INTERMEDIATE HOME GARDENING,

with YOTAM KAY (PĀKARAKA PERMACULTURE)

Sunday 16 October - 9:00am to 4:00pm (Full Day)

Learn and discuss more intensive skills for growing nutritious food for you and your family in your yard or local plot.

To have a super productive garden is to do a lot of small things very well. Come and sharpen your skills in this comprehensive workshop with Yotam Kay (Pākaraka Permaculture), aimed for experienced gardeners. Whether you've been growing for 2 or 3 seasons, or 10, there will be loads to learn from Yotam's experience as a professional grower.

This workshop is designed to be a full day crash course, condensing a whole heap of knowledge and advice into a 7-hour session in the garden. Yotam will tutor you through demonstration and discussion to cover a vast range of essential topics that will help you build on your experience to make the most of your project, grow an even more productive garden, and continue to feed you and your family throughout the year. So, bring a notebook, a pen, and all of your vegetable gardening questions!

Organic morning and afternoon tea will be provided to let everyone take a break, have a snack, and enjoy a fresh brewed cup of herbal tea picked from the garden.

Lunch will be a shared, potluck style meal, so we ask everyone to bring a plate. We find this is a great opportunity to enjoy a delicious meal while learning and discovering more about the foods that we like, work hard to prepare, and look forward to cultivating in the garden!

We'll cover topics including:

Basic principles in organic gardening: soil health, building and maintaining a high level of fertility
Considerations in choosing the best location for your garden
Staring a new garden using no-dig methods, including; converting a lawn into a garden, garden bed designs, in-ground beds and raised beds
Recommended tools
Propagating your own plants and growing healthy seedlings
Growing microgreens
Direct seeding in the garden
How to plant in the garden
Plant care and getting the most out of your garden
Weeding strategies
Watering systems
Crop planning for a four-season harvest
Companion planting and crop rotation
Plant health and managing pests and diseases

What to bring:

A notebook and pen are essential for taking notes, and Yotam will provide a comprehensive handout to accompany your experience.
A refillable water bottle, to keep hydrated throughout the day
Clothing and gear appropriate to the weather & sun-smarts
A prepared dish of your choice to share with the group for the potluck lunch

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Frequently asked question regarding this workshop:

"Is this the right workshop one for me, or should I join the Beginner Home Gardening workshop? The topics look very similar...."

Pākaraka Permaculture's answer:

In this workshop, we go deep into the technical aspects of vegetable growing. Unless you have a full season or more of experience growing vegetables, it might be an overwhelming amount of information to take in. In the Beginner workshop, we start with the basics and cover them in-depth, so if you are just starting your gardening journey then the Beginner session will be the better fit for you.

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Yotam Kay is the master gardener of Pākaraka Permaculture, a 1/4 acre organic market garden in Thames, growing 10,000kg of top quality veggies seasonally since 2014. Yotam loves growing plants and sharing his passion for it.

Yotam holds a diploma in Permaculture Design, and has been an active teacher since 2005. He has worked on a wide range of projects prior to establishing Pākaraka Permaculture -- from leading community garden projects, to establishing food gardens and sustainability programs in schools, and managing commercial organic gardens around New Zealand.

Pākaraka Permaculture is publishing a celebrated new book, 'The Abundant Garden'. This practical guide to growing a regenerative home garden has simple, reliable strategies and techniques to help maximise your ability to feed yourself and share the abundance with those around you. For more information, visit pakarakafarm.co.nz