ONLINE HERBAL IMMERSION PROGRAM

Most of us love learning about herbs in-person but sometimes this just isn’t practical for those with busy schedules and full lives. We crafted our engaging videos to be as close to live instruction as you can get, with a front row seat in the garden –the plants are our esteemed co-stars. Throughout the course, Juliet, along with her trusted team of core instructors, demonstrates the real ins and outs of cultivation, propagation, harvesting, and medicinal use. This is NOT your typical instructor sitting in a classroom with a blackboard. We’ll be elbow deep in soil, head high in garden bushes, and up close and seriously personal with a huge variety of plants. We love how the medium of film allows us to dynamically showcase the plants, visiting them in all their growth cycles and zooming in close for the kind of botanical detail only possible with a hand lens, or high powered macro camera.

Online learning is a convenient way to learn – you can take your class with you wherever you go and complete the lessons at your own pace, when it works for YOU. Easy access to our team of moderators ensures you get the support you need — in most cases, your questions will be answered within 24 hours. And you will be able to connect with a rich community of herb gardeners from around the world!

Our multimedia program is designed for you, whether you learn best from reading, writing or watching. With each module you’ll be provided with additional hands-on assignments to further engage all your senses and creativity. We truly believe you can learn about growing herbs through video and clearly written instruction, or else we wouldn’t have created this program!

You’ll have ongoing access to all the videos, online written materials, and exclusive archived newsletters indefinitely. By joining our learning community, you’ll not only have access to an amazing educational experience—you’ll also be gaining entry into a trusted source of herbal information to revisit year after year. It’s like a perpetual library card to a whole world of herbal knowledge. As a bonus, you’ll also have access to all fresh material – videos and newsletters – that we’ll be adding to the course over the years. Please note that two and a half years (30 months) after enrolling, instructors will no longer be available for questions or guidance, but the connections you foster with other herbal enthusiasts will help support you through a lifetime of herbal learning.

Upon completing our program you will be able to:

• Treat common ailments with homegrown medicines
• Know over 40 easy-to-grow medicinal herbs, including their propagation, cultivation, harvesting, preparation and therapeutic uses
• Create your own herb garden from scratch; starting with inspiration and vision, and branching out into layout and installation
• Prepare tinctures, infused oils, salves, compresses, poultices, syrups, herbal honeys, flower essences, infusions and decoctions
• Concoct herbal culinary delicacies, such as compound butters, finishing salts, pestos, meads, and infused oils and vinegars
• Whip up sumptuous natural body-care products, such as body butters, face creams, bath salts, and aromatherapy serums
• Identify 11 of the most common wild garden weeds, along with their edible and medicinal uses
• Understand the basic principles of aromatherapy and hydrotherapy, and their applications in the home
• Harvest and dry your own herbs
• Know basic botanical terms and how they apply to plant identification and gardening
• Propagate plants – through germination, division, cuttings and layering
• Build healthy soil organically, with amendments, compost and soil microbes
• Be familiar with the characteristics of the 5 most common plant families
• Start your own herbal business focusing on locally-grown plants

When you enroll, you’ll receive login information to enter the student portal, where you will access all the course materials. Our welcome video will walk you through all the nitty gritty details, including how the website works and the layout for the entire program. Each module is comprised of 6-15 individual lessons, which you will complete in sequential order.

You’ll receive immediate access to these Immersion resources:

• The entire program—all web lessons and the printable 1,400-page course manual
• Supplies List & Recommended Reading List
• Access to our Student Forum
• Access to our team of herbal experts for guidance and questions about course material
• Seasonal Herbal Starter Guides

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You’ll have complete access to the entire program as soon as you enroll. To keep you on track and engaged, you’ll receive monthly emails from us with an introduction to each module. However, you’re welcome to move at your own pace through the material.

The lessons are a combination of video and written materials, which you can read online or in hard copy (via a printable 1,400-page PDF that comes with the course). You may print the manual on your own, or order it from our outside printing partner as an affordable five book set. After you have explored all the materials and completed the lessons in each module, we offer self-guided review worksheets, experiential projects and further media resources. These exercises are designed to help you integrate and review the information.

When you’re ready, you’ll take the quiz at the end of the module. If you’re working towards a certificate, you’ll need to reach a grade of 80% or higher to progress to the next module. You can take the quiz over, if needed. If you have severe test anxiety or a learning difference, please contact us— we will create another form of assessment that feels comfortable to you! We mean it; we welcome and support all types of learners.

Every few months you’ll receive an exclusive newsletter, peppered with seasonal gardening tips, recipes, book reviews and updates on herbal happenings and news. The newsletters are printable and archived.

We offer need-based scholarships to our online courses that are selected around our mission of promoting diversity and inclusivity in the field of herbal medicine. They are designed for herbal enthusiasts from underserved populations who face barriers due to our unbalanced social structure – parameters such as race, class, sexual orientation, and gender identification/non-identification will be considered. Furthermore, we seek applicants who plan to use their education to provide further outreach in underserved areas. To receive a notification when we reopen the application period, sign up for our newsletter. See our partnerships page for more details.

