Fort Myers Daily

Grow Your Food Course. Are you interested in: Community Garden, Urban Gardening, Garden, Organic?

 Lee County, FL. – Heartland Gardens, a not-for-profit community garden in South Fort Myers is hosting for the third season running their fifteen-week organic crop cultivation course, entitled the “Grow Your Food Course”. The course is now being offered on both Saturdays and Sundays to accommodate demand.  “We’ve had a wonderful response from the community ever since we first held the course! This last Fall we not only filled the forty seats but had a long waiting list prior to it starting. We’re all about serving our local community here at Heartland so we just had to expand the course” said Andrea Guerrero, co-founder of Heartland and course instructor. The course will be taught in Heartland’s unique raised-bed labyrinth and mini-farm from 9:30am to 11:00am and will run for 15 weeks, starting on January 14^th for the Saturday class and January 15^th for the Sunday class.

 

The course covers just what its title implies, teaching how you can grow your food right from the comfort of your Florida yard. “Our motto here at Heartland is: Reconnecting you with real food. We want to enable everyone access to the healthiest, least processed, nutrient rich food available. Our students learn to earn the equivalent of $40/hr growing the healthiest and freshest organic food around” said Ben Pino, the courses second instructor. “Just imagine stepping out into your yard to find more organic vegetables growing than you know what to do with” Pino went on to say.

 

The course goes for 15 weeks to ensure participants full confidence in growing in Florida’s balmy but productive sunny weather. Heartland’s expert staff will guide students in each step essential to organic cultivation, starting with the basics of seed starting and soil building.  Students will advance through the course learning an abundance of skills in permanent agriculture, bio intensive gardening, composting techniques, and sustainable gardening practices. These cultivation techniques will be first covered in a classroom setting and then taken immediately out into the garden. There, teams of 5 students will have a parcel in which they will reinforce the day’s lesson through experiential learning. As students’ crops come time to harvest they will not only enjoy bringing them home but also participate in cooking and food preservation demonstrations right on site.

 

Priced at $125 for all 15 weeks the course comes out to about $8 per class. This all-inclusive price covers cost of seed, irrigation, curriculum, and guest speakers. Heartland is offering a “bring-a-friend” discount that will reduce the cost of the class to $100 for both students.

Class size is limited to 40 students and seats must be reserved prior to January 14th. Heartland can be reached at (239)689-4249 or on the web at HeartlandGardens.org.

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