ll show you how to prepare a site plan, and begin your master plant list.
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Soil, sun, wind, water, oh my! We’ll show you how to analyze and include these elements in your site plan. And then onto the fun of your planting design. Discover the pros and cons of different garden beds styles, and choose the best option for your site. You’ll create your planting plan and schedule… and finally, we’ll walk you through sourcing and starting your seeds.
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We’ll walk you through the construction of your garden bed and how to build super-healthy soil wherever you live. Then learn how to plant and water your seeds and seedlings for optimal growth.
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Now that your garden is planted, we’ll go through maintenance strategies and troubleshooting that may come up along the way. We’ll also introduce you to various herb harvesting methods so that you’re ready when your plants are.
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We’ll demonstrate exactly how we harvest, dry, and process our herbs to maintain their flavour, medicinal content and freshness. Finally, learn how to store your bounty so you can enjoy it all winter long.
Do you dream of walking out your back door and picking vibrant herbs for a meal, or a tea, or a remedy? Let’s make it happen.
Enter the journey of herb gardening with seasoned mentors.
Join our new comprehensive program to design, build, grow, harvest, and preserve your home herb garden.
FAQs
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We are located north of Toronto in Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada putting us in Zone 5b. While our own expertise is with crop that grow in this region, the principles we teach in this course are widely applicable to other regions. All participants will be researching the herbs that suit their climate.
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We've made this course for anyone who wants to get started with growing herbs, regardless of how much or how little you might already know.
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The Q&A calls will be on weekday evenings (EST), about once per month from April through August. We will notify you when each call is coming up.
All students are able to submit questions ahead of the calls, or ask live during a call.
All students get access to our archive of previous class call recordings.
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We'll give you access to new lessons and resources as the course progresses, but you can take longer, if you like. You have unlimited access to all your course materials, so you can work through it as many times as you would like.
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We will aim to keep each module between 20-40 minutes in video.
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Yes - This course discusses container gardening. There are many herbs that can be grown in a container or with creative small space designs.