The Garden Master Course - Full Video - Kickstarter Prep

Beau Davidson wrote:

Abraham Palma wrote:About the guy who wants the course in DVD.
In 360p, it says that 1 hour of mp4 video occupies 300MB. If that's true, then we can fit 15 hours of video in a single DVD by using this lower quality. If the course is 90 hours, then it fits in 6 DVDs. That's reasonable. The complete Lords of the Rings trilogy in DVD quality is also 6 DVD, just saying...

I'd rather have it in low quality but able to play it without internet than having it in HD streaming if I am going to use it as a text book.

That's a data dvd, not a dvd that's playable in most dvd players.  Those only hold about 2 hours.

If it's data files you want, I think Paul explored thumb drives a while back.  If I recall, interest was very low and cost was very high.

You are right. I thought I could read that in the PlayStation, but it can't. Even my PC lacks a DVD slot now. I think my wife's laptop still can read them, but they sure are deprecated. A thumb drive of 32GB would be needed (still at 360p resolution). My PC would read that. Even modern smartTV can read a flash drive with mp4 video. Current cost of a 32GB flash drive is $7,50 (SanDisk Cruzer). I don't know if that's still too expensive.

The cost of thumb drives is not primarily in the thumb drive itself, but in the manufacturing of the drives with appropriate data, packaged and mailed to the recipient.  The demand being very low, means a small volume of this product would be inordinantly expensive.

Would a download fulfill this need for being able to play it offline?  Then if you needed to be able to watch it in different locations, could you not populate your own usb drive or external hard drive with the downloaded goodies?

Working on coming up with a name for the kickstarter that will grab people's attention off the Kickstarter front page (were it to make it to the front page. Fingers crossed, of course.)

Here's my list so far:
an online, better-than-organic garden master course
an online garden master course for toxin-free market gardens
a garden master course for homesteads and market gardens
a holistic garden master course for eco-friendly eats
a garden master course, without the toxic stuff
an online garden master course, without the toxic stuff
a garden master course for permaculturists & homesteaders
a garden master course for eating well and saving the world

Say you weren't a permie, and you were just a simple gardening enthusiast, or perhaps somebody who dreams of homesteading, growing their own food, or eating organic. What would appeal most to you? What has the widest appeal, and piques interest? What says "THIS IS DIFFERENT AND BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE OUT THERE!!"?

I think the "pre-launch" page is working.  Can you all see this? Is the "notify" button working?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/garden-master

paul wheaton wrote:I think the "pre-launch" page is working.  Can you all see this? Is the "notify" button working?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/garden-master

Yes. Only this button is enabled.

A new update to the animatic is ready!

We’re still missing a lot of fine tuning, adjusting the soundtrack and audio, adding more visuals, and some more wiggling around but thanks to all of your feedback we’re now at 3:48! Yaaay!!

Please let us know what you think:

Aaaaa caught a typo 🙈, Mr. Alan Boker is missing an “o”.

My internet is super slow right now, but golly, it sure is coming together nicely!  Great work guys!  Hope to have more feedback when things speed back up.

Do some more folks wanna share their thoughts on the latest version of the video draft?

Do you like Paul's 1st person narrative style of voiceover?

If you were a first-timer, would you be motivated to back this kickstarter?

Beau Davidson wrote:Do some more folks wanna share their thoughts on the latest version of the video draft?

Do you like Paul's 1st person narrative style of voiceover?

If you were a first-timer, would you be motivated to back this kickstarter?

Paul's voiceover is significantly lower in volume than the first interviews.  I had my volume turned up to hear Paul and then BAM! i jumped 10 ft (probably more like inches).  

