February-March 2011 Classes with John Starnes
All classes are held at John's address,
3212 West Paxton Avenue, Tampa FL 33611, about 6 blocks south of Gandy and 1 1/2 blocks west of MacDill, jungly yard on the south side. Please park on my side of Paxton off of neighbors' lawns.
please, RSVP
For further information contact John at (813) 839-0881,
or email : JohnAStarnes@msn.com
Basics of Frugal Backyard Chicken Raising
2-12-2011
Many folks these days are considering, or have followed through on, pursuing a long time desire to raise backyard chickens for fresh eggs or even meat they know the origins of. I've had chickens on and off since the mid 90s, and can share how to raise happy, healthy, antibiotic-free chickens and eggs VERY frugally. I am teaching this well-received class again on February 12th, from 11 AM until 1 PM, with a 30 minute Q & A session after. Please bring a note pad and pen as we will cover many points. You will receive a pack of winter greens seeds to sow now to provide raw green plant matter VITAL to having healthy backyard chickens.
Fermented Foods 101
2-19-2011
Many folks are realizing the wide spectrum of health benefits of eating probiotic fermented foods, but that also they can be very pricey in the health food stores and grocery stores. Garden writer John Starnes (Fine Gardening, St. Pete Times, Florida Gardening) loves to grow and cook and prepare foods for friends and himself, and in this class will show easy very affordable ways to make your own kefir, natto, tempeh, kimchee, and cheese. There will be samples for tasting too. Be sure to bring a note pad and pen to write down the simple steps and ingredients, some of which can come from your own garden. The class will be held on February 19, from 11 AM until 1:30 PM. Come hungry!
Growing Food, Cultivating Freedom and Harvesting Joy
2-13-2011
Growing and raising much of your own food can free you from an unsatisfying job and addiction to the New Serfdom of endless debt as a "consumer". Celebrate this new year by taking this class to learn three basics of successful gardening in central Florida, see the ease of a few backyard chickens for fresh eggs, plus, primarily, get two handouts with 30 key techniques, attitude shifts, and resources that can allow us to discover what we REALLY want out of life, how to live frugally, and ways to shed old, restrictive thinking and living habits and replace them with pleasurable, expansive ones to create a self-perpetuating positive feedback loop of habitual joy and gratitude. People say my trippy livingroom exemplifies "thinking outside of the box that the box came in" so most of the class will be held in there after we tour my urban farm. I feel that happiness is a choice we can make daily, and that we can create our lives vs. them just happening to us, with productive gardening as the key. I will offer this class again on February 13, from 11 AM until 1 PM. Each student will receive 1 free packet of easy-to-grow seeds with instructions on their culture and harvest and use. See you then!
Plan Now for a Productive Organic Spring and Summer Food Garden
2-5-2011, 2-27-2011
There is an unfortunate widespread myth that summers are too hot, muggy and buggy to grow a successful organic garden here, but nothing could be further from the truth. Healthy soil and choosing subtropical and tropical crops that LOVE the heat is the key to fresh abundance from your yard for that long hot half of the year when so many folks let their gardens go barren and weedy. You will receive a handout with a long list of heat-loving crops, plus I will give you seeds of two kinds that utterly thrive each summer here. Growing these crops organically is easy as very few pests attack them, but we will cover those few possible problems and how to deal with them cheaply and without using poisons. The class will be offered twice in February: on the 5th and the 27th, from 11 AM until 1 PM, with a 30 minute Q & A session after, to give you time to plan the summer garden, prepare the soil, and acquire the needed seeds and soil foods. Just think....as your winter garden fizzles out each spring, you can phase in six more months of adundant home grown food with a whole new range of tastes, textures and nutrition.
Tropical Fruit Crops 101
2-26-2011
We have SO many choices for fruit crops for our landscapes beyond citrus, especially if we live and garden in warmer areas closer to the coast. You will learn how to improve the soil, where to grow the respective crops discussed, and receive a detailed handout with a very lengthy list of fruiting plants you can seek out for your edible landscape. Not only do these plants bless us with tasty nutritious fruits, they add visual lushness to any yard. Local and mail order sources of them will be covered too.
