Forest layers, pattern application, dynamic accumulators, nitrogen fixers, pest confusers and insectary plants are primary considerations when designing a food forest and/or doing a guild build. Putting together a food forest is about functional relationships between plants, how many elements can each species support and draw support from when working in cooperation. Diversity isn’t simply how many different things are in one system, but how many each one thing can support. This course will be an introduction to some of the foundation language, functional relationships and match making of plants. Students should come prepared to open up to whole systems thinking. Students should also wear comfortable clothing for our our field trip into the Clifton Park Food Forest.
Tag Archives: class
Urban Fruit Trees 101
Interested in growing fruit trees in DC? This class will cover all the fruit trees that can be grown in DC and how to maintain them organically. This class will cover pests, diseases, management practices, harvesting techniques, and a short intro to pruning.
Teacher Bio:
Josh Singer is the DPR Community Garden Specialist. He works to build new gardens, establish garden support systems, advocate for food security, and create garden education throughout the District. Josh is also the Co-Founder and Executive Director to Wangari Gardens, a 3 acre garden park. Josh is a certified arborist, master gardener, master composter, Bumba Apiarist, licensed teacher, and has a cerftificate in Permacutlure Design and EcoCity Farms Urban Gardening .
Improving Urban Soils with Biosolids
Urban soils are typically very poor– lacking in nutrients, organic matter, microbial activity and good soil structure. Biosolids are the nutrient-rich materials recovered during the treatment of waste water that are carefully processed to make a soil amendment that helps address these shortcomings and build great soils for growing plants. Biosolids have been used for decades throughout the District and surrounding areas in tree plantings, soil remediation, green infrastructure, urban gardens and residential yards. Come learn more about DC Water’s biosolids program and how you can be involved in the movement for better soils.
Teacher Bio: Bill is responsible for ensuring biosolids operations and services at the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant (or “Water Resource Recovery Facility”) run smoothly. He also looks for new outlets for this nutrient-rich soil amendment. Previously he worked on a water and sanitation project in Kenya at the World Bank and held various engineering positions. He has a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master’s in Engineering for Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge.
Intro to Urban Aquaponics
The class will cover the basics of an aquaponics system, including the fish, plants, bacteria, and system design. The class will also discuss how aquaponics can fit in with a more sustainable food system.
Teacher
Brian Filipowich is the founder and manager of Anacostia Aquaponics, an aquaponics service provider and think tank.
Sex in the Garden
Below its wholesome surface, gardening can get pretty hot and heavy, and we don’t mean hauling bags of mulch. Come and learn how sex (pollination) makes our food, and how in turn, food can inspire sex (aphrodisiacs). This presentation is R-rated, so adults only are invited to think dirty.
Teacher
After working with a kids gardening project at a local community organization in the late 1990s, Lola Bloom realized that urban gardens are an ever-evolving tool for relationship building and creative expression. Lola did not grow up gardening, and learned most of her skills through mistakes and children’s books. She draws inspiration from nine years of teaching art and kitchen experiments. Lola has a BFA in Art Education from VCU and a Masters of Public Management from University of Maryland.
Urban Garden Season Extension
The Urban Garden Season Extension class will focus on strategies to extend your growing season such as tips for winter gardening, garden calendar planning, low tunnels, hoop houses, cold frames, shade tents, and many more strategies. This class will help you make the most of your garden and its production while preparing you towards the ultimate “4 season” garden.
Teacher Bio: Josh Singer is the DC Parks and Rec(DPR) Community Garden Specialist. He creates new community gardens and urban agricultural projects while developing and managing garden support systems such as a 70 class urban garden workshop series, a city wide compost network, a garden toolshare and a greenhouse cooperative. Josh also is the Co-Founder and Excecutive Director of the 501c3 non profit garden park called Wangari Gardens.
Storm Water Management Strategies
Learn about the history and current storm water management strategies in DC and learn about the DC Department of Environment and Energy (DOEE) stormwater management programs that you could assess today.
