Herbalism Apprenticeship

The Urban Growers Collective Community Herbalism Apprenticeship offers the opportunity for participants to engage with plants; to build a relationship with plants; and ultimately, to use plants for personal, family, and community healing.

This four-season apprenticeship moves in tandem with the seasons and with the other programs at Urban Growers Collective. Working with the rhythm of the seasons, we’ll seed, plant and transplant, nurture, harvest, process, preserve, and collect seeds from herbs. As we cultivate herbs we will also learn to identify and observe the wild plants ‘volunteering’ alongside those intentionally planted. 

Urban Growers Collective offers this apprenticeship model of learning to nurture individual development in the practice and field of herbalism. Rooted in a faith that each human being has unique gifts, this program offers opportunities that uncover and nurture those gifts. Moving beyond simple offerings of recipes and ‘how to’ classes (but also including both), our apprenticeship model provides space for an exploration of herbalism from seed to remedy.  The program is responsive to these times when so many people are looking to nature for remedies for personal and societal illnesses. 

As apprentices build knowledge over time, three phases of learning will be offered: self-healing, family healing and communal healing. Though such categories are permeable, primary exploration begins with the self and the element of water. As we gain personal understanding of self and the herbs, we expand. Questions, frameworks and focus change in each phase but the primary classroom stays the same.  

Together, we will learn to :

  • Identify wild and cultivated plants in all stages of growth

  • Tend plants for healthy propagation and appropriate maintenance

  • Harvest plants for use; understand best practices in harvesting wild and cultivated plants

  • Make herbal preparations

  • Learn core concepts of herbalism

  • Track current and past herbal trends

  • Create a materia medica based on observation and reputable resources

  • Learn herbal actions

  • Build a community committed to using herbs

  • Understand body systems

  • Explore non-Western herbal traditions

  • Examine political impact and roots of herbalism

  • Explore spiritual herbalism

  • Learn cultural roots of herbalism

  • Explore spiritual dimensions of herbalism

The apprenticeship commitment is 100 hours. This is a hybrid in-person and virtual program that includes opportunities to engage with herbs on UGC farms as well as in-person and virtual workshops facilitated by Rev. Kim Crutcher, LCPC, and guest speakers.

The tuition exchange for the program is sliding scale from $500-$1500 with a $100 materials fee.

If you have further questions, please contact programming@urbangrowerscollective.org

Applications for the 2024 Herbalism Apprenticeship Program are now closed. Submit the form below to join our waiting list and be the first to know when applications open in 2025.

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We give priority to applicants who have been involved with UGC in some way — such as visiting our South Chicago Farm, attending a tour or herb walk, or volunteering.