San Juan Soil & Water Conservation District, in partnership with San Juan College, offers a series of Backyard Conservation Workshops designed to bring conservation practices from farms and ranches to your backyard. 

Spend a Saturday (or six of them) developing and improving conservation practices to bring beauty and diversity to your yard, regardless if your yard is measured in acres, feet, or flower pots. Learn skills that farmers and ranchers use to help them meet their production goals while protecting natural resources. Workshops have the bonus of free materials given to participants, under guidelines of grant funding. These workshops can be taken individually for $10 each. Each class is 9 am-noon, Saturday, SJC Room 1925. Register through San Juan College Community Learning Center. If class cannot meet face to face, students will be provided links to online videos of the presentations and will need a phone to call into a conference call the day of the workshop. Please provide your email that you can access from home and check regularly. Course ID: CHOHO 283. Plan for both indoor and outdoor class time. (40 max, free materials will be given to the first 25 students registered)

Summer/Fall 2020 Season Workshops:

B1. Managing Invasive Weeds and Cover Cropping (free cover crop & living mulch): 7/25
B2. Seed Harvesting and Storage (free seeds): 8/29
B3. Soil Health: Composting, Mulching, and Cover Cropping (free compost tumbler): 9/26
B4. Water-Smart Landscaping and Rainwater Harvesting (free rain barrel): 10/10
B5. Tree Planting and Care (free trees/shrubs): 10/24
B6. Organic Gardening and Permaculture (free materials TBD): 11/14

If you would like to access the presentation or handout materials from a past workshop, select the course topic below. You can also check out our Backyard Conservation Workshop videos on our San Juan SWCD YouTube Channel.