Teacher Bio:
Lee Cain has been working at the Anacostia Watershed Society for 8 years and his passion for his work stems from the deep roots of his relationship with the Chesapeake Bay and it’s watershed. He has led the AWS education team, developing new and innovative programs to restore tidal wetlands, chaired the DCEEC School Garden committee, Co-founded the Bancroft community garden, and Co-founded the National Capitol Region Watershed Stewards Academy, helping many people plant rain-gardens, permeable paver projects and install cisterns. He is now developing a recreation department within the Anacostia Watershed Society and would be happy to take you out to show you cool places and things to do on the River.
Lauren Linville works on the RiverSmart Homes program for the Department of Energy and Environment. Her background is in environmental policy, communications, and development. When not preoccupied with all things environmental, Lauren can be found exploring around town, volunteering with local civic and business groups along the North Capitol Corridor, and trying to improve her limited culinary skills.
Harvesting and Cooking from the Garden
Learn about how to correctly harvest and the different ways to cook a variety of vegetables from the garden through lecture and hands on cooking demos.
Teacher
As the Brain Food Garden Manager, Lyssa Houser is excited to grow the Brainfood Youth Garden as an extension of Brainfood’s food-based youth development programming. Lyssa’s background in food education includes experience developing and implementing intergenerational gardening programming as the Garden and Cooking Educator for the DC Department of Parks and Recreation. She also has experience leading garden education efforts through her work as the Director of Education for Wangari Gardens, where she teaches public workshops, supervises the planning and maintenance of the public gardens, and leads solar-cooked community lunches. She has also worked with Common Good City Farm, Old City Farm and Guild, Solar Household Energy, Inc, and Love & Carrots
Horticultural Therapy in Healthcare and Beyond
Matthew J. Wichrowski, MSW, HTR, Sr. Horticultural Therapist, Clinical Assistant Professor, Rusk Rehabilitation, NYU-Langone Medical Center
Interest in the beneficial effects of nature has been on the rise lately. Join us as we explore the foundations of horticultural therapy and its use in healthcare settings, including therapeutic garden design. Recommendations for personal health and wellness are provided. – See more at: https://www.usbg.gov/events/2016/05/20/lecture-horticultural-therapy-healthcare-and-beyond#sthash.Z9brdukg.dpuf
Soil Biology
Returning to the systems that got us here: Understanding how the life in the soil and plants together create permanent fertility in natural systems and how we can mimic this in our agricultural systems.
Teacher
Benjamin Friton In 2010 he co-founded Can YA Love, an organization specializing in supporting orphanages, schools, and youth & women’s groups in densely populated areas around the world by setting up customized agricultural systems that provide continuous support to their mission. He is currently focusing his efforts as a soil-ecologist, educator and designer at Forested, a ten-acre food forest in just 6 miles East of DC.
Integrated Pest Management- Going Back to Our Roots
Growing organically is trying to grow in harmony with nature, without using synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or other synthetic products. We will learn that an important ‘rule’ in organic gardening is feed the soil, not the plant. To feed the soil, we organic gardeners must return the resources our gardens consume by adding organic matter such as compost and or cover crops. We also allow for a certain level of pest damage to our plants and we will learn which bugs are beneficial, which are destructive, when they are likely to arrive and what we can do about them.
Mosquito Control
Registration required: http://offices.ext.vt.edu/arlington/programs/anr/offerings/registration/VCE_Arlington_ANR_Program_Registration.html
Community Garden Management and Best Practices
This class will focus on a variety of best practices from starting, managing and improving a community garden. We’ll focus on ways to inclusively outreach neighborhoods, different ways to cooperatively manage gardens, explore example bylaws, discuss ways to deal with theft and vandalism and much more.
