Courses >>
Coming soon...
Coed Hills Holistic Woodland Understanding
With Woodsman Kenny Comain of Archimedes Social ForestryOctober 2010
This two day course gives an in depth understanding of UK woodlands. It covers the ecosystem and all the influences affecting it as well as a guide to how to manage the resources present from timber to fauna. The management aspect of the course also covers harvesting, extraction, processing, re-stocking, predation management as well as practical techniques including tree felling.
Woodcraft is dealt with in terms of the basic techniques of processing wood into final products. Interwoven with these topics are the social aspects and outcomes of woodland work and how these outcomes can be incorporated into a holistic approach whereby we are a benevolent functioning part of a healthy, sustainably productive woodland ecosystem. The course comes with a booklet detailing most of the information on the course with links to find any further information.
The course will take place at Coed Hills Rural Artspace. Tuition will be almost entirely within the projects 80 acres of woodland excepting high winds.
What to bring
• Suitable outdoor clothing including sturdy footwear• Methods of recording information; pen and paper, camera, sound recorder, video camera could all be useful dependant on your own learning style.
• An open mind and plenty of enthusiasm.
Topics
1. Woodland ecosystems - Woodland is explored in terms of its constituent parts, their functions within the ecosystem and their interrelationships.2. Silviculture - The growing and cultivation of trees. Silvicultural systems including coppicing, clear cut replant, continuous cover forestry, shelterwood systems, and agroforestry will be discussed. What they are, their merits and their drawbacks.
3. Predation and invasion - What has potential to damage your woodland and what you can do about it.
4. Trees and wood - Tree function, growth, structure and properties.
5. Practical management skills - Practical methods of tree management including tree felling, coppicing, formative pruning, extracting and processing.
6. Wood products - Planks, furniture, pulp, fire wood, biomass, coppice crafts, basketry.....
7. Other tree products
8. Other woodland plant products - Forest gardening, wild foods and medicines, cordage, bark.
9. Social outcomes
10. Environmental outcomes
More info to follow shortly...
Coed Hills Worked Stone Course
Practical building with worked stone using lime mortar with Saul Nicholas
This course is setting out and building one square corner and a door opening using pre-made worked stone using natural lime/sand mortar. Different pointing methods and finishes. Advice on modern construction with stone given (cavity walls, breeze block unseen skins, damp protection etc.). We would be using both Blue Lias limestone and Penant sandstone.
More info to follow shortly...
Coed Hills Food Growing Course
Organic Horticulture from a Permaculture PerspectiveWith Stephen Watts from Grow Sheffield
A Series of day workshops focusing on the practical application of 'Permacultural' thinking, applied to food culture; the processes by which we provide our food. They aim to deepen our awareness of:
- How food is produced
- How to grow our own food organically, with simple means
- How to forage for food
- Plants; identification and uses.
- The cycles and seasons of nature.
- The culinary and medicinal properties of plants and how to prepare them for culinary as well as medicinal purposes.
Course content
Food in all its aspects; growing, harvesting, preparing, cooking, eating, storing, saving the seeds; all the processes by which our food comes to our mouths. Within this context they will serve as an introduction to food growing for everyone. They are a balance of theoretical knowledge combined with practical hands on experience of the process of food growing. They will also serve to further people with some knowledge of organic food growing looking to deepen there experience to get a sense of larger scale organic production, moving towards self sufficiency, different approaches to production, or to experience working with others in the context of food production.More info to follow shortly...
5 day Living Foods Raw Cleanse at Coed Hills
With Paul Hurley and Kathe IzzoMore info to follow shortly...
Coed Hills Traditional Craft Weekend
Fleecy Rug making with Anneli Stollar and Basket Weaving with Nancy Evans.jpg)
We will soon be re-running the unique crafts weekend at Coed Hills Rural Artspace where you can learn the traditional crafts of basket weaving and fleecy rug making.Course contents
This weekend will teach you the basic skills that you need to create your own basket or fleecy rug and you will walk away at the end of the day with your very own fleecy rug or willow basket.What to bring
Please bring secateurs and a penknife if you have them.More info to follow shortly...
