Growing food is not particularly simple, easy or basic. But its not rocket surgery, either.
The point is, there's stuff to learn, and its always better to learn by a combination of solitary trying-things-out, and guidance from people who've walked the path already.
Once you have any necessary structures, and the soil-stewardship project started, you can then focus on building your skills.*
If you've never done food-gardening before, you will inevitably learn a lot during the S-Start process, but we also want you to be supported in your first growing seasons, after we've been and gone, to stay on the learning curve. So we're building and refining a set follow-up sessions on Zoom, where you can ask questions, reflect on methods and share results.
We'll support you to learn to effectively cultivate soil, protect soil, build fertility, raise seedlings for transfer, direct sow, save seed, make compost, grow cover crops and green manures, plan for succession harvesting, decide on and test planting rotations, harvest for direct use or storage, manage weeds and pests, water efficiently, and so on. We can give guidance on tool choice, plant varieties for our climate, whatever soil science is needed, and whatever else comes up. If we can't answer a question ourselves, we'll find someone who can.
Our people have been doing this fun stuff for a while and are good people to learn from. They'll bring to these Zoom sessions not only a deep grab-bag of knowledge, but also such things as empathy, humility and a memory of what is was like to stumble around at the start, trying to figure out how it all works.
This is an ever-evolving part of the process, subject to constant refinement. We'll let you know details of our current Skill Sessions when you enquire into the S-Start program.
(* It should be noted that starting a food garden can require other things than structures, soil and skills. Another basic is to have an available water source. Most people will have this already, in some form, so we don't make it a focus. If you don't have water on hand at your garden site, let us know and we can help you set that up too. We're happy to consult on any other things you may also need, but structures, soil and skills are, in our opinion, the foundation.)