Workshops

Black ends on your tomatoes got you down?  Holes in the leaves on your eggplants?  Sunken spots on your peppers?  What's a gardener to do??

Let's get together and learn how to apply some simple strategies now and throughout the rest of the growing season to increase your chances of having healthier and more productive vegetable plants in your garden this year and in future years.  We'll review the specific steps you can take to correctly identify and manage virtually any pest or disease that might crop up in your veggie garden, and you'll learn about a host of free resources that are available to help you figure out the mysteries that plague your garden.

This discussion-based workshop is a perfect introduction to our hands-on working lab, "What's Wrong With My Veggies:  Plant Pest Diagnostics" that will be held on Wednesday, August 22nd from 6 to 8pm.  

In "Plant Pest Diagnostics," we'll take what we learned in "What's Wrong With My Veggies: Organic Pest Management" to the next level, examining veggie plants in the garden that are suffering from an assortment of common garden pests and diseases.  Students will be challenged to diagnose the problems and to find management or treatment solutions using as assortment of resources, gaining valuable hands-on experience and confidence in tackling everything from spider mites to early blight! 

Note:  "What's Wrong With My Veggies: Organic Pest Management" is a required pre-requisite for "What's Wrong With My Veggies: Plant Pest Diagnostics."

Register for this Workshop

In "Plant Pest Diagnostics," we'll take what we learned in "What's Wrong With My Veggies: Organic Pest Management" to the next level, examining veggie plants in the garden that are suffering from an assortment of common garden pests and diseases.  Students will learn how to use a jeweler's loop for a closer look and will be challenged to identify and diagnose problems and to find management or treatment solutions using as assortment of resources.  Gain valuable hands-on experience and confidence in tackling everything from spider mites to early blight!   

NOTE:  Our "Organic Pest Management" workshop is a required pre-requisite for this Plant Pest Diagnostics working lab.  Please do not register for this August 22nd Plant Pest Diagnostics working lab if you haven't already taken or registered for Basic Organic Pest Management.  Please email Marybeth at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have any questions about this.  

Register for this Workshop

As long as we're growing and eating fruits and veggies, we're creating lots of kitchen scraps and plant debris that has to be dealt with.  Why toss that material into our green waste bins when we can compost it instead? Compost is a super affordable (mostly free) and incredibly useful soil amendment, adding organic matter and increasing the biological activity in our soil.  It also helps to retain moisture if used as a top dressing (mulch) and improves soil structure. 

This workshop will help you understand the science behind great compost and the ingredients needed to make a healthy, productive compost pile. Topics will also include building, watering, turning, and troubleshooting your compost pile, and a review of different composting methods so that you can build a pile that matches your lifestyle, space, and gardening needs.  We have several different types of tumbling composters on-site for you to check out, too. 

Now's your chance to come learn the basics of making your own "black gold" at home and maybe share some of your own successes or challenges you've faced composting in the past.  Each student will get to handle, smell, sift, and compare some amazing "finished compost" from Marybeth's home garden and from our Green Team Farm.  

Register for this Workshop

OK, so you've gotten your first flock of chickens, or maybe you've even had chickens for a few years, but now all of a sudden, one of your hens has started walking funny, sitting all the time and not eating and drinking as much as usual, and you're not sure why or what to do about it.  Or maybe one of your hens has started roosting up in your apple tree, and you're afraid a predator like a raccoon could attack her at night.  You know it's a dangerous situation, and you've got to get her roosting in the coop again, but you're not sure how to make that happen.  What's a backyard chicken keeper to do??

We designed our "Advanced Topics in Chicken Care" series of workshops to address just these types of specific behavioral and health topics that seem to crop up once you've had chickens for awhile.   

Our aim is to bring together some long-time, experienced chicken keepers to help us newbies better understand some of the most common ailments or behavioral abnormalities that we're likely to encounter with our adult flocks.  In this session, we'll cover fowl pox, which was widespread in Salt Lake County in 2017, and how to introduce a new hen to an existing flock.   

Note: This workshop is held outdoors and will be held rain or shine.  No refunds will be issued for cancellations received within 24 hours of the class.  If you wish to apply for a reduced-tuition scholarship for this workshop, please email Marybeth at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to request a scholarship application.

Register for this Workshop

Have you heard about cover crops but aren't sure what they are or which ones to grow in the fall vs. the spring or summer? Would you like to know more about how they contribute to your garden's health and your vegetable plants' productivity? Or are you interested in learning how they can fit into crop rotation cycles? If so, then this is the workshop you've been looking for! September is the perfect time of year to sow fall cover crops, so come and learn what you should be doing now to improve your garden over the winter for next year. We'll review different types of cover crops and their benefits to your soil, as well as how to incorporate them into your soil or use them as mulch or in your compost. In class, we'll get some hands-on experience matching inoculants to seeds, mixing up inoculant slurries, and sowing some cover crops in the demo garden. Each student will go home with a bit of different types of cover crop seed to try in their home garden!

Register for this Workshop