Advanced gardening courses at The Organic Centre with Ingrid Foley

Advanced gardening courses at The Organic Centre with Ingrid Foley

“The obvious experience of Ingrid Foley, her interest in our questions and her love in organic gardening made the day” said one course participant on last years courses.

For the first time The Organic Centre offers now advanced gardening courses with Ingrid.

There are three separate day courses offered for those who already have gardening experience but who may wish to expand their horticultural expertise.

Three topics have been chosen

Soil Fertility Management February 17th – Pest and Diseases April 12th – Weed Management October 19th

The courses will run from 10am -5pm, cost €90 and are hands-on complimented by class room sessions, making full use of the gardens and facilities at The Organic Centre.

Bookings and more information from The Organic Centre, 071-9854338, e-mail: info@theorganiccentre.ie, website: www.theorganiccentre.ie

Please find below additional information about the 3 days.

Sat February 17th: Soil Fertility management… participants who undertook the garden Complete Course will have had a basic introduction to soils, this course focuses on how, as gardeners, we manage soil fertility organically. The emphasis will be on a holistic approach viz., understanding the physical, biological and chemical properties of the soil and how to work in harmony with these three properties to attain a healthy fertile soil.

Rotation and crop planning will also be covered in terms of the overall fertility plan

There will be a practical session on composting in the Organic Centre’s dedicated demonstration area, a seed sowing session to assess skills, drawing up of individual fertility plans based on soil type to link in with your rotation plan for the year ahead

Sat April 12th: Pests and Diseases

There are a myriad of pests and diseases that can affect vegetable crops, fortunately we only encounter a number of very common ones eg blight, botrytis, slugs, aphids. We will look at the most common signs and symptoms for a range of pests and diseases and how through good practise eg hygiene, biodiversity, companion planting etc in the garden the impact of pests and diseases can be minimised. Remember while control is necessary in some cases particularly in the case of disease, the organic approach in terms of attaining a good ecological balance of prey and predator will be emphasised

There will be a practical session where (hopefully we won’t find any PN D’s at the centre!) we will have a tour of the gardens with the emphasis on aspects of pest and disease management. We will also skill up in pricking out, potting up and planting on.
If you have any plant material that you have a question mark over please bring it on the day

Sun October 19th: Weed management.

Weeds in the vegetable garden are fairly obvious, but do you know how to identify whether it’s a pernicious perennial, a biennial or an annual, is it safe to put on the compost heap? It’s very important as a gardener to be able, not only to know ‘x’ plant is a weed, you should be able to name it and ultimately what plant family it belongs to. This knowledge is key to weed management

Therefore you will be sent out to gather as many wild plants that you can muster in October and you will learn how to use the wildflower guide to ID plants that can be potential weeds in your garden.

We will discuss all the methods that can be used to make our lives easier as, for organic gardeners weeding is the biggest labour input during the gardening year.

I’d appreciate participants bringing plants from their gardens that are problematic. As this course runs in October perhaps you could gather a collection late August September and bring in dry samples