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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Update: Public Permaculture Demo Garden Progress

When I founded the SC Upstate Permaculture Society I had no idea we’d be this popular, but we’re up to 644 members with multiple people joining each week. If you live in upstate South Carolina (or nearby) we welcome you to join us. Last October we broke ground on a huge new garden that is already stacking functions by being…

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How to Become an Expert Gardener

We’ve got an amazing variety of class topics available right now — with limited seating so reserve your space ASAP! Are you a beginner gardener? Our January block of classes starts with the absolute basics and ends with you knowing how to design your dream garden (and what plants to stock it with). Not only that, but they’re available on…

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How to Take Eliza’s Classes at the Swamp Rabbit Cafe & Grocery

Scenario: Instead of figuring out what’s for dinner, head over to the Swamp Rabbit Cafe & Grocery to choose from their delicious menu and enjoy an evening of information and inspiring photo eye-candy. Cappuccino? Soup? An entire bar of artisan chocolate? Treat yourself or buy a gift for a friend! The choice of topics is huge and there’s something to…

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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 “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 Make Venison Sausage and Kale Quiche with a Side of Lemon-Ginger Beet Salad

While I think that there is a wide variety of reasons why we garden, arguably the biggest one is to have fresh homegrown food. I really enjoy cooking, and the appeal of growing my own quality ingredients was what got me started on the path to being a gardener. We didn’t keep a garden this winter so our own ingredients have…

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How to Attend Our Classes (and Other Great Classes) at SC’s Organic Growing Conference

We love the Organic Growers School in North Carolina and are delighted that we now have a similar version for South Carolina! This is the 2nd year for the annual SC Organic Growing Conference which occurs on March 2nd, 2013. It’s run by the SC Organization for Organic Living (SCOOL) which you can find on their website or on Facebook….

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How to Stop Worrying About Food in Spite of all the Hype (the Answer is “Eat Local”)

I’ve noticed more and more people seem fed up with trying to choose what to eat. Attempts to make good food choices are often derailed by yet another media blitz announcing our dinner is unhealthy, contaminated, ruining the environment, inhumane, or causing human rights violations. How can any sane person navigate all the food noise? Why can’t there just be…

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How to Get Excited About Poke Sallet (Native Options for Permaculture Nutrient Accumulators)

That may be the wordiest title I ever came up with on this blog. The short of it is, “can poke sallet be highly desirable in the garden?” Poke sallet (as in pokeweed, pokeberries, polk salad, or any of the other myriad common names and spellings you want to label Phytolacca americana) is a plant native to the southeastern US….

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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 Unusual Vegetables & Fruits for Zone 7b

Today I did a lecture for the Greater Greenville Master Gardener’s Symposium titled “Unusual Vegetables and Fruits.” Since Greenville is zone 7b, the talk centered around plants that grow here. But some of these plants may grow where you live if you’re in a different zone. More people ended up at my talk than the symposium organizers were expecting which…

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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 Find Spring Plant Sales

In all likelihood there are wonderful, inexpensive plant sales happening near you this spring. Good places to check are your Native Plant Society, Master Gardeners Association, local botanical garden, farmers market, nurseries, and local farms. If you live in the Greenville, SC area, here are some of the great places you can get plants this season (apologies that the Upstate…

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How to Find Great Plants, Issue #4

So… did anyone see my giant spring todo list? I’m not going to be writing as often for a bit, but when I do it will include lots of garden transformation photos (and probably some mushrooms since morel season is coming up). Many thanks to those of you who were on top of your entries for How to Find Great…

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How to Find Great Plants, Issue #3

Here is issue #3 of How to Find Great Plants (apologies for the one-day delay, my weekend was spent moving boxes and furniture). I finally managed to choose 8 of the 36 entries to feature this month… so difficult! Be sure to read them all or you’ll miss some delightful plants! FOOD: Little Green Bees: Pumpkin on a Stick Don’t…

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