Is this for you?
There are three ways into our Fundamentals of Community Herbalism. Same curriculum, same teachers, three different containers:
Online Guided — a cohort year with set dates, weekly lessons, and live classes with us on Zoom.
Weekend Hybrid — one full weekend a month, in person, in the Southern Appalachians of Rabun County, Georgia, with video lessons in between. New for 2027, and our first in-person certificate program since 2019.
Self-paced — the same material, on your own schedule, with a monthly live Q&A if you want it.
Most of what follows is true of all three. Where it isn't, we say which is which.
A few answers to the questions people ask us, and to the ones they don't ask but wonder about.
Do I need experience?
No. Some of our students have been reading herb books or taking classes for a decade. Some have never made a strong herbal tea. Both do fine, because we start at the beginning and build in order—flavors, actions, patterns, medicine making—rather than assuming you picked up the basics somewhere.
If you've been studying on your own, you'll probably recognize the feeling of knowing a lot of scattered things that don't add up to a method. That's the most common way people arrive here. You're not behind. You just don't have the frame yet.
Do I have to want to go pro?
No. And most of our students don't.
Only a minority of people who apply to us mention wanting a clinical practice, a credential, or a livelihood in herbalism. The rest want to take care of their families, their neighbors, their crew. They want to be the person people can call. That's a completely legitimate reason to spend a year or two on this, and it's who the program is built for.
That said, if you do want a practice, these certificates document real hours toward advanced training or registration with the American Herbalists Guild, and our Clinical Mentorship Circle is there for graduates who want to go further.
How much time, really?
Online Guided runs about four hours of video lessons a week, plus three to four hours of reading, assignments, and hands-on practice. Call it seven to eight hours in a regular week—about one full day.
But not every week is a regular week. Every fourth week is an Integration Week: no new lessons at all. You have one peer session, and otherwise the time is yours to catch up, review, or make medicine. There are also two full break weeks, when school is shut down with no expectations whatsoever.
Weekend Hybrid meets one full weekend a month, Saturday and Sunday, March through November. Those two days are immersive—you're with us and with the plants the whole time. During the rest of the month you'll have about eight hours of video lessons and roughly twelve hours of reading, assignments, and practice. More time with the material is always welcome, but that's what's asked.
Self-paced has no weekly requirement at all. Some people finish in six months, some take two years. Same material and roughly the same lesson hours, spread however your life allows, with a live Q&A on the third Tuesday of each month if you want it.
Advanced Community Herbalism runs a bit heavier than Guided Fundamentals: roughly four hours of video and four to five hours of independent work, in the same four-week rhythm.
What is the work actually like?
Whichever route you're on, it has two halves.
First, the lessons. Video classes, handouts, readings. You watch, take notes, and jot down questions.
Then the doing part. An assignment might be to sit with one herb all month and record what you notice. To make a preparation and report on how it went. To find an open flower, draw it, and label the parts. This is the half people are surprised by, because a lot of online programs skip it. But you can't learn herbalism without the embodied, experiential piece, and without people to share it with.
What differs is where the doing happens and who's beside you.
Online Guided: new lessons unlock Monday morning and the whole cohort is working on the same material that week. Every four weeks you meet live with instructors on Zoom for three hours — review, discussion of the readings, questions, practice cases. In between, you're doing the hands-on work in your own kitchen and your own neighborhood, and bringing it back to the forums.
Weekend Hybrid: most of the doing happens together. Over nine weekends you'll spend thirty-plus hours in the field practicing botany and plant identification, harvest plants and make medicine with them the same day, taste herbs side by side, and work through the body system by system. Then you take the month to let it settle, with videos to go deeper.
Self-paced: you unlock the next module when you've finished the last one, and the forums and monthly Q&A are there when you surface.
What if I fall behind, or lose momentum?
You will, at some point. Nearly everyone does. It's the most common worry we hear, and all three routes are built with it in mind.
In a guided year, Integration Weeks exist so that a bad stretch doesn't leave you with no way back—a full week, every month, to close the gap with nothing new piling on top. The two break weeks give you more. And if something larger happens—an illness, a loss, a crisis—talk to us. We know all of our students by name, and we would much rather work something out than watch you disappear.
Self-paced, there's no such thing as behind. The course will always be there for you. The trade-off is that nothing outside you keeps you moving. If you've started self-directed courses before and not finished them, that's worth knowing about yourself. The guided year exists for exactly that reason.
In-person, you have the entire month between classes to arrange as your life allows. If you fall behind on the video work or have to miss a weekend, reach out—we'll work out how to get you caught up.
Can I afford it?
Online Guided Fundamentals is $2,100 for the year. Weekend Hybrid Fundamentals is $3,000. Advanced Community Herbalism is $2,550. Self-paced Fundamentals is $1,450. We know that's real money.
Every cohort program — Online Guided, Weekend Hybrid, and Advanced — can be paid in ten monthly payments. No interest, no fee, no added cost for choosing the plan. You don't need to apply for it, qualify for it, or explain yourself to anyone. You just choose it when you enroll.
Self-paced has its own payment plan, plus group discounts for two or more people enrolling together and a discount for Black and Indigenous students. Details here.
Who is this not for?
We teach that health is shaped by the conditions people live in—including poverty, racism, transphobia, and much more—and that's woven through the curriculum, not bolted on. If you want herbalism without that, there are good schools that will give you what you want, and we'll happily point you to them.
We also teach an integrative approach. We think conventional medicine has real strengths and real failures, and we say so about both. If you're looking for teachers who reject biomedicine outright, that isn't us.
Our school is not gender-essentialist. Our teachings affirm and accommodate the existence and the needs of transgender and non-binary people.
So which course?
Online Guided if you want a cohort, a schedule, and regular contact with us—especially if accountability is what's been missing before.
Weekend Hybrid if you can get to northeast Georgia once a month and you want your hands in the plants. Rabun County is about an hour and a half from Atlanta, Athens, Greenville, and Asheville. This is the immersive option.
Self-paced if your life won't hold a fixed commitment, or you already know you learn well on your own.
And if you've already been to herb school, Advanced Community Herbalism may be right for you.
See how all our programs fit together →
Still not sure?
Write to us. A real person will answer, and we'll tell you honestly if we think a different program—or a different year of your life—would serve you better.