Teacher
Josh Singer, as the DC Parks and Recreation (DPR) Community Garden Specialist, builds community gardens, urban farms and develops urban Ag. support systems such as an urban garden education series with over 100 urban Ag. classes a year, a garden toolshare, a 4 greenhouse seedling cooperative, and a community compost cooperative network serving over a 1000 active composters. Josh also is the co-founder and executive director of the 501c3 non-profit 3-acre garden park called Wangari Gardens, the founder of the DC Food Recovery Working Group and a co-founder of the DUGnetwork, DC’s Urban Ag and Food Security cooperative Network
Intro to Permaculture and Forest Gardens
Learn how people can produce what they need from a garden that resembles a forest. In an era when people have strained the world’s ecosystems to meet their needs, a forest garden provides a critical combination of benefits for people and planet — cleaning water, building soil, and providing a bounty of food and supplies. Come learn about some of the plants and practices of this exciting way of gardening and eating.
Teacher Bio:
Lincoln Smith runs Forested, a forest garden company in Bowie, MD (www.forested.us). He helps landowners in the eastern US create successful forest gardens through consultation and through training at the 10-acre Forested demonstration garden. He is working on making and marketing acorn foods through collaboration with Korean acorn food producers. Lincoln spent five years designing and managing high-end residential landscape projects and pushing sustainability at Graham Landscape Architecture in Annapolis. He holds a Master of Arts in Landscape Design from the Conway School, a Permaculture Design Certificate from Wayne Weiseman, and earned LEED certification in 2008.
Rooftop Gardening 101
Learn the basics of growing edibles on a roof from local rooftop farming experts.
Teachers
Founded in 2014, Up Top Acres was started by Kristof, Kathleen and Jeff, 3 DC natives who met while attending DC Public Schools. After graduating college, the team returned to DC with the goal to make the city they grew up in a better place for their friends and family who call DC home.
Intro to Urban Bee Keeping
The class is an overview of what it takes to keep bees in DC, and the way in which our location and climate dictates the work and calendar of the beekeeping year. This class will help you prepare for beekeeping next year, including connecting you with course offerings, sources of bees, and the beekeeping community.
Teacher Bio: Toni Burnham is the founder of the DC Beekeepers Alliance, and President of the Maryland State Beekeepers Association. She has been keeping bees for 10 years and am the national Urban Beekeeping columnist for Bee Culture Magazine, the largest circulation beekeeping publication in North America.
Non-Native Invasive Plant Removal Class
Registration required: http://caseytrees.org/event/non-native-invasive-plant-removal/
Come learn about non-native, invasive plants and how they are threatening our native landscapes. Participants will learn how to identify and control species of non-native, invasive plants found in the Washington, D.C. area including porcelainberry (Ampelopsis glandulosa), Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum) and mile-a-minute (Persicaria perfoliata). Native alternatives to common and incoming invasive plants will also be discussed.
The course consists of two parts on two different days: a 2.5 hour classroom session at the Casey Trees headquarters (Wednesday, June 8th) followed by a 2.5 hour field session (Saturday, June 11th from 9:00am-11:30am) in Rock Creek Park.
Instructors
Ana Chuquin, Rock Creek National Park
Jorge Bogantes Montero, Anacostia Watershed Society
Damien Ossi, Department of Energy & Environment
Who Should Attend?
Open to the general public for those interested in learning to identify non-native, invasive plants found in the region and how to control these species.
Meals
All attendees will be provided with a light dinner. Please note your dietary preferences and/or allergies when registering so we can attempt to accommodate your needs.
Continuing Education Credits
ISA Continuing Education Credits available.
Getting There
The Metrorail station is Brookland-CUA (Red Line) which is a 10 minute walk. The Metrobus stop is near the intersection of 12th and Irving Street NE (served by the H8) or the Brookland-CUA Metro station (served by the H2, H4, H6, G8, R4 and 80). At our office, there is ample street parking and we accommodate bicycles on-site.
