A free 4-week course in "garden basics" begins at 9:00AM on Saturday, February 8th at the Lane Agri-Park, 315 John R. Rice Boulevard. This is in the same building where the farmer's market is held. 

Learn Gardening Basics

If you’ve never tried your hand at growing your own vegetables but have wanted too, or if you’re a novice with a little experience (soil) under your nails, the Healthy Vegetable Gardens course may be just right for you. This FREE four session course will emphasize the basic necessities for growing a garden that has a real chance of not only producing healthy vegetables, but is itself healthy and able to hold up under the normal stresses of our Rutherford County environment.

The course will take you from choosing what vegetables to grow, how many of them to grow, and where in the garden to plant them through choosing the garden site, preparing the soil, planting and tending to the vegetables and dealing with problems, to improving the garden for next year.

Course Outline

Topics discussed in the first session will include choosing vegetables to grow, a garden plan and layout for planting and future rotation, the value of garden records, site selection, soil preparation, and soil amendments for improving the soil.

Subsequent sessions are scheduled for March 29, April 19, and June 14. Each will begin at 9:00 a.m. We’ll strive to keep each session about 2 hours in length, but questions and discussion may influence this.

Free!

There is no charge to participate, but we do ask that you call the Extension office at 898-7710 by February 3 and let us know you’re coming. If you forget to call, come on anyway; we just may not have a handout for you at that time. Office hours are 8:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Mon-Fri. If you have questions about the course, you can call or email Janie Becker (jbecker8@utk.edu) or Mitchell Mote (mmote1@utk.edu).