Perennial Food Crops
2-6-2011
Crops that need to be planted just once and that bear food year after year is a central aspect of permaculture and urban farming. Thankfully, our balmy climate allows us a great many such plants, often easily propagated by cuttings and root divisions. The handout provided lists many of these perennial food crops and I will add to them throughout the class. Each student will receive a free start of a perennial food crop.
3-19-2011
BASICS OF URBAN FARMSTEADING AND FOOD SELF SUFFICIENCY FOR BEGINNERS
There is wonderful security and satisfaction in being able to prepare many of our meals from abundant gardens around our homes. Imagine FRESH omelets and meat from a backyard henhouse, or expensive "exotic" crops such as arugula, Barbados Cherry, cassava, chaya, papaya, many herbs and staple crops for Thai and other ethnic cuisines fresh your own yard. But where to start if you have a "normal" yard of high maintenance lawn and ornamental shrubs? Organic landscape consultant and garden writer John Starnes (St. Pete Times, Fine Gardening, Florida Gardening) shows how to make the transition in stages based on your time, temperament, budget and goals, using his jungly south Tampa "urban farm" as the classroom. Learn the ease of "sheet composting" vs. buying an expensive compost bin, using household graywater to nourish your crops and cut your water bill, cheap and easy organic pest control, plus a very effective, low-labor method for killing lawn areas in place and turning them into productive gardens. You will receive a detailed class handout, but be sure to bring a notepad and pen, and, if you wish, a camera, as people tell me that my classes are very information dense. I will be teaching this class again on March 19th from 11 AM until 1 PM, from 11 AM until 1 PM followed by a 30 minute Q & A session.
I hope to help folks eager to transform their yards into sources of sustenance, personal independence, and spiritual satisfaction. Come see how little the freezes affected my food supply, and enjoy fresh raw nibbles as we walk amongst the free range chickens.
John3-20-2011
WATER WISE CONTAINER GARDENING
Hopefully, we are all making wise water use a central focus in our lives as Florida's population continues to boom. Water is scarce and expensive, so I've invented an alternative method of making home made container gardens that grows food and flower crops well with much less water, and that can be made for free to just $10. As a result, despite my yard being an urban farm, my June 2009 water use bill was just $1.35! Most months my water use bill is below $10 despite all the food and Old Roses I grow here. This class teaches you how to make your own from free recycled plastic containers, how to create a great soil mix for it, and easy ways to maintain and sustain yours using cheap and/or dumpster-dived supplies. This simple design avoids the problems that many have experienced with others often described as "self watering containers" and that can cost $100. You'll see several of mine in differing styles and stages of growth to help you decide what works best for you and your space and budget.
I love how they use VERY little water vs. my growing the same crops, including my beloved Old Roses, in my in-ground gardens. Growing food crops in this manner can also allow a gardener to avoid using Tampa's and St. Pete's reclaimed water that has caused severe difficulties for many folks due to the very high levels of salts and chlorides. Plus one is not supposed to eat raw veggies grown with reclaimed water, which rules out growing fresh salads and herbs from one's own garden!
Special attention will be paid to the very common problem of nitrogen deficiency often encountered in container gardening whether one makes one's own soil as I do, or purchases it in bulk or bagged.
You will get two packs of very hard to get vegetable seeds that will thrive all summer long in your Water Wise Container Gardens. The cost of the class is $20 per person. This class has been very well received, so I am teaching it again on March 20, from 11 AM until 1 PM, with a 30 minute Q & A session following.
Come learn how to grow your own organic produce for a fraction of what you pay in the stores while slashing your water use and bill and avoiding the toxic-to-plants reclaimed water.
Find more from John at his blogs:
http://johnstarnesl oveofroses. blogspot. com
http://starnesland. blogspot. com/
http://johnstarnesu rbanfarm. blogspot. com/