Juliet Blankespoor is the green mastermind behind the program, and is the primary instructor and choreographer. She has been growing medicinal herbs for twenty-five years, and has been involved with many aspects of herbal medicine, including owning an herb nursery and tincture business, and directing an herbal school. Her extensive knowledge of plant propagation and cultivation comes from years of growing medicinals for her tincture business and nursery, and gardening with herbs in many different climates.

Other core instructors include Joe Hollis, 7Song, Lorna Mauney-Brodek, Asia Suler and Becky Beyer. See our full line-up of instructors and contributors.

We begin at the ground level, and build from there. You don’t need any prior experience or knowledge. We’re here to answer your questions and lead the way in a clear and easy format.

 Even if your growing area is limited, you can still grow plenty of medicinal herbs! We offer many pointers and techniques for maximizing yields in smaller gardens, such as utilizing vertical space, polycultures, repeat harvesting, and container gardening. If you have at least 250 square feet of garden space available for herbs, you can still grow quite a bit of medicine.

Even experienced gardeners and herbalists will benefit from our course, as we offer detailed instruction on many topics. Some of the material will be review but we believe that most people will gain valuable insights, especially in the area of medical herbalism. Look over the curriculum and list of plants covered to help you decide if the program is right for you. Finally, we do offer a guarantee – (please see the details above). We want our students to be completely satisfied with their learning!

Though a lot of the information in the course will be applicable—propagation and medicinal usage especially, the program itself is more geared toward the gardener than the farmer. We don’t offer specifics on farming, such as market prices, yield per acre, or special mechanized equipment and the program will not cover what you would need to know to get started with a large-scale operation, but you can definitely use the knowledge to help fill in the gaps.

We designed the course for a variety of growing climates throughout the temperate world. The program will be useful for most areas of North America, Europe, Southern Australia and Asian mild-temperate regions. It is specifically geared for USDA Growing Zones 4-9. Check the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map to see what zone you live in. Throughout the videos, we give growing tips for different climates. We also have a whole module with regional features from various bioregions to give you a good idea of the optimal medicinal plants for your climate. Please consult the list of plants covered here. If you’re still not sure if you can grow the plants we feature, consult local growers, herbalists, master gardeners or extension agents and ask if those plants can easily be grown in your area. If you’re still not clear, drop us a line, and we’ll give you an honest opinion about whether you will benefit from this course.

As long as you can grow the plants we cover (see the questions above and below), and have a solid command of the English language, you are welcome to take the course. About 10% of our students reside outside of the United States. We provide metric conversions for all recipe and cultivation measurements. Please note that businesses who have offered perks to our students may not be able to extend those offers to international students.

There are many ways you can approach the program. If you’re enrolling purely for your personal needs and aren’t working towards a certificate, you take all the time in the world. It’s your program to do as you like, but we do recommend following the sequential format, as it builds up from the foundation, with roots, branches, twigs, etc. You can binge watch on the weekends or slowly sip it in on Tuesday nights.

If you’re working towards the certificate you have a timeframe of two and a half years (30 months) from your time of enrollment to complete the program. There are several reasons you may want to aim for a certificate. The dangling carrot can help you keep your eyes on the prize, so to speak. Motivation is even more important with distance learning, where it’s easy enough to fall off the wagon. Gaining a certificate can also give a strong feeling of personal satisfaction – a milestone after hard work and dedication. Finally, the certificate may help to serve your career goals.

The bottom line is that we want the program to work for you and your life, however that looks. Each of you will have a different approach, tailored to your needs. Some of you will move through the materials quicker, while some of you will gain the same benefit, but spread your learning out over a longer time period. But remember, however you engage with the program, you will get out as much as you put in!

This is a 1,200-hour program, and we estimate you can complete the course in 18 to 30 months, depending on your pace. There are 17 modules, each of which contains approximately 2-5 hours of video instruction and 6 to 15 lessons. Additionally, you will want to plan time for reading assignments, worksheets, experiential projects, and studying for quizzes. Each module will take about 25-40 hours of your time, depending on its scope, your pace, and depth of work. To earn a certificate for this program in the allotted 30 months, you’ll want to budget about 30 hours a month, or 8-10 hours a week.

As stated above, you have 30 months to complete the program and gain a certificate. After this time, you’ll have ongoing access to all the materials, but our team of herbal moderators won’t be available, and it will no longer be possible to gain a certificate. Ultimately, we created this deadline because we believe it will help motivate you to finish the program!

Yes! Enrollment is ongoing so you can sign up and begin any time. You’ll receive an email every month from us—with an introduction to each module—to help keep you motivated and on track.

After satisfactorily completing all the assignments and quizzes, and submitting your experiential projects for review (within 30 months of enrolling and after paying your tuition in full), you’ll receive a beautiful certificate of completion. The certificate will state that you completed 1,200 hours of coursework and list the subjects covered. (You can find the subjects and the breakdown of hours on the course outline.) Currently, there is no certifying or licensing agency in the United States for herbalists, so there is no such thing as a certified or licensed herbalist, despite what some schools advertise. However, many people find that a certificate represents the hours and dedication poured into one’s herbal studies. Additionally, a certificate offers a sense of pride for completing the program. In any case,  you will learn valuable skills that we believe are essential for self-care and the foundation for many plant-based herbal livelihoods. We want to be clear that we are not an accredited University or vocational school. We are a school of traditional herbal medicine. Read more about herbal certification here.

