A report on our successful gardening workshop and how you can host one, too!

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     I am so excited to report that our Gardening Workshop was a huge success!  
     If you remember, I told you about the grand plan to grow seedings as handouts and to have classes to teach people how to garden.  You can read about that here.  Right after Christmas, I started planting my seedlings and I continued to baby them over the next 2 months!  They were so beautiful.  Who knew you could become so attached to plants, but I did!  I learned so much and I was so thrilled thinking about people being able to grow something to feed their families!   The actual workshop far exceeded my wildest expectations, we had so many wonderful comments afterwards and such a great turnout to the workshop.  I'm going to tell you how we did it.  
     This is the type of activity that you need to start planning for a couple of months before planting season.  In Phoenix, the planting season is much earlier than most other places, so luckily, you can start to plan for your own workshop if you live in a place where the planting season is in April or May! 
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Growing Seedlings and Collecting Seeds:

     As I've said, we decided from the start to really give people an opportunity to grow something.  I knew that starting seedlings wouldn't cost as much as it would to purchase them from a store, so I decided to take that project on.  Anita (more about her later!), also planted seedlings to give away, and she also made little seed packets to share as well.   We ended up with over 200 little plants to give away. 

     When deciding what to sprout to give away, think about a few things:

• Be sure the plants will be growing in the right season, or otherwise instruct people that they should be grown indoors until the proper season.
• Sprout plants that transplant easily.  Some seeds are better sown in the ground, like beans for example.  I did start some beans in cups as a part of my lesson, but they must be transplanted very carefully.  Instead of plants, I gave away beans that I packaged up with directions for sprouting instead.  I'll share the printable label at the end of this section.
• You might want to give options depending on the needs of the people attending your workshop.  For example, I had tomato and pepper transplants, but also some smaller things for those who may live in an apartment and only have room for a window sill garden.  So, I also grew basil, green onions and mustard.  Having a variety seemed to work out well. 
• If children will be attending, pumpkins and other fast growing veggies are great for instant gratification! 
• For the crops that need to be planted in the ground, seeds that you have saved are also a great thing to give away.  Anita packaged up a bunch of seeds and some of our teachers also handed out onion sets. 

I'll give you the bag topper printable below.

I found these cute seed packets on Temu. I will give you the link below. I printed the stickers to give directions.

​Choosing the Location and Planning  Your Classes:

     When we started to plan this workshop, we at first thought that we would hold it in the gymnasium of our church building.  We brainstormed about all of the classes that we might offer: Outdoor gardening, in the ground or raised beds; Indoor and Container Gardening; Regrowing from your Kitchen, growing on a budget; Companion Gardening; Composting; watering systems; Seed Saving...
The list went on! 
     Well, we knew we wanted Outdoor Gardening for sure and I knew just who to ask.  You've heard me talk about Anita, my hero, many times before on the blog.  She is the best gardener I know and has the most beautiful garden.  When I asked her to teach for us, she readily agreed!  Then, a few weeks in, she messaged me and asked if it wouldn't be better to hold the class at her home instead of at the church where it would be more hands on and easier to actually see than to just use pictures at the church!  So, that is what we did!  It was the perfect location and the weather couldn't have been better.
     So, if you know someone with  a nice garden that would be willing to host your event, I would highly recommend going in that direction.  If you don't know someone personally, you may find a master gardener or a community garden where you could go and learn there first hand. 
     Since our event was going to last for 3 hours, we knew that we had to narrow down our classes and we realized that some of the classes could be just informational booths rather than a  class.  We also realized that some of the things like compost and watering could be covered in the regular gardening classes.  

     Here is what we covered with brief highlights:

Best things to grow nutritionally and How our Soil Needs to be Amended.
A gentleman in our ward who is a chemist has an unlimited amount of knowledge about what we should grow for the most health benefits and what we need to add to our soil to grow it well.

Regrowing From Your Kitchen and Gardening On a Budget.

I taught this class about regrowing grocery store produce and using the seeds that are already in our kitchens.  You can read some of this info on this post and on this post.
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Outdoor Gardening and Fruit Trees.

Anita took everyone on a walk around her entire garden and yard explaining how to grow everything!  Everyone was amazed at how much they learned from her.  

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Container and Indoor Gardening.

Dawn, Karyn and Karyn's husband, Chuck, taught this class and it was amazing!  Chuck showed us how to make our own self watering 5 gallon planter! 

A Booth About Companion Gardening.

Julie gathered and displayed all kinds of information about companion gardening and other simple garden hacks.  Lots of workshop attendees were shooting photos of this information.

Examples of How to Preserve and Store the Harvest:

     This was Anita's idea and it was very well received!  She put out samples of bread and jam for people to try as well as two types of herbal tea, cold and warm, made from the moringa tree. 

Water, Veggies and Fruits for Refreshments.

     Diane did so much behind the scenes work, making posters, getting the water and snacks, following Anita around with the speaker so everyone could hear her.  She is always amazing at all of our activities! 

Handing Out the Plants.

Sharon and her pup Henry handled the giving out of the plants! We waited to tell people what they could take until we had a head count.  We had over 200 transplants between what Anita had done and what I had grown, plus seeds.  People were able to take home 3 or 4 plants each! It was so gratifying to see! Sharon was stationed there to help people know what they were getting and the best place or way to plant them if they had any questions.  
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     After the classes were finished, there was time for people to go to the booths and look around, ask questions and share their own gardening experiences.  I can't tell you how many people commented on what a great activity this was.  
     Instead of printing a lot of handouts, we provided and email and gathered emails so that we can share all of the information and references that we had to share.  There was so much!  
      If you have any questions, be sure to drop me a question in the comments or on Instagram.  I can' tell you how good we all felt after this activity because so many people were there to benefit from the information shared and they actually were able to take home plants and seeds to start their own garden!  
      I'll leave you with a few more pictures of the day that will hopefully give you ideas to plan your own gardening workshop! 

We had a scheduled posted of the classes.

In my class, I gave out "door prize" plants to people who could answer some of my questions. I also gave out seeds, gathered from my cupboards!

Everyone was captivated by Anita's wealth of information.

There were so many freebies! And nothing cost a lot to give away.

Dawn and Karyn had such a good rhythm together as they taught and the info they shared was beyond my imagination!

Everyone loved this idea for a self watering planter! They had a tomato growing in one!

Beautiful flowers attracting pollinators into Anita's garden.

Another flower! She doesn't only grow veggies.

Jams to sample! YUM!

I sprouted some mustard seeds and was helping these young ones plant them.

Fruits, veggies and water were very refreshing on this beautiful, warm day.

Henry helped keep watch over the plants.

Here is the printable bag topper for the top of the bean seeds.  The bean seeds actually came from a bag of 15 bean soup mix!  So much cheaper than buying seeds!  Print it 4" x 6" and fold it in half horizontally.  It can be stapled on a sandwich size zipper bag. 
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A Few Fun or Useful Things I Used For This Workshop:
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This is my favorite soil for starting transplants and this is on sale for a great price! 2 bags for $8.63!  It is about $6 per bag at the home improvement store! 
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​These little bamboo  appetizer skewers made great little plant markers.  



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I also used these.  I wrote the name of the plant on one side and decoupaged an inspirational quote on the other.  I liked that this set came with a marker for writing on the wood.