Online Design your own forest garden course 13 June to 19 July
Rakesh B
Public
Seen by 101
2 weekends introduction on how to design food forests
4 weekends design your own forest garden + how to implement
9:00 to 13:30 Sat & Sun (See dates below) 4 hours per session plus half hour break
Imagine your garden looking as lovely as a woodland edge. Imagine that on top of looking wonderfully wild, it produces an abundance of nutrient dense food and will ultimately need very little digging, weeding, manual watering or pest control - all in harmony with animals and other beings (eco friendly and vegan). This is ‘an edible forest garden’.
Forest gardening is a way of growing food where nature does most of the work for you. Modelled on natural woodland, crops are grown in different layers from high and medium sized canopy to roots, ground cover and climbers. And its not just food and medicine you will get from the forest garden, there are many more yields.
Through careful planning plants are chosen which have beneficial effects on each other, attract beneficial insects and create a healthy biodiverse rich system that maintains its own fertility. Once established, your main task will be harvesting!
====== WHAT TO EXPECT =======
This workshop is in 2 parts, the first part will give you the tools you need to design your own forest garden.
The second part will give you an opportunity to design your own place with the help of others. You will also learn how to implement your designs.
====== DATES & MORE DETAILS ON WHAT TO EXPECT ======
First 4 session (2 weekends) Introduction to forest gardening
Sat 13th & Sun 14th June
Sat 20th & Sun 21st June
This section of the course you will learn about the basics of designing a forest garden. You will get to understand
- How to select the right plants for your environment
- Where to place them to ensure they thrive
- How to ensure you have the right nutrients cycling to ensure good crops
- History of forest gardening
- Why make a food forest
- Layout of a forest garden
- Multi-functional pathways
- Creating abundance and resilience
- Low maintenance food growing
- Patterns in nature for forest gardens
- Understanding and maximising edge
YOU CAN ATTEND JUST THE FIRST 4 SESSIONS AS A STAND ALONE COURSE
Next 8 sessions (4 weekends) Work on real designs and implementation
Sat 27th & Sun 28th June
Sat 4th & Sun 5th July
Sat 11th & Sun 12th July
Sat 18th & Sun 19th July
This is where you start to make your own designs. You will
- Make maps and gather the right information to make a design
- Identify your needs and the lands needs
- Make a design for yourself or help someone else (if you do not have a place to design yet)
- Learn how to implement your designs (where to start)
- Make a succession plan (how the forest garden grows and matures by itself)
- Think about any maintenance
- Think about how you harvest your yields
- Water management
- Tree and plant guilds
YOU MUST HAVE ATTENDED THE FIRST 4 SESSIONS OR HAVE DONE AN INTRO COURSE WITH RAKESH TO JOIN THIS PART
====== REGISTRATION ======
To register for this course, please click on the ticket section below and fill in the form (make sure you hit the submit button, after which you will get an email confirmation). If you do not get an email confirmation, have any difficulty filling it in or have any questions please feel free to contact Rakesh
https://forms.gle/Y2ic5d2hJh2tqYXJ6
====== LEAD FACILITATOR ======
The course will be led by Rakesh “Rootsman Rak” - experienced Permaculture designer, teacher and Forest Garden specialist, yoga teacher and homeopath. He has been growing food since he was a child, and has been designing and teaching edible landscaping, permaculture, forest gardening, etc since 2009. Rakesh has designed and implemented forest gardens from small-scale private gardens and schools, to farms, community gardens, communal nature gardens, as well as designing a forest garden on part of a 30-hectare ecovillage in Croatia.
====== COURSE COSTS ======
We want this course to be accessible to all and are therefore working in a conscious contribution system, inviting you to pay what you can afford towards meeting the needs of the facilitator(s). We therefore invite those who can pay more to help those who cannot afford as much.
Please contact us if you have any questions about this.
Suggested contributions of between £10 and £40 per day (i.e. between £40 and £160 for the first 4 session or between £120 and £480 for all 12 session. If you cannot afford this then PLEASE get in touch and we will work something out that is mutually beneficial.
