Courses

A practical course on how to create a thriving organic market garden. This jam-packed 3 day course will teach you how you can establish a small, effective and profitable market garden using organic techniques and permaculture principles. Join experienced, successful organic market gardeners Joyce Wilkie and Michael Plane of Allsun Farm for three days of hard-won knowledge and on-the-ground experience of what you need to know and do in order to produce your own food at a level that can provide for both your family and wider community.
This course will cover: Garden design, planning & basic layout Tools, resources and other considerations Bed preparation Planting techniques for different plant families Maintenance, seedlings, harvesting Nutrient and biomass strategies Integrating animal systems How to strategise for effective use of energy
This course will involve both theory and hands-on components. We will be actively installing a small market garden at Milkwood Farm in parallel to this course with Joyce and Michael's mentorship, allowing participants to see and interact with the setup process. Allsun Farm is a much-loved microfarm and Community Supported Agriculture enterprise run by Joyce and Michael at Gundaroo, NSW.
Allsun produces CSA-style fruit-and-veg boxes for local families and restaurants for 7 months of the year, in addition to eggs and other on-farm products. All products are grown organically with no chemicals whatsoever. In addition to the nuts-and-bolts of setting up a market garden, Joyce and Michael will also discuss subjects like setting up a CSA, the various models currently proving successful around the world in order for small farming start-ups to gather help, support and labor, and much more.

So if you're passionately curious about how to start an organic market garden, either in a rural or urban context, please join us! We are excited to offer this opportunity to learn from experienced farmers who know how to grow good food well, in a way that both creates a right livelihood and heals the land...

Some resources to get you thinking:

• Allsun Farm - website
  
• Growing the Growers - Joyce and Michael's investigation of successful small farming
• Four Season Farm - Eliot Coleman's farm and books, a heavy influence on Allsun's practices
  
• The Greenhorns - american project, great doco about young organic farmers
  

About this course:

This course will be held on-farm at Milkwood Farm. We will use a combination of our woolshed classroom and field time for teaching this workshop. Bring good solid boots, work clothes and expect to get dirty as well as knowledgeable during this course.

The weather at Milkwood in mid spring is often brisk but sparkling - perfect for starting a market garden! We will warm you up with amazing organic stews and hot chocolate if need be.

About the teachers:

Joyce Wilkie and Michael Plane are passionate about growing vegetables, pastured poultry and creating and supporting fantastic small farms. They manage Allsun Farm and 'The Gundaroo Tiller', an innovative tool company for microfarming. Following early careers in earth sciences and education, they now farm at Gundaroo in NSW.

Included in your course fee:

You will also receive a copy of Allsun's very comprehensive Growing Organic Vegetables CD ROM as part of your course, in addition to extensive notes and take-home resources from Allsun Farm and Milkwood Permaculture.

Your course fee includes morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea each day of your course. For a small additional fee you can camp at Milkwood Farm for the duration of your course, and this option includes breakfast and dinner each night. See our Staying at Milkwood page for full info on accommodation and facilities.

As part of our Fair Share policy, we provide pensioner, couples and unwaged discounts where needed. Please get in touch for more information.