Teaching and Speaker Services

Garden Coach Mark Lyons, an experienced teacher, workshop facilitator, and public speaker, offers a variety of topics that can be presented as classes, seminars, workshops, or speaking subjects at schools, conferences, gardening centers, and meetings. Contact him Call or e-mail him through his website as soon as possible to review your organization's requirements, determine his availability, and to find out his fees.

• Power Vegetable Gardening

  Take part in the backyard gardening hobby that's growing in popularity, and experience the joy of harvesting power crops of healthy, delicious, sweet, crunchy vegetables! This topic reviews the basic techniques of vegetable gardening. Everything from site selection, soil preparation, and seed starting through fertilization, watering, pest control, and harvest will be covered. Both new and experienced gardeners will learn something they can use.

• Organic Power Gardening

  Growing organic fruits and vegetables is good for the environment and your palate. Learn about and practice site selection, soil preparation, and seed starting through fertilization, watering, pest control, and harvest. Depending on the season in which you are enrolled, you will get hands on experience in planting, maintenance, or harvesting. You can enroll multiple times for a full cycle of planting. Mark Lyons, an experienced vegetable gardener with a degree in agriculture, will manage the curriculum and instruction. Hands on gardening will be at a garden space jointly maintained by Little City and Harper College on the Little City campus on Algonquin Road.

• Growing Terrific Tomatoes

  Nothing compares to the sweetness and flavor of a fresh, home-grown tomato! Mark Lyons, an experienced garden consultant, will show you how to successfully grow this juicy, mouth-watering garden fruit in your own backyard or container garden.

• Vegetable Gardening in Small Spaces

  Lacking a big backyard does not mean that you can never have your own vegetable garden. This topic will show you tips and techniques for making the most of limited space to grow a bountiful harvest of sweet, crunchy vegetables.

• Growing and Using Herbs

  Herbs are wonderful plants that add color to our gardens, flavor and nutrients to our food, and health to our bodies. In this class, Mark Lyons, an experienced gardener, will show you how to plant, cultivate, use these wonderful plants.

• The Container Herb Garden

  Herbs are wonderful plants that add color and flavor to our meals and health to our bodies. They are usually grown in a garden, but they can also be grown in smaller more enclosed spaces. In this class, Mark Lyons, an experienced herb and vegetable gardener, will show you how to arrange and grow your favorite herbs on a smaller scale inside a container.

• Fall Vegetable Gardening

  Vegetable gardening does not have to end when summer does! This topic will review how to prepare your garden for the fall, and discuss what vegetables are ideal for planting and harvest during this season. Grow a bountiful crop of delicious, sweet, crunchy vegetables for good healthful eating throughout fall and even into winter!

• Preserving the Harvest

  Your garden has yielded a bumper crop of fruits and vegetables—and your friends and neighbors can't take any more. So what are you going to do with the surplus? This topic reviews a number of ways that can be used to preserve the harvest through the winter, and maybe even beyond. It will cover canning, freezing, dehydrating, and winter storage techniques.

• Vegetable Gardening for the Whole Family

  Vegetable gardening is a fun activity for all generations—grandparents, parents, and children. So gather the whole clan and learn some techniques for working together as a family to grow a bumper crop of sweet, crunchy, mouth-watering vegetables while having tons of fun doing it!

• Parent-Child Vegetable Gardening

  The family that gardens together stays together! Here's an opportunity to cement the bonds with your child by partaking together in a fun and healthful activity. This topic shows you and your children how to plan, plant, cultivate, and grow a successful vegetable garden while having fun doing it!

• Grandparent-Grandchild Vegetable Gardening

  The time you spend with your grandchildren is precious. Why not make it even more so by joining with them in a fun and healthful activity that will make your time together even more special? This topic will teach you and your grandchildren how to plan, plant, cultivate, and grow a successful vegetable garden while having fun doing it!

• The Joy of Perennials

  Perennial flowers, with their bright colors and long life, are an excellent addition that can liven up any garden. In this class, Mark Lyons, an experienced gardener, will show you how to grow and cultivate these beautiful garden gems, along with how to choose the best and hardiest specimens for our region.

• Home Cheesemaking

  Good cheese tastes even better when you make it yourself! This topic reviews the techniques for making your own cheese. It will cover the science behind cheesemaking, along with ingredients, equipment, and techniques for making soft, hard, Italian, and other kinds of cheeses. It is primarily intended for new cheesemakers, but experienced cheesemakers may learn something new.

• More Home Cheesemaking

  For those who have experience making their own cheese, or those who have already taken Home Cheesemaking... This class is for you. In this class we will delve a little deeper into the science of cheeseaking, and students will have the opportunity to make several types of cheeses, such as Feta, Cottage Cheese and Soft Goat Cheese. First class is lecture, demonstration, and handing out the supply list.

• Heavenly Dairy Products, a.k.a. Crème de la Crème

  There is more to dairy than just milk. In this class, Mark Lyons, an experienced cheesemaker, will show you how to turn that milk into wonderful treats such as butter, cheese, buttermilk, crème fraîche, and Devonshire clotted cream.