Back in October I attended a workshop put on by Wild Green Garden Consulting. This was the "Sheet…read moreMulching Magic" workshop, and it costed me a hefty $45 for the day. (Is this my student budget talking??) The workshop was in part a presentation by Claudia, the owner of WGGC, and in part hands-on experience where we sheet mulched part of our host's yard. (I thought it was pretty clever getting folks to *pay* to mulch *someone else's* garden, haha.) Now, let's get this straight right away. Our host, Jane, was lovely. The other guests were lovely. Spending time with them was fun and did impact the overall experience (and made it an enjoyable one). But this is a review of the company only, so I'm not going to include those factors in my rating.
Overall, it was a fairly neutral experience. Claudia took the group of us who signed up through a Power Point presentation and a group discussion. The information was a lot more low-tech than I am used to, and I personally wish the presentation had more detail in it, but that's the used-to-university-lectures part of me speaking.
The day went a little down hill for me when, after the presentation, I asked for a copy of the Power Point slides. We had a small hand-out with the basic sheet mulching process on it, but the presentation contained much more information about gardening in general. Freely sharing slides is common in academia and I didn't think anything of it. Claudia, in front of all of the other guests, gave a short speech about how this is how she makes her living and it took days to make these slides and blah blah blah. Way to make someone feel like a massive douchebag. I can appreciate not wanting to post them online (anyone would be able to take and use them to make said money), but *I already paid for the information*!!! If I want a permanent copy of say, a textbook, I open my wallet and fork out the cash. If I wanted to read it once and not retain a copy, I'd get it for FREE from the library. Get me? Since "materials for taking notes" was not on the extensive list of required materials to bring, I assumed we were going to get hard copies of any formally presented material, and I don't think that's a poor assumption. As it was, I basically paid $45 to forget most of what I learned.
Onto the hands-on part of the day. Well, I am normally someone who learns by doing and I thought I'd really need the hands-on part. But the process of sheet mulching is quite simple and I found it to be a bit redundant and unnecessary (for me, personally). I'm sure it benefits some of the workshop attendees so I don't think the activity should be removed or anything. It was kind of fun, but you know, we were just doing someone else's yard work. The other attendees were what really made this part of the experience fun.
Overall, for the layperson who doesn't do a ton of self-educating, I think this workshop and other workshops offered by WGGC might be beneficial. But quite honestly, I feel a bit ripped off. For the price, I could have bought two books which would have been full of way more information... and if I had any questions I could have found a relevant forum online. I would not attend a subsequent event by WGGC personally, because the information in the presentation is easy to understand without a mediator, because I don't feel like the information was worth the price, and because of the clash of opinions the owner and I have about the distribution of information.
The reason this is getting three stars instead of two is that I must recognize that the service was delivered pretty much as promised, even though the workshop description was fairly vague.
