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Forest Gardening Courses

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Coed Hills Forest Gardening Courses January - March 2010

With Jess Clynewood, Charly Le Marchant and Rich Wright

Fungi play an essential role in our ecosystems, working away in shady unnoticed corners, providing services that we are, only in recent times, becoming properly aware of.

The third Forest Gardening Course on the 27th-28th March will uniquely focus on how fungi can help to establish and strengthen a Forest Garden ecosystem.

Fungi usage and cultivation have been part of human activity for thousands of years and many cultures of the world have long known of their merits as food crops and medicines. Modern fungi cultivation in the western world has mainly been contained to large scale clean room operations or the button mushroom industry, and a few enthusiastic hobbyists, but this is changing as knowledge of their uses and importance spreads.

Course times

The weekend course will run from 9am till 4pm, with an hour’s break for lunch between midday and 1pm. Please bring food to share. Teas, coffee and refreshments will be provided.

To book

To confirm your place, please complete the booking form - click here. Please note that a £25 deposit is required.

Fees

£70 / £60 Concessions
 

Course contents

A mix of theory and practical sessions, the course will also look at soil and soil structure, how it's created and how you can protect it. In addition we will investigate wild food and foraging as an aid to replicating natural systems in a Forest Garden. The practical sessions will cover log inoculation, fungi propagation techniques and further planting of the Forest Garden.



Forest Gardening is a way of growing food based on combining plants together in woodland-like patterns that forge mutually beneficial relationships, creating a garden eco-system that is more than the sum of its parts. An established forest garden will give high yields of diverse produce such as fruit, nuts, vegetables, herbs, medicines, fuel, fungi and fodder, be largely self-maintaining, self-fertilizing and self-watering and be a healthy eco-system rich in habitats for beneficial insects, birds and animals.


January 30th - 31st
• Introduction to permaculture, history and ethics.
• Forest garden principles.

Practical: planting windbreak and fruit trees. Mulching of areas to be planted.



A lovely group of people made it a very enjoyable weekend with thirty fruit trees being planted in the Forest Garden. We've uploaded a few photos to the Facebook event page for your perusal.




NEW - Friday 26th February
Forest Gardening Intro Catch-up Session

For those of you that wanted to attend the first weekend but couldn't make it, we are also offering a 'catch-up' session on Friday 26th February. This will cover all of the taught sessions from the first course, introducing permaculture ethics and principles, and looking at how these apply to forest gardening.

February 27th - 28th
• Beekeeping.
• Water management – swales and fos douveries.
• Microclimates, niches and diversity.

Practical: Planting of fruit trees, soft fruit and ground cover. Mulching of areas to be planted. Making beehives.


March 27th – 28th
• Mycology and the importance of fungi
• Soil and soil structure.
• Wild food and foraging

Practical: Planting of soft fruit, ground cover and perennial vegetables. Mulching.


By the end of the course you will have a solid understanding of forest gardening principles, have gained a foundation in permaculture practice and been introduced to basic beekeeping and mycology, increased your practical skills and helped Coed Hills Rural Artspace plant it’s new Forest Garden.

What to bring

Warm clothes you don’t mind getting a bit muddy, waterproofs and wellies, pens and a notepad, lunch to share.

Jess Clynewood

Trained by Patrick Whitefield, Jess Clynewood has taught at the Brighton Permaculture Trust, Brighton and Hove Transition network, Sunrise Festival, Aarati Festival in Cornwall and EcoShelter.

She has worked as a designer in New Plymouth, New Zeland, helping to design a ten-acre permaculture plot for Korito Organics; helped in the design for a 15 acre small holding in Lampeter, Wales and co-designed Coed's new forest garden.

Jess set up Growing Together, a Brighton community growing project and is actively involved with community growing projects. She is currently studing for her permaculture diploma.

She describes permaculture as inspiring positive practical solutions. It's a paradigm shift, thinking of things in a new way; turning problems into solutions and waste into resource. It looks at ways of joining up systems to create efficient and harmonious human environments that are based on observations of natural ecosystems.

“You cannot solve the problem with the same mindset that created it.” Albert Einstein

Charly Le Marchant

One of the co-founders of Triban, the solar powered stage; Charly has been with Coed Hills for more than two years. Her attraction to low impact living started during her degree in International Politics at Keele University.

The mind opening nature of her degree, she describes, combined with the frustration at her inability to enact change on what she saw as incredibly short-sighted actions by so many in positions of power, from politicians to farmers, led me towards permaculture and to community living.

Living a low-impact life and running a successful visitor centre do not always go hand in hand, however it feels like this is an important place for many people. A place that is helping to create a new form of community and that is empowering people to enact the changes that they wish to see.

Along with studying Beekeeping Around the World with Bees for Development, Charly is in charge of bees at Coed. She is investigating how they can be treated better for their long-term health, rather than our short-term gain of a crop. She is looking into setting up different types of hives in conjunction with the Forest Garden Project.

The planning of the Forest garden is being carried out in conjunction with the development of bees on site. Nectar flow is maintained throughout the summer by planting species that flower at different times.

Involved with the Undercurrents activist film making group, Charly has taught adults through to young children the art of short filmaking. She has fundraised for charities such at the Soil Association and Greenpeace, a job that meant she spoke to thousands of people every month on global issues and environmental concerns.

Completing her Permaculture design course in 2007, she this year organised the first Coed Hills PCDC which was a great success. Next year will see Charly commence her diploma in Permaculture and the Training for Trainers course with Designed Visions.


To confirm your place, please complete the booking form which is available here

Please note that a £25 deposit is required to secure your place on the course.

For further info, please call Jess on 01446 774084 / 07974 955080 or email coedforestgarden@googlemail.com.