PERMACULTURE GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS, with ADRIAN ROCHE

This four-part practical permaculture gardening course is arranged to help you gain the fundamental knowledge and skills to approach your space in a way that works with nature, for your garden, and for you.

Adrian Roche, our Kelmarna Gardens Community & Site Manager and life-long gardener, will walk you through the basic methods and practices to give you a sturdy foundation for gardening effectively in your space.

Part 4 - HARVESTING, SEED SAVING & FOOD FOREST BASICS

Sunday 27 June - 9am to 12pm (3 hours)

This fourth and final part of our permaculture series will focus on sustainable harvesting practises, closing the loop by saving seeds, and some basics considerations for keeping a food forest.

Adrian likes to say that every plant has a different story, and together you will explore how different crops indicate they are ready to pick and how they respond to harvesting process. We will cover basic techniques for making the most of your crops, to recognise those that are one-off, those that can keep on giving, and how to give them the opportunity to bounce back.

You will then turn to the matter of next year's crop and discuss the methods, benefits, and challenges of saving your own heirloom seeds. Adrian will guide you through getting started with seed saving, where you will practice harvesting, processing seeds, and then get to take home some seeds for your collection.

You will then have a chance to wander through parts of the Kelmarna food forest as Adrian talks you through the basics dynamics of a food forest and what kinds of species are well-suited to our local climate.

Finally, your group will revisit for the last time the three fundamental process that you started in Part 1 (your planted seedlings, sown seeds, and compost pile). As a group you will reflect on changes that you notices and issues that you managed to take away important lessons that can be applied in your projects. With the seeds you've sown that will have grown into seedlings, you will learn how to prick them out, pot them up, and take some home to plant in your garden and start your own processes in your garden!

Adrian has been gardening for 27 years, the bulk of which has been at Kelmarna Gardens as lead gardener, site manager, mentor, and general face of the gardens for much of our community. He is driven by a desire to help build a sustainable future for our humanity, which leads him to focus on food production and the role of gardening for connecting people and building community. His philosophical touchstone is permaculture, which feeds his desire to understand the natural world in order to work with, benefit from and coexist within it.