How to Attend Hands-On Classes in Gardens, Kitchens, Forests, and Even a Late 1800’s Cabin

It’s here. The garden classes are in gardens, the cooking classes are in kitchens, the nature study is in forests, the raspberries taste like raspberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries! I worked for weeks on the lesson plans for these hands-on classes, workshops, and tours and am so excited to finally roll them out. Click here for my entire…

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How to Attend Our Upcoming Garden Open House (& a Virtual Tour)

Our garden open house (rain or shine) is THIS coming Saturday! APPALACHIAN FEET GARDEN OPEN HOUSE DETAILS: Drop-in June 14th, 9:00am – 5:00pm Recommended donation of $2-$5 440 Summit Drive, Greenville, SC You may also want to catch Eliza’s TEDx presentation at Zen on Tuesday, June 17th at 5:30pm. Additionally, Eliza wrote the feature article (on pawpaws) in the latest…

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How to Sign Up for February’s Classes

This month’s giveaway contest is over, congratulations to the winner, Christina Weit! Christina won four February classes. Today is gorgeous, has spring fever hit you? Eliza’s urban homesteading classes at the Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery start next week! Come learn about edible landscaping, backyard chickens, beekeeping basics, composting, and more… now is the time to get prepared for your…

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How to Find Eliza’s Beekeeping Article Online

My beekeeping article from the summer 2013 issue of edible Upcountry magazine is now available online. Many thanks to Carolina Honey Bee Company for hosting such fantastic classes. Our three hives are still doing great! Click here or on the image below to see the article: You can pick up hardcopies of edible Upcountry at locations all over the Upstate,…

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How to Take Our Classes

We have new classes available! Click here to see the list of topics. We have classes for beginners through experts on subjects like permaculture, soil, insects, beneficial wildlife habitats, plant propagation, fruits, vegetables, seeds, heirlooms, backyard chickens, beekeeping, winter growing, and preparing a garden for next season. We’re teaching small classes (limited to 12 students per class and available first…

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How to Learn About Permaculture

When I started signing up for more permaculture classes this year, my friends and family made fun of me. The thing is, permaculture is more like an artist’s palette than an exact formula. Anyone can use it, but the more you learn and practice, the more likely you are to make a masterpiece. Plus, I just love taking classes. In…

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How to “Permiculturefy” an Urban Farm

I often do or learn a heap of things at once and think I’m going to break it down into a series of bite-sized blog posts. It almost never happens — I post the first segment and then get too distracted to finish the rest. The orphaned contents of Appalachian Feet’s “drafts” folder is bursting at the seams. I don’t…

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How to Read Eliza’s Edible Upcountry Article & More

April heralded my first (epic) case of writer’s block. I’ve never run so close on a deadline before, but fortunately my brain clicked into place at the last minute and you can read the result in this season’s summer “honey” issue of Edible Upcountry magazine. Let me also emphatically recommend The Carolina Honeybee Company in Travelers Rest, SC for excellent…

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How to Attend Classes at Appalachian Feet

The Greenville Urban Farm Tour is over for this year and we hope our visitors went home inspired to make their own green paradise. During the UFT, we set up an “ask the site owner” table in our garden and one of the most frequent questions was, “do you consult and when are you going to offer classes?” How about…

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How to Go on the 2012 Greenville Urban Farm Tour

It’s time for the Greenville Urban Farm Tour again! When? This coming Saturday, May 12th, from 9am – 5pm. Tickets are $8 per adult (children under 12 free) and there is a group rate available on the UFT website. This year there are 31 sites to visit, 16 free workshops at the UFT’s headquarters (Crescent Studios), and bicycle tours offered…

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How to Watch My Urban Farm Pecha Kucha Talk

What’s Pecha Kucha, anyway? You could describe it as TED Talks for people with short attention spans or a good way to get presenters to keep it short. Every Pecha Kucha is 20 slides long, 20 seconds each slide. Pecha Kucha Greenville adds to the 20×20 theme by also scheduling their events at 20:20 (8:20pm). They have around 6 presenters…

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How to Find Out When We Sell Things or Give Talks (and a Garden Update)

We started an Appalachian Feet Market email list last year for people who want to know when our urban farm products are for sale or when we are giving talks the public can attend. Then we planned a wedding… and never used it. If you live in the Greenville, SC area and would like to be on the list, click…

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How to Get Fuzzy Bees Drunk

We have Passiflora incarnata (maypop passionvine) growing outside our back door. I’ve written in the past about how to grow this native plant for its delicious fruit, but today I wanted to share a video of our “bee bar.” I’d say they show up at first light, but really, they never leave. These sluggish insects gorge on nectar, becoming increasingly…

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How to Miss 21 Chickens (Even if They Were Living in Your Kitchen)

It’s chicken-mania at Appalachian Feet lately. We started with 27 chickens in early May with the goal of keeping 6 for our personal backyard flock. Yesterday, we said goodbye to 21 of them (they are destined for good, free-range farm homes with people we know). We’re glad to know these laying hens will be treated well, but that doesn’t make…

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How to Feel Inspired by an Urban Farm

Our city’s Urban Farm Tour is over for this year and by all accounts was a great success — GOFO sold out of tickets early in the day and had to scramble to print even more of them! I hope everyone who toured came away feeling inspired, I was so impressed by all the enthusiastic visitors we met at our…

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How to Go to the GOFO Urban Farm Tour

Urban Farm Tours (a collection of sites featuring intensive city gardening) are becoming more common these days. You may have a great one near you (if so, post the link in the comments!) Those of you in the upstate South Carolina area can check out the brand new Urban Farm Tour hosted by GOFO (Greenville Organic Foods Organization). If you’ve…

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How to Set Garden Goals & Go to the Organic Growers School

Fer is hosting a garden goals blog carnival at My Little Garden in Japan and oh my gosh, do I ever have a lot to do this year! I’ve included info about the Organic Growers School in March since it always heralds my spring planning. For the last three seasons I’ve jumped from garden to garden, so I haven’t been…

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How to Use Fennel (or Dill) to Keep Caterpillars Off Your Vegetable Plants

I don’t do a lot of companion planting. I’m not saying it doesn’t work (and I’d love to hear your success stories) but other than being impressed by mycorrhizal fungiĀ and permaculture plant guildsĀ I haven’t felt the need to find my plants a buddy. Oh! EXCEPT for growing fennel next to plants plagued by caterpillars. Flowering fennel is like a beacon…

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How to Get Started Keeping Bees (Simple and “Instant” Beekeeping)

*EDIT 1/15/2013* – This post was written when bees were far less expensive than they are now. Unless you are planning to catch a free swarm or have some other cheap bee source, it would be a good idea to learn all you can prior to obtaining bees. Yeah, that’s right. I did a Valentine’s post on undies followed by…

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