UPCOMING WORKSHOPS/EVENTS

grow your own medicinal herb garden with Alena Steen

On February 29th, the wondrous Alena Steen of Earthtide Botanicals will teach us how to plan, grow, harvest & prepare medicine from our own herb gardens! Learn the basics of building a home medicine garden. Fall is the perfect time to plant many medicinal plants such as California native plants, trees & shrubs, and spring-booing annuals just in time for winter rains. Even a small space can grow a dense garden of plant medicines for tea, salves, and herbal vinegar or alcohol infusions. In this class, you will learn to prepare your garden space and select a diversity of plants to grow for many different uses (anxiety, sleeplessness, wound-healing, smooth digestion, etc.) and how to care for your garden through the seasons. Learn how to use your harvest, including the basics of drying herbs for tea and preparing herbal infusions. Bring home your own herbal vinegar tincture with many healing properties and culinary uses.

3-5:30 pm, Saturday, February 29th at Poco, under the trees. For maximum absorption, bring a notebook, a map of your garden area, and some awareness about what your body needs from plant medicine.

Alena Steen has over a decade of experience in organic agriculture and horticulture. She runs a large community garden in Carpinteria and tends a food and medicine garden in Casitas Valley. Together with her partner, she creates a line of herbal products from their garden, called Earthtide Botanicals. We are members of her herbal CSA and LOVE it.