I am biased.  I already wanted this because I'm not able to make it to the live in person course this January.   I think it would depend on what mood i was in.  I love the animation.  But if I was totally new to permies or viewing it as a not yet permies person, I might be more interested if there was more insight into the layout of the course and the topics covered.  I attribute that to my inner control freak.\

The first person totally work for me though.  It makes me more invested because it is actual ownership and genuine interest in the course videos

I think it's great. I don't feel anything should be cut. I particularily like how enterviewers talk while video is showing gardens.
For someone who doesn't know who Fukuoka was, it might not say much, but the video makes it feel that this is something, that something great is going to be teached.
Maybe minor technical issues, like Skandi said. I didn't even notice.

EDIT: Wheaton said: "eventually I became keen on Permaculture", he should have said "duke on Permaculture" instead. XD

What is your favorite animated character?  or scene?  or drawing?

I personally love how fukuoka looks in his cartoon self.  But I really dig helen slinging seeds on a beautiful background as well

Beau Davidson wrote:Do some more folks wanna share their thoughts on the latest version of the video draft?

Do you like Paul's 1st person narrative style of voiceover?

If you were a first-timer, would you be motivated to back this kickstarter?

My thoughts on the this verion

0:40-1:14 Good way to establishing background on Helen Atthowe and Paul Wheaton

1:19-1:31 Overview of course materials?

2:07-2:10 Booker's name needs to be fixed

2:28-3:09 Gives a good insight to Helen Atthowe


1st person style works well for this video.

The first kickstarter I ever did was "The Building a Better World in Your Backyard" book. I had no idea of permies and knew little about Paul Wheaton but his YouTube. I feel that people who are into gardening would back this kickstarter. I am planning to back this one too.

Wrote up a li'l overview of the course. Thoughts?
Would this get you excited? Would this get an unfamiliar aspiring gardener excited?
Any edits, suggestions?

Helen’s teachings will give you everything you need to know to design and manage a garden that will provide food for your home or community year after year, without the nasty chemicals or depleting soil nutrients. Taking direction from nature, your gardens will get healthier and more productive every year, enabling you to take control over what you eat, and the impact your diet has on the planet. Become a Garden Master for a healthier life, and world!

Unit 1: Ecological interactions & how everything is connected.

Learn how light, temperature, water, climate, and terrain interact, as well as all the details on soil types, fertility, drainage, and health. Apply these learnings to your crop choices and garden designs, as we cover species and variety selection for year-round food production for home or market.


Unit 2: Soil fertility, nutrient cycling, & the “soil organic matter system”.

Dig deep into soil ecology, including how to read a soil test, what the test can tell us, and the role and management of organic matter in your soil structure. Know when to till and when not to, how to use cover crops, and how to make and use your own fertiliser. Learn how to recognise deficiencies in plants, and how to fix them using compost, compost tea, and other natural amendments, as well as how and when to apply them.


Unit 3: Strengthen the “immune system” of your agroecosystem.

Tackle pests and diseases the natural way! Learn about beneficial insects and other critters, crop rotation, and microbial biological control so you can stop problems before they even happen. Know when to intervene to limit impact on crop yields.


Unit 4: Working with plant competition in the farm/garden system.

Learn about weeds, and the plants that they compete with. Know which weeds are which, what your crops can handle, and when and how to fight them or leave them be.


Unit 5: Growing a diet

Get the details on growing the right fruits and veggies for you. Learn how to propagate, save seed, space your plants, prune your plants, protect from frost, and rotate crops for long-term success.

Assuming you want to stick to this script, I cut out 0:45 - 1:18 and ran the whole video at 1.25 speed and it came in just under 3:30.  The increase in speed made everyone sound better and it was less boring more exciting.

My wife and I were selling herbs at our local farmers' market this morning.  There's a small but good community of growers.  I thought several times - I really hope this course gets edited and released so I can share it with these people.  

Question for folks - what happens when you click the notify button?  Do you get a message? Does Kickstarter send you an email?

Click Here

Beau Davidson wrote:Question for folks - what happens when you click the notify button?  Do you get a message? Does Kickstarter send you an email?

Click Here

Nothing happened. I did not get a notification, but maybe because I'm already a contributor?

