Course curriculum

    1. Welcome to the Vegetable Garden Grower’s Masterclass

    1. Starting Your Vegetable Garden

    2. What Does an Organic Kitchen Vegetable Garden Look Like?

    3. Garden Basics

    4. How Big Should Your Garden Be?

    5. What Vegetables Will Thrive in Your Garden?

    6. Growing Season

    7. Spring Garden Planting

    8. Just Get Started!

    1. Your Garden Soil

    2. More About Soil

    3. Determining What Kind of Soil Is in Your Garden

    4. Improving Soil with Organic Amendments

    5. Earthworms and Soil Microorganisms

    6. Setting Up A Worm Bin

    7. Tilling, Digging, and Forking the Soil

    8. Double Digging

    9. Tools You Will Need

    10. No Till or No Dig Garden

    11. About Soil pH and Plant Nutrition

    12. Feeding the Soil, Feeding Plants, Plant Growth

    13. Soil Care Calendar

    14. Making Compost

    15. How to Build and Prepare Healthy Soil

    1. How to Get Growing

    2. How to Test Seeds for Viability

    3. Easy Steps to Start Seed Indoors

    4. Crops Best Started from Seed Indoors

    5. Before Transplanting Seedlings to the Garden

    6. Potting up Tomato Plants

    7. How to Successfully Harden off Seedlings

    8. Setting Transplants in the Garden

    9. Direct Seeding in the Garden

    10. Thinning Plants

    11. Indoors or Outdoors: Where to Start the Seeds

    1. Choosing a Vegetable Garden Planting Method

    2. What Are Narrow Beds?

    3. What Is Equidistant Spacing?

    4. What Are Wide Rows?

    5. Raised Beds and Mounded Beds

    6. The Wide Row Garden Bed

    7. How to Plant Equidistant

    8. Intercropping or Companion Planting

    9. Succession Planting

    10. Space Saving Vegetable Gardens

    11. Space Saving Vegetable Varieties

    12. Growing Vegetables and Herbs in Containers

    13. Growing on Balconies and Rooftops

    14. Decorative Vegetables for Flower Gardens

    15. Crop Lists to Plan Your NEW Vegetable Garden

    16. More Useful Lists to Plan Your NEW Vegetable Garden

    1. Taking Care of the Garden

    2. Watering Vegetables

    3. Water Needs Best on Growing Stage

    4. Water Wisdom

    5. Ways to Water

    6. Mulch for Vegetable Gardens

    7. Common Mulches for Vegetable Gardens

    8. Types of Weeds

    9. How to Control Weeds

    10. Feeding Plants

    11. Organic Fertilizers

    12. How to Apply Fertilizer

    13. Plant Grooming

    14. Vertical Gardening

About this course

  • $99.00
  • 154 lessons
  • 0 hours of video content

Text & media

Vegetable Garden Grower’s Masterclass

Are You Ready to Grow Your Best Vegetable Garden Ever?

The Vegetable Garden Grower’s Masterclass is for both the beginner gardener and seasoned garden expert.

This course will teach you how to grow an organic, healthy, bountiful vegetable garden—for backyard gardeners, balcony, deck and patio gardeners, and community and allotment gardeners.

No matter the size or location of your vegetable and herb growing space, this course is for you. It is filled with hundreds of how-to tips, illustrative color photos, and useful charts and worksheets that will get you growing your best vegetable garden ever.

During the past 25 years, I’ve met personally with hundreds and hundreds of home gardeners—some brand new to gardening and some who have gardened for decades. These gardeners have come to my university courses, master gardener lectures, and home and community garden visit looking for practical insights on how to grow vegetable gardens. Millions more—as many as 10 million visitors a year–have visited my website Harvesttotable.com. All are interested in how to grow their best vegetable garden—whether it’s a few pots on the balcony, a backyard garden, or a community garden plot.

Many have asked for an online course that brings my talks and lectures together in one place. This course—Vegetable Garden Grower’s Masterclass—and the accompanying book—the Vegetable Garden Grower’s Guide—deliver the growing knowledge and tips that I have learned first-hand and the knowledge I have learned from many master gardeners and students that I have had the privilege to work with through the years This course brings together my years of in-garden and classroom lectures and talks—more than 175 topics in 8 lessons.

It is the course I have taught and refined in gardens and classrooms over nearly three decades. It is the course hundreds and hundreds of my university students have taken—some more than once, always looking to learn more about growing the food we and our families love to eat.

What’s In the Vegetable Garden Grower’s Masterclass?

  • The course is divided into 8 lessons and contains more than 175 topics. The course follows a near chronological garden year format and includes:
  • Vegetable garden conception and planning.
  • Site and soil evaluation.
  • Soil and site improvement.
  • Types of planting beds.
  • Vegetable crop selection.
  • Seed starting—indoors and out.
  • Transplanting and early crop development.
  • What crops need to grow—light, water, and nutrients.
  • How to grow achieve a bountiful harvest no matter the size of your garden—including container, balcony, and rooftop gardens.
  • Keys to the NEW growing method—narrow beds, equidistant planting, and wide rows.
  • Crop care in season—watering, weeding, and feeding.
  • Troubleshooting pests, diseases, and environmental problems.
  • Planting a fall and winter garden.
  • Harvesting and storing crops.
  • Season extension techniques—growing in vegetables in cold weather.
  • End of season tasks.
  • Planning for the next season and crop rotation.
  • Cover crops and renewing the soil.
  • Plant and growing tips for 55 crops.
  • USDA Growing Zones and climate information for the United States, Canada, and Europe.
  • Recommended varieties to grow year after year.
  • Useful charts for planning the garden year.