The School of Living · everyday skills for a whole life
Gardening & Sustainability
Soil, seed, and season — a garden that feeds you, and a household that sends less to the landfill.
Site, soil, and eight reliable vegetables — a first garden planned, planted, watered, and harvested.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — Reading Your Site
Sun mapping: six hours or bust · Hardiness zones and frost dates · A simple soil test and what it tells you
Unit II — Beds and Containers
In-ground, raised bed, or pots: choosing honestly · Building a raised bed and filling it affordably · Spacing, paths, and reaching the middle
Unit III — The Reliable Eight
Lettuce, radishes, and beans: the confidence builders · Tomatoes, peppers, and squash: the summer core · Direct sowing versus transplants · Succession planting for a steady table
Unit IV — Tending and Harvest
Watering deeply and mulching well · Weeds, pests, and interventions in order of gentleness · Harvest timing and the fall clean-up that sets up spring
What living soil is made of, how to test and amend it, and a compost pile that works without smelling.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~8 hours
Unit I — What Soil Is
Sand, silt, clay: the jar test · Structure, drainage, and organic matter · The living fraction: microbes, fungi, worms
Unit II — Testing and Amending
pH and the big three nutrients · Reading a soil-test report · Amendments: what to add, when, and how much
Unit III — The Pile
Browns and greens: the carbon-nitrogen balance · Moisture, air, and turning · Troubleshooting: smells, pests, and piles that stall · Finished compost: recognizing it and using it
Light first, water second — why most houseplants die, and a dozen forgiving species that resist it.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~6 hours
Unit I — Light, the Only Rule That Matters
Reading your windows: direction, distance, obstruction · Bright indirect, medium, and low light in practice · Matching plant to place, not place to plant
Unit II — Water and Roots
Why overwatering kills more plants than neglect · The finger test and watering by weight · Pots, drainage, soil mixes, and repotting
Unit III — The Forgiving Dozen
Pothos, snake plant, ZZ, and the other survivors · Common pests: gnats, mealybugs, spider mites · Reading leaves: yellow, brown, dropping, and what each means
Replace lawn a bed at a time with regional native plants, and feed the bees, butterflies, and birds all year.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~10 hours
Unit I — The Case for Natives
Food webs: why local insects need local plants · Less water, less mowing, less fertilizer · Keystone species: oaks, goldenrods, and their kin
Unit II — Knowing Your Ecoregion
Finding your ecoregion and its plant lists · Sourcing true natives versus cultivars · Site conditions: matching plants to sun and soil
Unit III — Converting the Yard
Killing lawn without chemicals: sheet mulching · Designing a bed that blooms across three seasons · Leaving the leaves and the stems: winter habitat · Neighbors and ordinances: keeping it tidy enough
Audit your trash, water, and kilowatt-hours, then cut the waste that matters instead of the waste that shows.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~8 hours
Unit I — The Audit
A week of trash, weighed and sorted · Reading your utility bills: kWh, therms, gallons · Finding your household's three biggest lines
Unit II — Energy
Heating and cooling: the largest lever · Water heating, laundry, and the appliances that matter · Sealing, insulation, and thermostat strategy
Unit III — Water and Waste
Fixing leaks and the fixtures worth swapping · Food waste: the biggest trash line in most homes · Recycling honestly: what your facility actually takes · Repair, secondhand, and buying less but better