Learn to Grow Your Own Groceries!
Free Online Course Series for Darrington residents and Sauk-Suiattle tribal members!
No matter if you only have a tiny apartment deck, small garden space, or plenty of acreage you can grow fresh food in a healthier, more environmentally friendly way. Join Snohomish County WSU Extension Agriculture Program for the Growing Groceries Education Series, classes designed to help you learn how to grow your own food!
All classes are on Wednesday evenings from 7 pm – 9 pm online using the Zoom platform.
Have to miss a class? No problem! A link to an online recording will be sent to everyone registered along with links to resources and more! With an overall focus on limited space/resources, and the combined challenges of western Washington weather and soils, this series of speakers and topics will help beginners, as well as long time gardeners, learn more about growing food using healthy and sustainable practices.
Darrington residents and Sauk-Suiattle tribal members can attend the classes for free. Contact Kathryn at kathryn@snohomishcd.org or Melissa at mansford710grange@gmail.com for information about how to join each class or click the “Register” button above.
Class Schedule
Healthy Soil = Healthy Plants: November 13, 2024
Learn proper soil and fertility management and how to grow healthy soil for healthy crops. You’ll learn the answers to: What makes a good soil? How do you improve it? What is fertility? To till or not to till? In addition, you'll learn what is good compost, where to find it, how to use it to enrich your garden, as well as how to make compost from your own kitchen and yard waste.
Pete Mackay, Jackie Trimble
Growing the Onion and Beet Families: December 4, 2024
The onion (Allium) family includes asparagus, garlic, leeks, and shallots as well. The beet (Amaranthaceae) family includes everyone’s favorite, spinach, as well as chard, quinoa, and amaranth. Discussion of both families includes variety selection, cultural requirements, common diseases, and pests.
Diane Decker-Ihle
Basics of Irrigation & Weed Management: January 8, 2025
Join us for a discussion of several types of irrigation products and their application in the food garden. In addition, we’ll focus on the details of installing drip irrigation and its application for gardens and plants. You’ll also learn about weed management practices include using mulches, hardscaping, and different cultivation techniques.
Richard Simpson, Rosy Smit
Growing Fruit Trees in Western Washington: January 15, 2025
Learn the basics of growing fruit trees in Western Washington including factors such as site selection, rootstock and size, varieties, pollination, pruning, nutritional requirements and diseases/pests.
Ingela Wanerstrand
Growing the Pea/Bean Family and the Basics of Cover Cropping: January 22, 2025
We'll cover raising members of the Legume family which includes peas and beans both green and dry. Discussion of all includes variety selection, cultural requirements, common diseases and pests. In addition, we’ll go over the importance of adding cover crops to your home garden along with tips and tricks for making it work.
Diane Decker-Ihle
Growing Berries in Western Washington: January 29, 2025
Learn the basics of growing blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries including variety selection, siting and soils, planting, mulching, irrigation, fertilization, pruning, along with management of common pests and diseases including Spotted Wing Drosophila.
Dr. Tom Walters
Seed Starting and Raising Transplants: February 5, 2025
Beginning with how and when to start to seeds, to watering techniques, thinning, and transplanting, you’ll learn how to save money and be successful in starting your vegetables from seed.
Rosy Smit
Growing Broccoli, Kale, Cabbage and Rhubarb: February 12, 2025
The Brassica family includes broccoli, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, mustard, Brussels sprouts, horseradish, sea kale while the buckwheat (Polygonaceae) family includes rhubarb and sorrel. Discussion includes variety selection, cultural requirements, common diseases, and pests.
Diane Decker-Ihle
Growing Tomatoes, Peppers and Eggplant February 19, 2025
We’ll cover all the main members of the Nightshade (Solanaceae) family which includes tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes. Each member of the family has unique requirements to achieve good production in our marine climate. Topics covered include variety selection, cultural requirements, as well as the major disease and pests affecting this plant family.
Rosy Smit
Growing in Plastic Structures and Shoulder Season crops: February 26, 2025
An unheated greenhouse or cold frame can be used to grow greens during winter, start warm season annuals, propagate landscape perennials, and shelter frost tender plants through the winter chill. Besides greens like spinach and lettuce, you can grow cold-tolerant veggies such as cabbage and broccoli in a cold frame or hoop house.
Rosy Smit
Growing the Carrot, Lettuce, and Corn Families: March 5, 2025
The Carrot (Apiaceae) family also includes parsnips and celery along with many herbs like dill, fennel, and caraway. We’ll also cover members of the lettuce (Asteraceae) family, including a short discussion on growing year-round salad greens. In addition, you’ll learn to raise sweet corn worthy of bragging rights when we cover members of the corn (Poaceae) family. Topics covered include variety selection, cultural requirements, as well as the common pests affecting these families.
