The Climate-Friendly Kitchen Garden Course
The Climate-Friendly Kitchen Garden Course offers practical, hands-on skills in urban gardening, cooking, composting, and basic building skills. This 8-month course will guide participants through the seasons, teaching them how to start their own garden, cook with seasonal ingredients, reduce waste and energy consumption, and build a supportive community.
The course is designed for city dwellers seeking to implement positive changes in their lifestyles. It provides practical skills in sustainable food practices, exploring the impact of food production and ways to reduce it, with a focus on taking concrete action in even the smallest of spaces of city life.
The course is designed for city dwellers seeking to implement positive changes in their lifestyles. It provides practical skills in sustainable food practices, exploring the impact of food production and ways to reduce it, with a focus on taking concrete action in even the smallest of spaces of city life.
WHAT IS COVERED IN THE COURSE |
Urban gardening: How to start and maintain a small-scale garden, even in limited spaces like balconies or garden; planning a garden; how to choose the right plants for your space; companion planting and crop families; starting plants from seeds: Everything that you need to know to start and maintain your own garden! |
Climate-friendly cooking: Plant-based cooking, and with seasonal, locally-sourced ingredients; reducing food waste; exploring the world of beans and new vegetable varieties; discovering the joy of food |
Sustainable food production: Understanding the impact of food production on the climate, and ways to reduce it; how to garden using climate-friendly methods |
Sustainable lifestyle: Tips and tricks for reducing consumption, including resources (like energy and water), as well as for reducing waste |
Composting: How to compost at home and learn different composting methods that can be done in an urban environment |
Basic upcycling skills: How to mend clothing, and make basic DIY building projects using shared tools |
Building a learning community: Sharing skills, resources and experiences to support fellow course participants and De Kaskantine community in making positive changes; learn how to apply all of the above skills also on a community level in the future, if you so desire |
Materials We Provide You:
- Lunch (we will cook and enjoy it during the course!)
- Organic seedlings for your garden in the Spring, Summer, and Autumn
- Notebook to create your very own gardening journal with helpful handouts to take notes and plan your garden
- Online platform to continue your offline learning experience with fellow course participants at your own pace
- Access to small library of climate, cooking & gardening books
- Gardening gloves
Additional Benefits:
- Option to volunteer in the garden to practice skills like gardening, composting, and building (available 2x per week)
- After each course meeting, get 3 hours of access to Kaskantine workshop space to work on your own DIY project, such as building and mending
- Membership to Compost Club, Kaskantine's neighbourhood composting program - bring us your food scraps!
Access to private online platform
Our private Mighty Networks platform provides a digital community hub, free from distractions, that extends the offline learning experience. Course participants have their own personalized space where they can access resources and exchange information with each other. The platform is accessible on both desktop and as a mobile app.
Format of the course:
- The course takes place one Saturday each month and lasts for 5 hours from 9.00-14.00, which includes time for lunch.
- During the 5 hours, the course covers gardening and cooking topics relevant to the current season we are meeting in.
- The course does have a theoretical component, but is mainly focused on practical skill building and activities.
- After the class, participants have the option to stay at Kaskantine and use shared tools and materials to work on their own DIY projects, like building something or using the sewing machine.
- Participants can also sign up to volunteer with the gardening, composting, or building working groups, which take place twice a week, to gain experience and practice if they'd like.
- The course runs from March to October, and is taught by instructors with extensive experience on the the topics covered.
Course Details
Location: Kaskantine, Handbalstraat 1, 1062 XK Amsterdam
Language: English
Course Size: Limited to 10 Participants
Dates & Times: March 25, April 1, May 6, June 3, July 1, August 5, September 2, October 7 from 09:00-14:00
Language: English
Course Size: Limited to 10 Participants
Dates & Times: March 25, April 1, May 6, June 3, July 1, August 5, September 2, October 7 from 09:00-14:00
- March 25th: Introduction Meeting - Make Your Own Personal Sustainability Plan
- At the final course meeting, we'll make pizza, and participants can invite family & friends to celebrate what they have learned.
De Kaskantine: an off-grid learning environment
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De Kaskantine is an experiment in going off-grid, relying on solar energy and rainwater. Participants will learn about alternative resource management methods from upcycling building materials and collecting rainwater to producing solar energy.
