Learn to grow your own delicious food at home!
Learn to grow your own delicious fruit and vegetables at home with this 20 hour short course. In a weekend, you can learn all that you will need to know about the types of fruit and vegetables you should grow and the best ways to grow them.
If you have always wanted to start your own veggie patch, why wait? Everything you need to know is in this self-paced course.
This short course will help you decide what you can grow, how to be successful in growing food, an overview of the many types of fruits and vegetables you could grow and even includes a section on nuts, mushrooms and using your lovely fresh produce.
What you produce from your garden will depend on the amount of space that you have. Obviously the larger the property the more potential you will have to produce a large variety of crops. Large properties can support a range of fruit trees, vines, vegetables, herbs, grains and even hay and straw as well as animals and chickens.
There are optional activities and tasks that you can complete along the way that can expand your knowledge in this area. At the end of each lesson you will need to complete an online self assessment test. The course will also conclude with a large comprehensive online exam. If you achieve a mark over 60% for the exam, you will be awarded a Certificate of Completion with your name on it.
Course Structure
This course covers 14 lessons:
Lesson 1: Food from the garden
- What can you produce in your garden?
Lesson 2: Deciding what to grow
Lesson 3: Successful growing
- Light
- Temperature
- Soil
- Nutrition
- Water
- Wind
- Cold and the garden
- Different growing methods
- Where to get helpful information
Lesson 4: Fruits
- Introduction – fruit trees for all climates
- How to develop an espalier on a wall
- Good backyard fruit trees for a range of climates
Lesson 5: Deciduous fruit trees
- Winter chilling requirements
- Pests and diseases
- Deciduous fruit encyclopaedia
- Bare-rooted fruit trees
- Pruning deciduous fruit trees
Lesson 6: Citrus fruits
- Tolerance to different climates
- How to grow healthy citrus
- Citrus species
Lesson 7: Tropical fruits
- What fruits when
Lesson 8: Berries
- Berry fruit
Lesson 9: Nuts
- Introduction to nut growing
- Commonly grown nuts
Lesson 10: Vine crops
- Grape varieties
Lesson 11: Using produce
- What to do with excess fruit
Lesson 12: Vegetables
- Why grow vegetables?
- The site
- Choosing what to grow
- Feeding and watering
- Planning the cropping program
- Pests and diseases of vegetables
Lesson 13: Mushrooms
- Four easy steps to growing mushrooms
Lesson 14: Special growing techniques
- Growing produce in containers
- Hydroponics
- Permaculture gardening
- More special growing techniques
