Workshops

VGN offers garden workshops on varying topics throughout the season.  The best way to keep in touch and hear about workshops as soon as they are announced is by following us on Instagram (@vtgardens) and by signing up for our monthly newsletter (scroll down to the footer of this webpage to join our mailing list).

If you are interested in nutrition education workshops, check out our Mobile Classroom webpage to learn about scheduling a visit from our Veducator van.

A new partnership between Vermont Garden Network and City of Winooski is bringing to fruition the much-anticipated inauguration of a greenhouse in March 2025! Through this 10-week long intensive we will welcome an inaugural cohort of gardeners sharing access to the heated greenhouse and participating in the first of a series of workshops focused on climate resiliency for garden-scale growers.

The Early Bird Gardening Intensive will be a practice in community-scale agriculture by sharing access to a heated greenhouse and a teaching garden. Participants will engage in hands-on learning to gain experience in all aspects of seed starting and early spring gardening. Themes we will be exploring throughout the 10 weeks include: garden-scale techniques, climate resiliency, seedkeeping and season extension.

Seed Starting in a Greenhouse topics include:

  • Managing temperature & ventilation in a heated greenhouse
  • Ideal soil mixes for plastic trays and soil blocks
  • Seeding dates, succession sowings and establishing a planting calendar
  • Best practices for watering and fertilizing 
  • Tips for potting up and hardening off 
  • Growing microgreens for a nutrient-dense winter harvest 
  • Specialty crops such as ginger & turmeric

Spring Sowing in a Garden topics include:

  • Early spring low-till garden bed prep 
  • Cold tolerant crops to grow the before last frost
  • Protected cultivation with row covers and low tunnels
  • Managing common spring pests
  • Identifying spring wild edibles

Instructors: The intensive will be co-facilitated by Angela deBettencourt (VGN Garden Education Manager) and Carolina Lukac (VGN Co-Executive Director). Angela brings six years in vegetable growing at the farm scale where she gained experience in greenhouse growing. For the past four years, she has taught VGN’s six-month gardening course, the Thriving Garden Course,  sharing her expertise with others. Passionate about increasing access to growing spaces, Angela is excited to be part of this new project, which offers gardeners the opportunity to learn how to grow plants that are meaningful to them. Carolina managed a production greenhouse on a rooftop in her hometown of Mexico City, she currently facilitates educational programming for the New Farms for New Americans community greenhouse at the Intervale, and every winter she seeds over 2,000 crops in her basement seed starting setup. She is passionate about growing culturally meaningful and locally adapted crops, gardening like a farmer and seed keeping.

Participants receive:

  • 150 hours of hands-on instruction
  • Table space, soil, trays and seeds for your personal seed starting needs
    • Each participant is assigned table space for 7 trays (e.g. sufficient space to grow 120 tomatoes in 4-inch pots or 500 lettuces in 72-cell trays or any quantity of vegetables, herbs and flowers you can fit!)

Expectations:

  • Participants attend 10 weekly classes on Tuesdays from 5-6:30pm
  • Participants sign up for an additional weekly rotation to visit the greenhouse for 45-60 minutes to support ongoing needs such as watering and monitoring temperature
  • Participants will be asked to join a WhatsApp group chat to facilitate collective communication and information sharing 

Fee: $450
Scholarship and payment plan options available.

Registration:
Registration will open by the end of December. If you would like to be on our list to be among the first who receive the registration link, please email carolina@vtgardens.org 

Registration deadline is March 1, 2025.

Scholarships:

  • The Scholarship Request Form will be available when registration opens in December.
    Limited scholarships are available, with priority given to Winooski residents, BIPOC and New American community members.
  • Scholarship recipients are asked to contribute $150, with the remaining $300 covered by VGN’s Scholarship Fund.

Scholarship request deadline: February 15
Scholarships announced: March 1 

Stay tuned for registration opening in December!

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