TAKE YOUR GARDENING UP A NOTCH
Kiss the Ground’s Advanced Regenerative Gardening was created to offer a pathway forward in the regenerative gardening journey for those who have taken our Introduction to Regenerative Gardening course, or those who are coming to us with an established base of knowledge on homestead gardening. This course is designed to deepen students’ understanding of working with the earth and strengthening their connection to the practice of tending the land by teaching students about starting and transplanting seeds, macro and micronutrients, the cultural significance of gardening, integrated pest management, and so much more.
The course features Tashanda Giles-Jones, the course designer and teacher, as well as community leaders and guests with expertise in gardening, composting, regeneration, policy, and more. This 8-module course includes lectures, demonstrations, panels and interviews with industry leaders and experts, a curated list of readings and resources, and a monthly webinar for graduates.
Take this course at your own pace ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.
WHAT IS ADVANCED REGENERATIVE GARDENING?
Regenerative Gardening puts an emphasis on soil health – making the priority of your garden on improving the soil by using different regenerative techniques. By increasing the biology of your soil, this allows your garden to thrive in many ways on its own with water and pest management. If you have found yourself becoming more interested in the connections between growing your own food and planet health, or have gotten swept up in the excitement of seed varieties and the possibilities of contributing to local food sovereignty, or simply feel ready to take your gardening to the next level – this course is for you!
This advanced garden course will build on your fundamental gardening knowledge by connecting you to in-depth understandings of life cycles, plant nutrients, soil importance, troubleshooting, and land ethics all while practicing new skills for impactful gardening.
WHAT YOU GET:
An 8-module program packed with content including lectures, demonstrations, interviews, expert panels, challenges, homework, and curated lists of further resources + recommendations.
Access to a worldwide community of like-minded and inspired gardeners from all over the world.
Monthly webinars to connect with the KTG team, your fellow soil advocates, and experts
Lifetime access to all course content and Kiss the Ground’s Resource Library
Explore Enrollment Options
$ 149.00
ONE TIME PAYMENT
+ Lifetime access to 8 course modules filled with recorded video learning sessions
+ An exclusive community for peer-to-peer interaction and support
+ Access to graduate resources
$ 74.50
2 PAYMENTS
+ Lifetime access to 8 course modules filled with recorded video learning sessions
+ An exclusive online community for peer-to-peer interaction and support
+ Access to graduate resources
Course Modules
Before diving into the specifics of gardening, set your intentions and gather some essential guidelines for your garden journey. Learn the historical pedagogy practicing gardeners utilize as a framework to guide practices and understanding.
Learn how to plan for a vegetable garden by identifying the right space, your individual growing zone, and the climate you live in.
Learn the four parts of soil and the basic fundamentals of soil science including soil formation, chemical properties in soil, and the soil water relationship.
Get a crash course in Botany 101, learning the structure and function of a plant and its relationship with other biotic and abiotic factors.
Learn the macronutrients and micronutrients required for healthy plant growth and production.
Become familiar with the types of commonly found insects in gardens and learn how an insect’s life cycle can be beneficial knowledge in managing their population.
Check your understanding, use your learned knowledge, and hear sage advice from healers in the field before building a plant management plan that includes a diagnosis checklist.
Check your understanding, use your learned knowledge, and hear sage advice from healers in the field before building a plant management plan that includes a diagnosis checklist.
Tashanda Giles-Jones
Guest Lecturers and Interviewees
We are so honored to bring you this course in collaboration of people across the regenerative landscape. The following experts are present throughout the course as guest lecturers and/or interviewees.
Spiritual Garden Coach, The Root Pause
Stephanie Leah
Stephanie is an eco-spiritual practitioner guiding others on responding to climate change from the practical and the spiritual. She has earned masters in both Urban Sustainability and Spiritual Psychology and has extensive experience in developing and implementing eco-valuable services and solutions that create environmental impact reductions, connect people with the natural environment and their higher selves. She uses gardening as a tool to slower living and to maintain a deep connection to earth and community. Her father passed down the knowledge of kitchen gardens while living in the hills of Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Stephanie has worked in the conservation field for over a decade and truly understands the need to respond to our climate crisis from a loving presence.
Garden Educator for Garden School Foundation
Dana Swarth
Dana Swarth has been deeply involved in garden education and organic agriculture since 2006. She has taught at both rural and urban elementary schools and at the community college level and has farmed throughout Central America and the West Coast of the US. Dana is certified in Permaculture Design and ran her own small vegetable farm with a vibrant CSA in Mariposa, CA before moving to LA. She currently serves as the Garden Educator at Annalee and Leapwood Avenue Elementary Schools in Carson.
Co-Creator, Moonwater Farm
Kathleen Blakistone
Kathleen Blakistone is the co-creator of Moonwater Farm, an urban food space created for collaboration, communing, and creation. Kathleen lectures at Cal Poly Pomona in urban agriculture and as a master gardener, entrepreneur, and urban shepherdess, she actively engages with a community of soil stewards, food sovereignty leaders, and placemakers. Her recent presentation, Food Within Reach, was chosen as a winning entry in Pando Populus’ collegiate competition for LA County resiliency. Kathleen also sits on the board of Urban Saddles – a non-profit expanding the equine experience for BIPOC community members. With her leadership, the team at Moonwater Farm has established a participatory model of planning and programming that centers diversity, inclusion, equity, and dialogue as a means to understanding different perspectives and interconnectedness.
