Food Forest Garden Course Photos

In March 2018 we held our second month long Food Forest course. The group of eight spent one month learning about trees, soils and food forests whilst researching their own trees and creating designs for a food forest. They then planted a new food forest in an old olive grove in one of our terraces.

This terrace originally was an olive grove which burnt down in a fire in 2013. It was then abandoned and became overgrown with weeds and olive shoots. We cleared it with a tractor and grew one season of annual crops on it before turning it into a food forest. This terrace has now been mass planted with trees, guild shrubs, cover crops and sheet mulching. Our food forest courses are one month long and give students an in depth view of all aspects of living off grid along with how to set up a food forest from making compost to planning and constructing irrigation. Click here for information on our next course.

Take a look at the 5 galleries below showing the course, the workshops, activities, the trees and the designs:

1. Photos of Food Forest Course

Grey Water System — Here we built a grey water system for the washing machine and indoor shower water

Staking trees to make them sturdy against strong winds

Collecting green mulch — We grew fava beans to give us a good supply of high nitrogen green mulch

Tree presentations — Each student studied a tree based on their learning s from the course to help the group design the tree into the food forest

Selecting companion plants for the guilds — Each stydent selected companion plants from the greenhouse based on their learnings and research on the tree and its needs

Seed propagation — Everyone had a go at the various propagation methods

Compost teas — We made compost teas to cultivate bacteria and fungai for our soils

We made bio char and activated it in various ways

Planting propagation — We propagated from a local farm and then planted the propergations around our farm ir in the greenhouse

Planting in an annual bed — We made some bed in the annual garden and planted quick growing annuals like spinach, turnips, mustard, rocket and radishes.

Surveying land — We surveyed the land and students drew a to scale drawing of the land for design purposes

We made a sunken bed and filled it with compost from a hot compost pile we made. We also made boxes to hold the paths together on our carpentry day

Natural Building — We built a wall on the toilet using clay on our fun natural building day

Grafting Trees — We spent a morning learning how to graft apple and pear trees and we all had a go grafting a tree

Carpentry Day — On carpentry day we made boxes for raised or sunken beds while getting to practice using different tools

On Irrigation day we had a go at installing an irrigation system

Wheelbarrowing — We got strong from wheelbarrowing compost, bio char, mulch, trees, stones and all sorts around the farm

Planting trees — We all planted several trees and guilds

Wild greens and foraging day with Raquelle

Making compost — To have soil abundant in nutrients you have to make compost. We made compost in many ways as our organic fertilizer

2. Workshops by guest teachers and additional activities on and off the farm

The bulk of the food forest course is taught by Laurence Manchee, however some additional workshops and activities are taught by guests. We also do some activities ff the farm

Community day helping a local farmer muck out his stables

Community day helping with a fire break at a local farm

3. Students standing by the trees and guilds they planted

Each student was assigned a tree which they researched through the course.. they then designed their trees together into the food forest based on their leanings. After this each student designed a guild of companion plants and planted them (see designs lower down). Once this was done, open areas of the food forest were filled with paths, shrubs, cover crops or sheet mulching.