Margaux Knox wrote: Wrote up a li'l overview of the course. Thoughts?
Would this get you excited? Would this get an unfamiliar aspiring gardener excited?
Any edits, suggestions?

Great overview Margaux. These are the details I would want to know before viewing the course.

I think this would appeal to a beginner or first time gardener and someone wanting advance gardening skills they already have.


Take out 'Become a Master Gardener' on the last line of the intro paragraph
-correct me if I'm wrong but this course will not give you certification it's just the info from the certification course.

paul wheaton wrote:I think the "pre-launch" page is working.  Can you all see this? Is the "notify" button working?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/garden-master

Here is where everybody can see how many people have clicked so far.

Margaux Knox wrote:Wrote up a li'l overview of the course. Thoughts?
Would this get you excited? Would this get an unfamiliar aspiring gardener excited?
Any edits, suggestions?

Hi Margaux, it would get me excited. Many here will understand the terminology (e.g. ecological interaction, agro-ecosystems, etc) but I think for Kickstarter/new gardeners some simpler titles would help with those words in the tagline/sub-title or description. For example:

Unit 1: Getting Started
How everything is connected
Learn how light, temperature, water, climate, and terrain interact, as well as all the details on soil types, fertility, drainage, and health. Apply these learnings to your crop choices and garden designs, as we cover species and variety selection for year-round food production for home or market.

Unit 2: Prepare Your Soil
Understanding soil structure and ecology
Dig deep into soil ecology, soil fertility, nutrient cycling, and the “soil organic matter system”, including how to read a soil test, what the test can tell us, and the role and management of organic matter in your soil structure. Know when to till and when not to, how to use cover crops, and how to make and use your own fertiliser. Learn how to recognise deficiencies in plants, and how to fix them using compost, compost tea, and other natural amendments, as well as how and when to apply them.

Unit 3: Strengthening Your Garden
Managing beneficial insects, pest, and disease
Strengthen the “immune system” of your agroecosystem and tackle pests and diseases the natural way! Learn about beneficial insects and other critters, crop rotation, and microbial biological control so you can stop problems before they even happen. Know when to intervene to limit impact on crop yields.

Unit 4: Weeds vs. Garden
Working with plant competition in the farm/garden system
Learn about weeds, and the plants that they compete with. Know which weeds are which, what your crops can handle, and when and how to fight them or leave them be.

Unit 5: Growing a Diet
Planting, pruning and rotating for long-term success
Get the details on growing the right fruits and veggies for you. Learn how to propagate, save seed, space your plants, prune your plants, protect from frost, and rotate crops for long-term success.

Josh Mings wrote:
Hi Margaux, it would get me excited. Many here will understand the terminology (e.g. ecological interaction, agro-ecosystems, etc) but I think for Kickstarter/new gardeners some simpler titles would help with those words in the tagline/sub-title or description. For example:

Awesome suggestion, thank you Josh!

I would definately be interested in buying a video copy of the class.  As for the kick starter video, there is someone in a coat , hat, and gloves, sitting in front of a rocket mass heater.  Given Pauls enthusiastic advocacy for rocket mass heaters, this reflects poorly upon him.  Other than that, and most people probably wouldn't even notice, I thought the video was good.

I was a master gardener here in Missouri.  Then I quoted William Albrecht in a meeting and got shouted down.  So, I left the master gardeners behind and went my own way.  There is a lot of useful information out there that those who sell toxic gick and fund research don't want us to know.   This Garden Master program sounds like a good step toward correcting that situation.

Alex Riddles wrote:I was a master gardener here in Missouri.  Then I quoted William Albrecht in a meeting and got shouted down.  So, I left the master gardeners behind and went my own way.  There is a lot of useful information out there that those who sell toxic gick and fund research don't want us to know.   This Garden Master program sounds like a good step toward correcting that situation.

Thanks, Alex, and what a testimonial for the need for these kinds of resources.  

I think the course description sounds very appealing.