Deleted account Thu 21 May 2020 10:14AM
Hi Rakesh we do want to find a place for people to promote their courses so I'm going to propose moving your offer to a dedicated thread. The role of this forum is principally for dialogue around forest gardening as a practice, its potential, sharing learning and serving our aim to get as many planted as possible in publicly accessible spaces. We are in the process of discussing a policy as a Board which we will put to the membership, to suggest some form of exchange that fairly benefits both NFGS and someone wishing to offer their very welcome forest garden 'services'. I'm sure you've already done so, but if not could you for now please sign up as a member? Many thanks.
Paula Moore Wed 10 Jun 2020 9:46AM
Hi Rakesh,
Thanks for the reminder, I need to wait until I have adequate land plans / maps and I'm pursuing the bornage service again in France to help this as they may resume soon. That will need to be my next cost.
Hope it all goes well,
Paula
Paula Moore,
Director,
www.talkinculture.com ( http://www.talkinculture.com )
07711593923
This electronic message transmission contains information from this firm which may be confidential or privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this message by any other person is not permitted. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited.
Rakesh B Tue 9 Jun 2020 11:06AM
Hi Paula the Forest garden course is starting next week. I am starting the on-boarding process, so if you want to join, can I suggest you register.
Paula Moore Thu 21 May 2020 9:44AM
Thanks Rakesh, I'll see what I can do for info first - pandemic against me now for travel. Forest and orchard are thriving and healthy just not organised and probably needs spacing - I have a few minor videos of the space just not organised, looking forward to plotting the guilds. I was meant to be there now for soil tests and a survey. The attached in green just plots the area but will check via Google.
Thanks again,
Paula
Paula Moore
07711593923
www.talkinculture.com ( http://www.talkinculture.com )
This electronic message transmission contains information from this firm which may be confidential or privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this message by any other person is not permitted. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited.
Rakesh B Thu 21 May 2020 7:34AM
Hi Paula
The more accurate your maps, the closer you will get to a complete design. For people who do not have access to accurate maps, what we do is ask them to get the most accurate maps they can (google earth or whatever topographical maps you can find). We make the design according to the maps we have. The process of making the design allows you to go into detail about what plants you want; what will thrive on your plot, etc. So as soon as you get the real maps, you can then easily adjust the design to the reality. I can check with my friends in Ariège (have done many forest garden courses and permaculture courses there so have may friends who are landscape architects, permaculturalists, etc). We can also put you in touch with a few tree nurseries who can advise you on what you can easily find that will grow there. We can also find you people who may be willing to help with the implementation.
A bientot
Paula Moore Wed 20 May 2020 10:51PM
Hello Rakesh,
This course sounds very interesting especially to start designing and building on early ideas I have. What kind of maps or land info should I have ideally to benefit? My forest is in the Pyrenees and I was due to have a bornage (boundary) survey but caught by the pandemic.
Many thanks,
Paula
Paula Moore,
Director,
www.talkinculture.com ( http://www.talkinculture.com )
07711593923
This electronic message transmission contains information from this firm which may be confidential or privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this message by any other person is not permitted. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited.
Nick Turner Sat 23 May 2020 6:59AM
Just for reference, Edible landscapes London have set up and run accredited courses which were equivelant to the RHS level 2 - http://ediblelandscapeslondon.org.uk/training-2/
Lyla Byrne Fri 22 May 2020 5:49PM
Hi - i wasn't questioning further - just explaining why i asked in the first place - explaining that i was just checking things out. I am hoping that my two sons will do the course and perhaps also my daughter. I already undertood from your first reply and agreed with it - it is all fine.
Rakesh B Fri 22 May 2020 2:47PM
I did't read it as if you were doubting me, so no problem. My answer still stands, as far as I know there is no accrediting body for a forest garden course. So there is no standard or recommended course structure or syllabus. Hence certificates are issued by the teacher as a certificate of attendance. The pathway as far as I can see is you learn, you design, you get experience, you teach.
Rakesh B · Thu 21 May 2020 6:59PM
Hi Paul. Thanks for reaching out. I had a long conversation with Hannah about this course before I posted it. We discussed possibly doing this as an official course through your CIC. In the end we decided to keep it simple this time and for me to deliver it as my course, and over winter to discuss collaboratively developing a MOOC style course, from which you would benefit financially. I asked Hannah for permission to promote this, as my goal is the same as yours, to promote the implementation of forest gardens (though I am not just promoting it in community spaces). Feel free to move it to wherever you feel is appropriate. Best wishes.