Sneak Peek

What can you produce in your garden?

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 Lessons

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 methodsWhere 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 programme
• 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

How do our courses work?

• Enrol any time of day or night
• Start studying immediately or later (as you wish)
• Configure your study sessions at any length and frequency you wish
• Work through at your own pace
• Help desk- contact our help desk here with the subject title: 'Help Desk Short Course'
• Automated self assessment tests pop up at the end of each lesson. You can attempt these as many times as you wish; and each time, upon completion, you can see your results.
• At the end of the whole course, you are presented with a major automated examination which can be attempted online, anywhere, anytime
• If you achieve a 60% pass in the exam; you immediately receive a downloadable certificate of completion with your name on it

What will you get from this course?

You will learn how to grow your own fruits and vegetables using different growing techniques; learn permaculture gardening; hydroponics; basic requirements for each type of plant, adequate light, soil and more.