Intro to Canning: How to Preserve Tomatoes, Pickles, Jams & Jellies
There’s nothing better than opening up a jar of home-preserved
tomatoes or jam on a dark winter night, and remembering the warmth and
bounty of summer! This class will cover basic canning for the
beginner, using simple, inexpensive equipment. We’ll learn the boiling
water bath method, which can be used to safely preserve fruits
(including jams and jellies), tomatoes, and pickles. This is a
hands-on class so come prepared to get cookin’!
Garden Plant Botany
Description
This workshop will cover the basics of plant identification. Participants will learn which flower characteristics are important for using a botanical key and how to recognize the most common plant families in the DC area.
Teacher Bio
Holly Poole-Kavana is an herbalist practicing in Washington DC. In 2010 she founded Little Red Bird Botanicals, offering herbal consultations, an herbal medicine CSA, and workshops on growing and using medicinal herbs. She also works as a health educator and birth assistant.
Skill Class: Forest Garden Design & Care
Explore forest gardening in depth and learn the tools and methods to help you succeed.
Cost: $100
Description: In this class, we focus on the plants, relationships and design of forest gardens. Topics will include:
- Polyculture or Guild design at the backyard and small farm scale
- Forest garden soil management
- Nitrogen-fixing plants
- Forest garden site analysis
- Forest garden establishment and maintenance techniques
- Forest garden insectaries and pest management
- Growing and tasting of seasonal forest garden fruit, nuts, herbs, greens, mushrooms and more
- Community strategy and impact of forest gardens
The day includes tours of the forest garden, design materials and exercises, coaching sessions, discussions and networking. Our singular goal is to help our students succeed in their forest garden projects.
Lead Instructor: Lincoln Smith
Location: Forested in Bowie, MD. Be sure to read how to get into the site here. Google Maps by itself will not get you here.
Qualifications: Participants should feel comfortable being outside in any weather. Participants under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Sturdy footwear is required as well as appropriate outdoor clothing. Please bring a pair of work gloves if you have them.
Food: Snacks and drinks will be provided, but please bring lunch.
Registration: Pay below or email Lincoln to let us know you’re coming.
Work Trade: Cash is prefered to help us continue to develop the forest garden, but we accept 10 hours of volunteer work, or the $100 class fee, or any combination or the two. Email Lincoln to inquire about a work trade.
Groups: Bring friends and save! Select a number below for group discount price. Email Lincoln if you’d like to bring more than 4 people.
Dealing With Deer & Other Mammal Pests in Your Garden
Bambi may be cute, but he and his mother, cousins, and rest of the herd are very hungry and they would love to make a feast of your garden. This talk will cover proven and humane tactics for gardening with deer, rabbits, rats, groundhogs, and other creatures that are attracted to both edible and ornamental gardens.
Teacher Bio: Kathy Jentz is editor and publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine. A life-long gardener, Kathy believes that growing plants should be stress-free and enjoyable. Her philosophy is inspiration over perspiration.
Garden Pests and Disease
Through powerpoint and discussion, we will look at “pests” a little differently than most gardeners do: they are telling us that we are doing something wrong! Let’s dig deeper into truly organic and sustainable agriculture and learn to listen to what the “pests” and ecosystem are telling us. Sprays, whether organic or homemade, are not long-term solutions and can have undesirable side effects. We will start learning to identify all sorts of insects in the garden and learn how they work in order to better design our gardens to achieve balance amongst the wildlife, and still put food on our table! Finally, we will conclude with a visual review of common diseases too and what one can be done to prevent and manage them.
Teacher Bio:
Christian spent the last few years as Farm Manager at ECO City Farms, a few miles outside DC in Prince George’s County, MD. On this 1-acre urban farm (or “big garden”), the farm used organic methods, compost, and season extension tools to provide fresh vegetables, fruits, and sprouts to our 25-person CSA and farmers market. More importantly, as a non-profit educational organization, is the mission to help urban communities use agriculture to positively develop their communities.
