Online Urban Agriculture Program | OSU Continuing Education

Have you ever wanted instant access to fresh and delicious fruits and vegetables?

Whether you call it "city gardening" or "urban farming," urban agriculture is the process of growing your own fruits and vegetables right where you live.

In this new online Urban Agriculture program, you'll receive a personalized start-to-finish roadmap for growing the crop of your choice in your unique site!

Learn Urban Farming

In this online urban agriculture series, you won't need a farm or production site to get started. You can apply directly what you learn to your own backyard or limited space area and by the end of the program, you'll have a complete set of plans to grow your own thriving crop!

We will cover the basic steps together and you can ‘rinse and repeat’ with a different crop each time you want to add something to your garden.

Avoid Common Mistakes

Rather than going it alone, you'll avoid the common mistakes and pitfalls by working directly with OSU's expert instructors. To ensure your city farm is a success, you'll learn:

Land rights
Access to water
How to handle pests
Recommended tools
What crops to grow and how much space do they need

Completing this program will leave you with the tools, knowledge and understanding needed to take on your own urban gardening project that thrives and doesn't interfere or impact your neighbors.

Focus on One Crop

In this program, you'll have an opportunity to focus on the crop most important to you and your urban agriculture project. Focusing on a single crop will provide plenty of work for this series. Plus, after you finish, you will be able to transfer what you learn in the process of planning this first crop to subsequent crops.

Urban Agriculture Courses

This program uses the same material as three of our self-paced courses but in an instructor-led format. This format allows more opportunities for engagement and additional materials and assignments to help you learn. Advantages of the instructor-led option include:

Instructor feedback on assignments and response to questions
Timely group discussions and peer interactions
More responsive to non-traditional crop choices
Qualifies for certificate program
Smaller class size and increased feeling of community
Set schedule, guaranteed progression/completion, motivation
Increased confidence (Bylow, Karlsson, Claesson, Lepp, Lindqvist, & Herlitz, 2019)

The self-paced courses include:

If you've ever wished your local grocery store had more variety or if you've ever wanted to turn a gardening hobby into a successful small business, or if you simply wanted the freshest fruits and vegetables, then this program is for you!

Ecampus Undergraduate Certificate

This noncredit certificate is an accessible and flexible option for those interested in enhancing their urban agriculture skill set in an informal setting. The OSU Ecampus transcript-visible undergraduate certificate is designed to train professional urban agriculturalists through a comprehensive, rigorous curriculum based in the sciences and social justice.

Helpful Articles

Jan. 24 - Apr. 3, 2022

Online

$265 (+$60 registration fee)

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Instructors

Gail Langellotto

Gail Langellotto is a Professor of Horticulture at Oregon State University, where she also serves as the Principle Investigator of the Garden Ecology Lab and leads the statewide Oregon State University Master Gardener program. She has a M.S. and Ph.D. in entomology, and has published research on topics as diverse as the costs of starting and maintaining a vegetable garden, pollinator-friendly gardens, and the benefits of gardening to healthy eating. Her OSU Extension Service and outreach efforts are focused on communicating research-backed management practices to home gardeners. For the online Master Gardener and urban agriculture PACE courses, she supervises overall course development, and reviews and contributes to course content.

Mykl Nelson

Mykl came to the Pacific Northwest to enter the agricultural sector. He spent a handful of years at Oregon State University to retrain in a new undergraduate degree so he could finish with a Master’s of Horticulture. He is now creating and teaching courses at OSU as the Instructor of Urban Agriculture. Outside the university, Mykl gardens when he can and runs a number of nutrient cycling experiments.

Past Students' Work

Take a look at some recent projects our students have created.