Our program lays a solid foundation in clinical herbal medicine, but it doesn’t fully train you in all the necessary subjects to begin a practice, such as anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, constitutional assessment, and drug/herb contraindications. The Herbal Immersion can serve as the first step on this career path, followed by a clinical program. Or it can be taken concurrently with a clinical program to round out your education with more botany, herb cultivation and medicine making. However, the Herbal Immersion does equip you with many valuable skills. You can find a list of these after the section on this page: Here’s what you’ll be able to do after completing the program.

You’ll have the option to be part of a private student forum where you can share triumphs, troubleshooting, and inspirations with a lively community of herbal enthusiasts. Currently, this forum is held on Facebook.  If you have questions for our staff, you can look through our FAQs at the end of each lesson, as well as our general Q & A board. If your question is still unanswered, you’ll send it to us via an e-mail form. In most cases, your questions will be answered by one of our moderators within 24 hours (Monday through Friday). You’ll be able to ask us questions and seek guidance for two and half years after enrolling. After this time, you’ll still be able to connect with other students via our student forum but the moderators won’t be available for questions. Since you’ll still have access to the course after two and a half years, you’ll have continued access to our growing bank of common Q & A’s. (Our herbal team isn’t available by phone or private e-mail, except to provide assistance with technical issues or problems related to accessing the course. Please note that we can’t answer questions related to personal health due to legal and time constraints.) 

We don’t believe you would benefit, as half of the program focuses on growing herbs. We want this course to serve the educational goals of our students, and so we’ll candidly let you know another course would better serve your needs. Our Medicine Making program doesn’t cover cultivation, and touches on the therapeutic use of herbs.

 Yes, we offer a $200 discount on tuition for each student when 3 or more students enroll together. This discount cannot be combined with other offers, discounts, or during a sale. Please contact us for the discount code info: christine (at) chestnutherbs (dot) com. See the question below for details about enrolling with children under 18.

We have worked hard to offer this program at an affordable price and ask that you respect all the time, effort and trust put into its creation by keeping your login information to yourself. When you sign up for this course you enter a pact of community trust along with every one of the students and teachers. It is, of course, always okay to share your own insights and inspirations with friends and family, but building a healing community begins with respectfully supporting one another in our livelihoods. So we thank you in advance for helping us to build a stronger, more trusting community by keeping your login information to yourself.

However, we do encourage sharing your course materials with your children ages 13 and up. We want to nurture the next generation of plant lovers and gardeners. This is a great program for homeschooling families with older children and teenagers interested in plants. If you wish to share the course with your children, be sure to watch our sample videos and lesson plans to gauge the level of instruction before enrolling. Please contact the school for more details if you wish to use this program for your homeschooling curriculum.

You’ll find some of the content of the Herbal Immersion Program in both the Herbal Medicine Making Course and the Online Foraging Course, however, the bulk of the material is only available when you enroll in the full Herbal Immersion Program.

When you enroll, you will receive a list of the kitchen supplies used in most of the recipes and garden tools you will need for cultivating your herb garden. These include items you may already own, such as assorted Mason jars, an electronic scale, stainless steel funnels and labels, pruners, shovels, garden gloves, etc. How much you spend on ingredients and materials will differ, depending on how prolific you are with the recipes and what tools and ingredients you already own. We estimate you might spend anywhere from $200 to $600 depending on these factors. You’ll also enjoy discounts from some of our favorite suppliers for the period of your enrollment—you’ll have access to these discount codes as soon as you enroll. Note that you have two and a half years to ask us questions, but the course is yours for life, so you can spread out your purchases to suit your budget.

Yes, all of our course videos are closed captioned. We believe in making our content accessible to everyone, so we’ve ensured that all videos come with accurate and synchronized captions. If you encounter any issues with the captions or need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our support team.

The primary mission of the school is to educate about holistic healing, which includes discussing socioeconomic factors that affect health, safety, and freedom. A healer cannot truly practice holistic herbalism without understanding and addressing the stress, violence, and discrimination that marginalized people face on a daily level. If a person isn’t safe–or faces discrimination that affects their access to basic necessities and optimal health care–because of their race, religion, age, ability, sexual orientation, or gender identity, then their health is affected. It’s that simple.

The discrimination that affects human rights is a universal concern–transcending political affiliation. We believe these topics are central to any productive conversation regarding holistic herbalism (which takes into account how societal influences affect health, safety, basic human rights, and well-being).

We are actively working on implementing and expanding the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism plan we started in 2018 with the goal of creating a more welcoming and supportive environment for current and new students. The plan includes lessons to educate students who work/will work in healthcare fields about the identities and struggles of communities/peoples they may not belong to. We are also including discussions about health care inequities due to marginalization and bias. Additionally, we’re updating the Herbal Immersion Program with lessons from teachers of color, and we are slowly building a more diverse student body.

Click here to read the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Anti-Racism Statement.