Groundskeeper and Horticulture Specialist, Environmental Charter Schools
Eddie Cortez
Born and raised in the South Bay of Los Angeles, local natrualist, plant-person, green-space caretaker. Environmental Horticulture enthusiast and permaculture practitioner, am always seeking ways to build a greener, cleaner, prosperous, and safer community. Groundskeeper and Horticulture Specialist for Environmental Charter Schools since 2009.
Food Preservation Instructor
Brie Wakeland
Brie Wakeland is a UCCE Master Gardener and a Garden School Foundation Garden Educator. Brie is passionate about creativity, culinary arts, health, and wellness. She studied under the late Chef Ernest Miller, and became a certified food preservation instructor through Slow Food in the Spring of 2017. The same year Brie attended the Sandor Katz Fermentation Residency Program in Liberty, TN. Brie also teaches cooking and gardening at A Place Called Home, Los Angeles County Arboretum, Culture Club 101, Highland Hall Waldorf School, The Gourmandise School, and within the Los Angeles Public and County Library networks.
Programs Manager, Garden School Foundation
Rachel Black
Rachel Black is a native Vermonter living in LA. With a background in wellness and sustainability, she is currently the Programs Manager for Garden School Foundation. Rachel is a vital part of the city’s food access movement serving on both LA Food Policy Council’s School Garden and Urban Ag Working Groups, a certified Master Gardener, Slow Food Preserver and California Naturalist, and a board member of Black Thumb Farm. In her spare time, she loves playing co-ed flag football.
Policy Consultant, Sustainable Economies Law Center
Kourtnii Brown
Kourtnii Brown is worm wrangler, soil slinger, and the Founder and Director of Common Compost in Oakland, California. Her on-site community compost projects empower sustainable resource recycling and improve local food systems throughout Alameda County. Before Common Compost was hatched, Kourtnii spent 15 years as an environmental policy analyst working to strengthen natural resource management and build community resilience to climate change, with field experience across the Asia-Pacific region. She currently consults on compost policy initiatives for the Sustainable Economies Law Center that educate community composters from around the Bay Area on how to participate in shaping local compost rules and ordinances. Kourtnii also co-founded and serves as the Steering Committee Chair of the California Alliance for Community Composting, which is administering a $1.35m grant program with the California Department of Resources, Recycling, and Recovery through March 2023.
Executive Director, Compton Community Garden VP, Holistic Divine Innovations
Temu Asyr Bey
Temu is Plant Based chef, Author, Designer, Agriculturalist, artist, wellness coach, teacher & Philanthropist from Compton CA. He has dedicated his life to bringing high quality health foods, plant medicine & resources to his community and general public. His organizations & businesses focus on self sustainability & connecting to nature.
Project Manager, Compton Community Garden Director, Holistic Divine Innovations
Keira Adams
CEO/Founder of Keyssentials , Director fo Holistic Divine Innovations & Project Manager of the Compton Community Garden. Spend my teenage years studying environmental science, effects of plastic consumptions & outdoor education. Currently studying herbalism & forms of holistic healing.
www.unlockingthepowerofnature.com
Program Coordinator, The Growing Experience | Founder, Hands in the Soil
Yancy Comins
Yancy began working at The Growing Experience to help lead the farm’s Micro-Enterprise program , Club Y.C.M.E. (Young Creatives Micro- Enterprise) in which he helped youth in the community develop a small business utilizing the farm as a product source. Yancy is now working on our CSA expansion program through a grant with the USDA.
Strategic Advisor - Phoenix Rising Resources, LLC | Coordinator - Carbon Project at People, Food & Land Foundation
Calla Rose Ostrander
Calla Rose attended Waldorf School K-12 in Boulder Colorado and has focused her education and career on advancing solutions for climate change. She received her BA in International Political Economy from the University of Puget Sound where she wrote her thesis on the political economy of environmental policy in developed countries. She has been a fellow with environmental non-profits Earth Economics and Rocky Mountain Institute and worked for the cities of Aspen Colorado and San Francisco California creating their climate action and adaptation plans, internal sustainability reporting structures and training and community green business and green grant programs. Calla Rose is now the Coordinator for the Carbon Project at People, Food & Land Foundation and works as a private advisor on climate change science, policy and funding through her business Phoenix Rising Resources, LLC.
Owner and Founder of Home Grown Gardens LA
Matthew Van Diepen
I first started growing food professionally on an 3-acre hydroponic organic tomato farm in the Sierra Nevadas called Cedar Mills Eco Farm. After that, I founded Home Grown Gardens in 2011 with the idea of helping people grow their own food in order to help improve people’s health and the health of the natural environment. We currently teach garden classes and set up edible landscapes and farms around homes, schools, and nonprofits.
Stewardship Program Advisor, Kiss the Ground
Don Smith
Don is a speaker, teacher, and student of regenerative agriculture and regenerative lifestyles. His talks are engaging, inspiring, and filled with viable solutions to the world’s largest problems. In addition to speaking, Don helps Kiss the Ground with editing, technical details, and infographics promoting soil as a solution to climate change.
Testimonials
Connect and Learn with Communtity
Our journey to regeneration began first and foremost with community. The idea for Kiss the Ground was born in our cofounder’s living room, where various people with different skills – all united in their passion for this movement – met every Monday to try to problem solve. We understand the power of coming together.
Kiss the Ground’s Online Community on Mighty Networks will connect you with other students and activists in the Regenerative Movement, and keep you informed about the latest courses, projects, news and events at Kiss the Ground! Once you graduate, you will automatically be added to the Advanced Regenerative Gardening community where you will get new perspectives and feedback on your projects from your peers and course instructor.
— Rumi