Resources

Cover Crop Info Handout--information about cover crop choices and timing in zone 7.  This is the handout for my cover crop lectures. Click here to access. 

Resource Handout --This page is the handout for my garden planning lectures.  It contains suggestions for further reading about vegetable gardening, season extension, cover crops, and growing for market.  It also has the Organize Your Garden Notebook list of chapters in the garden planning video, and the eight points of GROW BIOINTENSIVE Sustainable Mini-farming.  Click here to access.

Organize Your Garden Notebook
( these are the chapters of the garden planning video and suggestions for putting your own notebook together)
         Garden Map
         Crops
         Companion Planting and Rotations
         Seeds
         Plant / Harvest Times
         Yields / Records
         Weather
         Soil Test (and fertilizer info)
         Ideas!
         Questions?
         Extra Forms
         Garden Pictures

Plant / Harvest Schedule-- This worksheet will help you plan your crops according to your own frost dates.  Click here to access.  You can highlight the column that represents your first fall frost.  This form and several others are shown and explained in the video Develop a Sustainable Vegetable Garden Plan.  

Classes

Cindy has developed and taught these 3 credit classes at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Goochland, Virginia beginning in 1999.  In May 2010 she left the college to spend more time researching complete diet mini-farming and to attend to a multitude of other projects.  Daughter Betsy Trice took over teaching the classes beginning Fall 2010.

Spring and Fall Semesters

HRT 130  Introduction to Biointensive Mini-farming
Learn the basics of composting and organic vegetable gardening using biointensive methods.  Learn how to get more food from less space and when to expect the harvest as you develop your garden plan.  Biointensive methods include close spacing, wide beds, and growing crops that sustain both you and the garden.  Permaculture, a design system that makes the best use of resources for a property, is also studied. 

HRT 134 Four Season Food Production
Plan your garden with cover crops to feed the soil and learn to grow for a four season harvest with season extension techniques.  This class examines the local food supply and includes seed saving, researching new vegetables, and nutrition. 

Summer Semester

Organic Gardening Resources 
Experience work in the GROW BIOINTENSIVE garden at the college harvesting garlic, onions, potatoes, and grains, and managing other crops and compost.  Also, learn about those people who have made a difference in the sustainable agriculture movement over the past 60+ years. 

Fall Semester

HRT 238  Growing for Market Mini-farming
Explore growing produce for direct marketing to restaurants, at farmers markets, or through a CSA.  Students will develop a marketing plan of their own.  Prerequisite HRT 130.

Spring Semester

HRT 239  Complete Diet Mini-farming
Is it possible to eat your entire diet from your garden?  Explore how to do that sustainably.  Includes grains which produce carbon for the garden with their stalks and food for you.  This class takes a serious look at the nutrition your body needs and what is supplied by the crops.  The emphasis is on how to grow your diet in the smallest space, while at the same time growing the right amount of compost crops to feed the garden.  Learn to grow and prepare important crops you are unfamiliar with.  Prerequisite HRT 130.