I started my first garden as a way to help cut the family food bill and I had no idea what I was doing. I just threw some seeds in the corner of my backyard and hoped for the best. Fast forward a few years and I had a lot more space to work with, but not much more of a plan. I simply decided what we wanted to eat as a family and threw into a much bigger plot. That "plan" was far from efficient, and it took me ten years to come up with a consistent way to get as much from my gardens as possible season after season. I spent another five years tweaking the process into what you'll learn in this course.
Perhaps you've made a garden plan before,
only to have it fall short of your expectations. Or maybe you had way too much of one veggie but not nearly enough of the ones you really wanted to save for the winter. Maybe weather challenges or pests or plant disease took you out and you had nowhere to go from there. It's tough, especially when all we want to do is provide for ourselves, our families, even our neighbors. Even if it's "just a hobby" we want it to be successful!
The problem with teaching ourselves to do something we've never successfully done is that we get too much information from too many disjointed sources. Plan Like A Pro fixes that problem by putting all the resources in one place alongside a proven method. I have successfully used this method each year to plan the gardens for not just my own family, but for countless other families through our community supported agriculture program and farmer's market stands. It's a scalable system that works just as well for small gardens as it does large ones.
In this course, you will determine the exact amount of growing space you have and the seasonal challenges you face, detail your goals, and choose your crops based on growing conditions. By the end, you'll be able to move through each part of the season with a solid plan for what comes next and when. You'll account for the changing of the weather and fill your beds with the crops most appropriate for their season.
Not sure you have enough room for everything you want to grow?
I will teach you all the tricks to not only 
fit everything you want to grow into your garden space, but how to use plants to prevent insect pests, provide mutual benefits to each plant, and get a continuous harvest so you and your family can get the most from your garden space. You'll not only have a complete map of what goes where, but a calendar of when each crop gets started, gets planted, and gets harvested. And you'll learn to keep a garden journal so next year's plan will be that much better informed.
When you sign up for the course you get immediate access and get to keep that access for as long as I offer the course. Work at your own pace, but take advantage of the other bonus items!
Every lesson of every module has a video explaining the process or technique and additional downloadable content. Video not your thing? Each one has an audio-only option, too!
Join your fellow students in an online community dedicated solely to you! Ask questions, exchange ideas, and compare notes. This community remains active all the time, so you can interact even after you've completed the course. I will be in the community with you for the entire first month!
The course is yours to keep as long as it's offered, and you can work through it at whatever pace you are comfortable with.
There are about two hours of instructional videos to work through, plus three hours of replays of previous live trainings. That being said, there is work to do on your part to complete the steps for your garden plan. How long this takes will depend on how large your space is, your experience level, and how frequently you work on it. I estimate most students will be able to complete the course and all its components within three to four weeks, but a dedicated student could be done in just a few days.
Absolutely. If you've had a gardening year where you didn't harvest as much as you'd like, if you want to preserve but always run out early, if you often find yourself with empty garden space partway through the season and don't know what to plant next, this course is for you. If you're gardening in limited space and want to get higher yields, this course helps with that, too. The only experienced gardener who won't see value in this course is one who has already maximized their space, maximized their harvest, has a detailed calendar of each step of their gardening season, and is perfectly happy with their results!
This course is designed to take you step-by-step, start to finish, through the planning of your garden. A beginning gardener will get lots of value out of the exercises in this course, beyond just having a solid plan. That being said, this course does not go into how to grow specific plants, plant nutrition, seed starting or any other gardening techniques.
Absolutely. When you enroll you have 24 hours to preview the course. If you decide it's not what you want or expected, email me immediately and I will refund your money. I only ask that you provide feedback for what didn't work for you so I can continue to improve the course.
Introduction
Welcome (Audio Only)
Gather Your Supplies
Gather Your Supplies (audio only)
Measure Your Spaces
Measure Your Spaces (audio only)
Draw Your Garden Map
Draw Your Garden Map (audio only)
Seasonal Changes and Challenges
Seasonal Changes and Challenges (audio only)
Why Are You Gardening?
Why Are Your Gardening (audio only)
Week One Live Training Replay 2023
Cool Season vs Warm Season
Cool Season vs Warm Season (audio only)
Week One Live Training Replay, 2024
How Many Seeds or Plants Do You Need?
How Many Seeds or Plants Do You Need? (audio only)
Week Two Live Training Replay 2023
Plot the Seasons
Plot the Seasons (audio only)
Duration and Growth Habit
Duration and Growth Habit (audio only)
Succession Planting and Intercropping
Succession Planting and Intercropping (audio only)
Example of Intercropping and Companion Planting
Alternative Method: Create A Timeline
Alternative Method: Create a Timeline (audio only)
Timeline Method Example
Complete Your Map
Complete Your Map (audio only)
Plan Like a Pro