Rosy Smit
Growing the Cucumber, Squash, and Melon Family: March 12, 2025
This class will focus on growing all things Cucurbit! From luscious melons to giant pumpkins, summer squash to zucchini and winter squash we'll cover all these amazing vegetables and cucumbers too! Topics covered include variety selection, cultural requirements, as well as the major disease and pests affecting these species. Diane Decker-Ihle
Basics of Seed Saving: March 19, 2025
We’ll cover the basics and principles of seed saving including cross-pollination and self-pollination, isolation, open-pollinated varieties versus hybrid varieties, collection, cleaning and drying, storage.
Kate Ryan
Pests, Predators, and Pollinators: An Introduction to IPM: March 26, 2025
Basics of managing disease and insect pests in the home garden using Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Discussion covers a variety of techniques including prevention, cultural practices like row covers, mulching, and more. Learn to identify some of the insects found in our gardens and how many of them help our gardens flourish.
Pete Mackay, Martha Clatterbaugh
Series speakers:
Martha Clatterbaugh has been a WSU Snohomish County Master Gardener for over twenty years. Before that she taught elementary school, where entomology was one of her favorite subjects. She is not a professional entomologist, just an enthusiastic amateur, who continues to learn and share information about this fascinating field.
Diane Decker-Ihle has been a Snohomish County Master Gardener since 1990 and an avid gardener most of her life. She helped establish the WSU Extension Snohomish County Growing Groceries Program in 2009 and has been teaching Growing Groceries classes ever since. She has been an advisor for several community gardens and managed her church’s food bank garden for many years. With B.S. degrees in biology and medical technology, Diane enjoys learning the science behind the sustainable gardening techniques she teaches.
Pete Mackay, a Master Gardener since 2015, has been an active member of the Snohomish County Master Gardener program assisting with clinics, demonstration gardens, potting parties, and the annual plant sale. Always eager to add to his expertise, Pete takes part in the Native Plant/Animal and Perennial study groups, as well as mentoring new Master Gardener interns and other organizational roles.
Lynn Riley, a Washington State native, has been growing vegetables most of her adult life, first in P-Patches around Seattle and later at her home in Snohomish County. A Master Gardener since 2015, she enjoys growing food for family and friends and sharing her knowledge about vegetable gardening. Lynn currently serves as coordinator for the Garden of Giving at Advent Lutheran Church at Mill Creek.
Kate Ryan of Soil Sisters Plants & Produce will share what she’s learned in over 30 years of growing and selling vegetables, herbs, flowers, and plants in western Washington. A self-professed lazy gardener, she’s learned from her many mistakes over the years. A founding member of the Growing Groceries program, Kate enjoys sharing what she’s learned from her many, many mistakes with others.
Richard Simpson has been in the irrigation business for over 40 years. Starting out by digging ditches for his brother-in-law’s installation company, he ended up doing most of the bidding and project management. He and his wife, Peggy, ran their own sprinkler installation company for over 10 years, putting in everything from self-designed residential jobs to large school, park, and commercial installations. After deciding that working half-days (6 AM to 6 PM) was a little much, he was talked into joining his main sprinkler supplier as an outside salesman and filled that role for almost 30 years with a short 2 year break in the middle as a designer/consultant for a local firm specializing in golf course and ballfield irrigation. His project sales have taken him around most of the Northwest and he has had the good fortune to work with many knowledgeable and professional people in the irrigation industry. He has maintained Irrigation Association Certifications as a Designer, Water Auditor, and Golf Auditor for many years.
Rosy Smit was raised on a dairy farm in Canada and has been involved in growing food and agriculture since a young age. With an undergraduate degree in Agro-Ecology and a M.Sc. in Soil Science, she has grown vegetables, flowers and herbs, fruit and berries and assorted livestock on commercial and backyard scales and taught food system educational topics to all ages. She still thinks seed germination is magical and is excited to help more people learn how to grow their own food.
Jackie Trimble has been a Master Gardener since 2009, but gardening has been a passion all her life. She considers herself a lifelong learner and continues to enjoy the peace and satisfaction that gardening provides and marvel at what she has yet to learn. She serves as President of the Snohomish County Master Gardener Foundation and as the chair of the Education Outreach committee.
Dr. Tom Walters is a researcher and consultant for northwest berry growers, helping them find ways to raise berries more profitably and sustainably through his company, Walters Ag Research. He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University with an emphasis on field plant breeding and holds a B.A. in biology from Reed College in Portland. Dr. Walters worked in the field for Sakuma Brothers Farms, Inc. in Burlington where he was responsible for research supporting nursery and fruit production on more than 500 acres in Washington state. In addition, he worked on berry research at the WSU NW Research Station in Mt. Vernon before starting his company.
Ingela Wanerstrand is the owner of Green Darner Garden Design in Seattle, specializing in edible garden design. She has been pruning fruit trees professionally for 25 years and is an award winning educator at Edmonds Community College where she teaches comprehensive fruit growing classes. Ingela also teaches for various organizations like Plant Amnesty and nurseries around Puget Sound.
