EDUCATION

Knowledge from the fields, shared with friends.

This course is for folks who are ready to deepen their growing practice.

You want your vegetable garden to feel more organized, abundant, or simply aligned with your actual life. You don’t need another “how to grow vegetables” class — you need the why, when, how much, and what’s worth it, given your land and lifestyle.

Over 6 in-person, guided sessions, you will:

Clarify your garden’s purpose & how it fits your life
Choose crops that match your time, needs, and appetite
Build seed, planting, harvest, & maintenance plans that work
Consider soil, irrigation, pests, and infrastructure
Build a garden calendar for a thriving, manageable garden

Register Today!

Feb. 7 - Apr. 18, 2026
6 Sessions, every other Saturday
10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Location: Gather Community Coworking, Gibsons
Instructor: Alisha M'Lot
Cost: $450

Course Details

Each session will end with time to work on your personal plan, giving opportunity to collaborate with peers, seek feedback, and receive personalized consultation on your work.

Head into the growing season with a complete calendar of actions that will carry you through an abundant season!

Plan Like a Farmer Syllabus

Feb. 7

Visioning and defining your garden's purpose
- Large harvests, unique veg, money-saving, aesthetics, sharing harvests, processing and storing food, etc
Mapping personal time and resources
- How much time do you want to spend in the garden? Are you away often? Do you have help in the garden? Do you want to build infrastructure, or keep it minimal? What existing resources do you have? Do you want to invest more, or no?
Exploring methods of planning, calendar styles, and record keeping

Feb. 21

Soil testing and analysis
- Understanding fertility and amendments
Pest & Disease management (IPM)
Given your site, what might these be affecting?
- Set dates, calculate amounts, decide sources for compost & amendments
- Evaluate expected crops for IPM, adjust accordingly, set dates for management practices
  - List any needed materials, products, etc

Mar. 7

Creating a seed & harvest plan
- Reverse engineering to crop plan: calculating seed quantities based on projected output per plant
- Succession planting: calculating days to harvest based on Sunshine Coast climate
- Planing specifics
  - harvest methods, tools, storage, processing needs
  - direct seeding vs. transplanting
- Option for group seed orders

Mar. 21

Infrastructure and physical methods of control
- Hoop houses, low tunnels, row cover, and mulch - why, when, what's worth it
- Trellising: best styles for crops, pros and cons, material options
- Personal considerations: ergonomics, when infrastructure can help your body, and keeping your body safe while constructing!

Apr. 4

Irrigation and watering
- Crop preferences, gauging quantities, and adapting seasonally
- Common mistakes and how to fix them
- Styles of irrigation, pros and cons
- Navigating climate change, atmospheric rivers and drought
End of season planning
- Options for putting the garden to bed
- Calculating cover crops
- What can overwinter - and do you want to? Pros and cons of year-round gardening

Apr. 18

Present garden plans
- Q&A and feedback from peers and instructor
Celebratory potluck lunch

* Exact topics may move around, but all will be covered

Frequently Asked Questions

Logistics

Classes are from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm (3 hours).

In general, our schedule is: 15 min Intro / 45 min learning / 15 min break / 45 min learning / 45 min group work & consultation We will use a mixture of power point style presentations, worksheet handouts, and class discussion. Both physical and electronic resources will be shared for your learning.

There is enough in-class time to start work on your plans each week, adding and adapting accordingly. However, you will likely need to continue on your own time - this is why our classes are scheduled every two weeks. Just how much time depends on the size & diversity of your garden, and how deeply you personally choose to go with your planning.

Classes will be held at Gather Community Coworking in Gibsons.

Growing Style

We will focus on small-scale organic gardening & farming techniques. The emphasis is on annual vegetables, though typical perennials such as strawberries & herbs are also included. Flowers are again, not the focus, however certainly encouraged within your garden plan as a supplementary element. You do not have to grow organically to participate, however information on pesticide use will not be shared.

Though some permaculture techniques may overlap with our course, this is not a permaculture course.

In-Person Class We very much understand suddenly sick children or unexpected emergencies - I can provide any presentations & resources shared from a missed class. That being said, there will be an amount of information and learning delivered verbally, so you should plan on attending all 6 sessions.

A large merit of this course is the fact that it is in-person. This allows for your questions, personal garden, and needs to be addressed in a way that online resources lack. In-person also builds relationships with classmates that can be garden resources and friends for the future!

We are committed to creating an inclusive and safe environment for everyones learning. To best protect each other during the winter, we ask that participants do not come to class if they showing symptoms of any illness.

Given this course is run by a single instructor, if they are lightly symptomatic, they will wear a mask during class, and ensure frequent hand sanitizing. If they are highly symptomatic, they will cancel and reschedule class with as much notice as possible.