A Thriving Garden – From the Ground Up with Shandra Furtado
Learn keystone techniques for establishing native plants and begin to create a thriving ecosystem in your own backyard or porch. Get past your fear of killing plants because you don’t have a “green thumb” with easy to grow perennials and fool proof instructions for basic soil building. Set the foundation and then trust nature to do the rest of the work.
In this workshop you will learn an easy and cheap way of creating garden beds through sheet mulching, a permaculture technique that builds soil health organically. You can use sheet mulching directly over the grass, or in raised beds. We will give you tips on container growing if you want to start there or do not have the space to grow in your yard. You will then learn about 9 native plants (3 full sun, 3 partial-sun, and 3 shade) that are easy to grow and require minimal maintenance to stay healthy once established.
Shandra Furtado is the Executive Director of the SNAC Garden Foundation, a local non-profit that manages school garden programs in Sussex County.. She is currently in training to receive her permaculture landscaping certificate, which is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems.