It covers things that other courses cover, but this is the only one I've seen that has it all in the one course.

I'm an experienced food gardener but I definitely feel I could learn a lot more from the course, based on that description.

Thanks for all the great feedback - super helpful!!

We put the course description into the story over at the Kickstarter page.  Does it look okay?  Did we put it in the right place?

What images should we add to bring it to life?  Maybe Andres can work some more magic . . .

GMC Kickstarter Preview Page

Overall, looks good, Beau. There are some spots with a lot of space. Kickstarter is a pain with the formatting I know. The REWARDS section looks good but the description and outline are inconsistent with the paragraph indent and spacing. I may be a bit OCD but the alignment/resolution on the Garden Master Course header image is giving me the twitches. It's also using the old Kickstarter wordmark - see latest KS brand assets here. I can update if you have the layered PSD.

Josh Mings wrote:Overall, looks good, Beau. There are some spots with a lot of space. Kickstarter is a pain with the formatting I know. The REWARDS section looks good but the description and outline are inconsistent with the paragraph indent and spacing. I may be a bit OCD but the alignment/resolution on the Garden Master Course header image is giving me the twitches. It's also using the old Kickstarter wordmark - see latest KS brand assets here. I can update if you have the layered PSD.

thanks, Josh - you are right.  KS is a booger-bear to edit!

I'm excited to support this Kickstarter and see it come to fruition.

So when will I be able to throw my money at this?

S Rogers wrote:So when will I be able to throw my money at this?

Well, the video is still getting polished and there are a couple more changes to make to the overall kickstarter page.  

I would really like to get the "notify me on launch" numbers way up before we launch.  

And we need to finish everything from the previous kickstarter.

A quick guess:  we will start the kickstarter in about two weeks.  And people will get their coin harvested 30 days later.

I don't want to miss a thing so I clicked this link and then I clicked "Notify Me on Launch"!

This means I have the best chance to get all the bad ass early bird goodies.

the kickstarter page on mobile actually looks better than i thought it would. maybe better than desktop. but that's more of a kickstarter thing than our thing. still have some spacing and line break issues to resolve. i think mobile is more important than ever these days.

I have an expirement to make it simpler for folks to recieve notifications when the kickstarter launches, but I need help.

What happens when you click this link?

Nice, Beau. If I haven't selected 'Notify me on launch' the link does it for me. There's no pop-up notification like when you select the 'Notify me on launch' button yourself but it does set the project as Saved. It happens either if logged in already or if one needs to log in first.

Andres says the animation for the kickstarter video should be ready on tuesday or so.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/garden-master


      71!

Maybe a few more 'notify me's' will happen after a few Tweets: https://twitter.com/Permies_forums/status/1573378352618119168 and https://twitter.com/paulwheaton/status/1573378236947771395

I'm very excited about this one.  The videos of Helen that I've seen so far are groundbreaking.  I can attest to her methods as I have used many of them for years, too.  One of the huge, paradigm shifting concepts she shares is that you can almost always grow the fertilizer you need.  You can source from your own property, rather than buying off farm inputs.

I started out the more conventional organic way, using manure and compost, and one of the things that did was introduce massive amounts of unwanted plants seed to the garden.  So it increased my need to weed 100-200-500% at least.  There were big advantages to manure that I required back in Oregon (something to amend the solid pottery-grade clay soil, for example) , but there are big consequences. One of my biggest problems came from buying municipal compost.

With Helen's methods - you don't have buy inputs.  You don't have to make loads and loads of compost.  You have fewer weeding issues.  Fewer bug problems. Great production and nutrient dense fruit and veg.  No accidental pesticides getting added to your property through bought compost/mulch.

Now I live in the desert SW, and still use these methods.  People who see our gardens are surprised about how little weeding we do.  Friends who use manure have gardens loaded with unintentional plants to weed out. (This is an issue particularly with manure from animals that don't fully digest seeds, like ruminants - bird manure doesn't seem to cause this issue.)