Garden Master Course (Beyond Organic)

35 hours of quality instruction on better-than-organic garden practices with Helen Atthowe. The product listed here is for the HD Streaming version of the course.

Most Master Gardener programs offer extensive botanical and cultivation information, which is great! But they also teach that you must use all the bottles and sprayers containing nasty stuff and covered with warning labels, which is not so great - for the gardener or the garden.

There has never been a course taught through an ecological lens . . .

. . . Until now.

In the Garden Master Course, we have taken the very best of the Advanced Master Gardener curriculum and improved upon it. We have employed biological and ecosystemic methods to eliminate the need for conventional (or even certified organic) pesticides and herbicides. Gardening for the future!

After years of planning, Helen Atthowe came to Wheaton Labs to teach what I now call "The Certified Garden Master Course." The class sells out every year. Demand keeps growing. So last year we set up some high-quality cameras to see if we could gather the footage to make this class available to more people.

About your instructor:

Helen Atthowe has taught Master Gardener programs for 17 years. Having studied under Masanobu Fukuoka, Helen has spent the last 35 years learning how to pay close attention to the land. She applies Fukuoka's farming principles to her commercial organic farms, while also adding and developing her own ecological farming practices. She has hands-on experience managing a 2,000-acre organic commodity farm as well as growing permaculture food forests.

Helen has a bachelor's degree in agroecology, a master's degree in horticulture, and is working on a doctorate in entomology on how reduced tillage affects beneficial organism populations and crop biological control. Paul Wheaton and Helen have recorded numerous podcasts together, and they are among Paul's most popular podcasts.

What the Garden Master Course covers:

Unit 1: Getting Started: How everything is connected

Unit 2: The Roots of a Healthy Plant Community: Understanding soil structure and ecology

Unit 3: Strengthening Your Garden: Managing beneficial insects, pests, and disease

Unit 4: Weeds vs. Garden: Working with plant competition in the farm/garden system

Unit 5: Growing a Diet: Planting, pruning and rotating for long-term success

Helen presents a comprehensive overview of the soil food web and its significance in maintaining a thriving garden. She sheds light on the importance of having a diverse microbial community both on the surface and in the subsoil, which can be achieved by planting a range of different plants, explaining how the use of pesticides can disrupt these cycles. Through sharing her personal experiences of gardening in both Montana and California, Helen highlights the benefits of having a living mulch and an active root system in the soil throughout the year. These principles, when followed correctly, can establish a healthy soil food web that provides a habitat for a variety of species and ensures a stable ecosystem for plants to thrive.

The garden master course is a must-watch for garden enthusiasts and permaculture practitioners – go beyond organic in this stimulating online course.