While the course focuses on what participants can do on the household level (their very own urban homestead), de Kaskantine serves as an example of a modern homestead and gives you an idea of how sustainability and self-sufficiency can be on a community level. As you'll see throughout the year, we are as a result highly dependent on nature. For instance, we need solar energy to generate electricity, and we need to collect rainwater for most of our water supply. |
Instructors
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The founders of De Kaskantine, Menno and Betty, will lead this course. With the help of volunteers, they have moved and rebuilt the project three times, opened the restaurant twice, and transformed a former football field into a thriving garden, all the while with the aim to build knowledge and expand community-based projects.
While they believe that we need a system change, they understand that empowering individuals and communities with knowledge and skills is crucial in combating climate change. Their passion for climate-based solutions and learning is at the heart of their desire to create a hands-on, practical course for city dwellers to take tangible actions, both personally and in their community. Along with Betty and Menno, there will also be guest instructors, who are experts in their respective fields and who will also bring their own passion to the class. |
How to sign up
The course begins on March 25th, 2023 and you can enroll through the provided from You're welcome to attend the first session to see if it meets your expectations before officially registering (see below), or if you're already familiar with Kaskantine or confident you want to participate, you can sign up right away and pay the course fee. Please specify your preference on the form. The course has a capacity for 10 participants.
Interested and want more information? Join our first lesson on March 25th at 9am!
The first session of the Climate-Friendly Kitchen Garden course will dive right into creating a Personal Sustainability Plan. We will discuss the concept of an ecological footprint and how it relates to resource use and climate. Participants will learn about closing ecological loops at home and in the community, and what is required to start a garden.
We will focus on the impact of food production on the environment and its contribution to our carbon footprint. Topics covered will include what you need to start a garden, potential crops to grow, materials and investments needed, and sustainable gardening methods.
In addition to the theory, the session will have hands-on activities, such as:
This session will give you a taste of the course, and if you haven't already registered, help you to decide if you'd like to participate in the full program.
We will focus on the impact of food production on the environment and its contribution to our carbon footprint. Topics covered will include what you need to start a garden, potential crops to grow, materials and investments needed, and sustainable gardening methods.
In addition to the theory, the session will have hands-on activities, such as:
- building a raised bed featuring a worm hotel (which participants will start and maintain),
- creating examples of personal sustainability plans, and
- cooking a soup outdoors using rescued food and garden harvest.
This session will give you a taste of the course, and if you haven't already registered, help you to decide if you'd like to participate in the full program.
FAQs
What is the Climate-Friendly kitchen course about?
The course covers practical, hands-on skills in gardening, cooking, composting, and basic building skills, and focuses on sustainable food practices from growing to cooking to composting. The course aims to help participants understand the impact of food and energy use and waste production and create a more sustainable lifestyle.
Who is this course for?
This course is for city dwellers who are looking to make changes towards a more sustainable lifestyle in a supportive community, with a focus on gardening, cooking, and composting.
is this course suitable for advanced gardeners?
No, this course is designed for beginner gardeners to gain the skills for their first years of gardening.
Do i need to be a vegan to be in this course?
This course is for vegans and non-vegans alike. During the course, we will be cooking plant-based meals that do not feature animal products, however during the course, we will discussing the Planetary Health Diet, developed by the EAT-Lancet Commission, which does feature a small amount of animal products, should you want to consume them.
Do i need to have access to a garden currently to join this course?
It would be beneficial to have some space to garden, whether at home even in a few containers, or in a rented plot elsewhere, so that you can apply what you are learning on a daily basis and observe your garden throughout the seasons. However we do understand that there may be some people who would like to first learn theory in preparation for when they one day have a garden. That is fine too, and they may find it then beneficial to apply their newly gained knowledge during our optional volunteer workdays. Kaskantine however does not offer garden plots for participants.
Is this a permaculture course?
No. While we will give an overview of different gardening philosophies, we are not a permaculture course.
YOU WANT TO GARDEN, BUT THE TIME ISN'T RIGHT, OR YOU LIVE TOO FAR AWAY, OR...?
If this course is not quite the curriculum you are looking for, or the course times are not quite right, or we are not conveniently located for you, consider checking out some of these other Amsterdam gardening courses:
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