Victory Gardens San Diego

Learn how to garden and grow food
 

Our signature program is a three-part class offering hands-on instruction that teaches fundamental concepts for growing food where you live. The classes are given throughout the year at different locations throughout the urban San Diego region.

Gardening 101

Home Vegetable Gardening Course

    • 3-part course (three consecutive weeks)
    • 1-day per week (typically Saturday or Sunday mornings)

All classes are hands-on; you will be learning about and using tools and getting your hands in the dirt. By the end of the last class, we will have built and planted a garden.  (Try doing that on Zoom)

Our intention is that learning together, under the guidance from knowledgeable, experienced gardeners, you will gain the confidence, skills and motiviation to begin a garden where you live. Growing food is easier than you think — it changes your relationship with food, nature, and the environment, and is more rewarding than you can imagine.

Class topics include:

      • Garden design and site selection
      • Natural ways to eliminate lawn
      • Building healthy soil
      • Bed preparation and soil awareness
      • Irrigation
      • Composting
      • Plant selection
      • Planting, maintaining, and harvesting your garden

Class Information: Class size is limited to ensure maximum participation. Acceptance into the class is on a first-paid/first-served basis. These classes take place at private homes, schools, workplaces, and organization sites throughout the region.

Since VGSD’s inception in March of 2009, VGSD has taught over 800 new gardeners while building almost 100 home, community, school, and organizational gardens.

Scroll through the gallery to watch a class unfold!

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Host a VGSD Gardening 101 Classes

If you’d like your home, church, business, or organizational space to host a three-week VGSD Gardening 101 class series, please apply here.

Here’s what we need for your site to be considered:

  • no existing veggie garden.
  • at least 8 to 10 hours of full sun.
  • access to water.
  • enough room for  up to 15 people to move around with shovels and wheelbarrows.
  • a teaching area for up to 15 people to sit.
  • a bathroom accessible to participants.

For a typical garden class, the homeowner participates and covers costs of materials for the garden.

We start with a site visit and consultation with the homeowner about their goals and their budget, with the design developed during the first class. The garden is then built by the class itself in the next two sessions, which we require the homeowner to attend.

If you wish to be considered, please fill out our application. You will be contacted and possibly asked to send photos or supply further information.

If things look promising, we’ll schedule a site visit for final determination.

VGSD Values

  • Eating nutritious, locally grown organic food.
  • Promoting genuine empowerment, practical knowledge and self-sufficiency.
  • Fostering community, skill sharing and information exchange.
  • Reconnecting people to food history and its traditions.
  • Growing food in innovative spaces.
  • Encouraging a greater understanding of food systems and their connections to local and global sustainability issues.
  • We help anyone seeking an active role in their own food production!

Our programs have engaged hundreds of volunteers and thousands of volunteer service hours to help San Diegans create a healthier, more local food system.