FARMstart programme - certificated (6 days)

This is a 6 day course at our demonstration Market Garden in Berkshire - public transport options are limited.

Sep 13th, October 11th, October 25th, Nov 1st, Nov 22nd & Dec 13th - all 10am - 3pm

Certificates for the full program when all days attended, plus LANTRA certified SOILstart day on Nov 1st.

Please note, as a small non-profit organisation, it's not sustainable to offer refunds.

If you need to cancel your place up to one month of the course, you will be offered a credit towards another workshop.

After that time, we can only offer a credit if we have been able to re-sell your place on the course.

Who is it for?

Anyone who enjoys growing food and would like to move into a career as a grower or set up your own market garden.

This course will enable you to set up something on your own and start to earn an income.

What we will cover

• The available edible crops for this climate
• The systems within which these crops can be grown
• Soil prep and fertility management
• Organic production
• Integrated pest management
• Fruit, Veg, Flowers, Herbs, Eggs, Honey (Meat and Fish will be discussed)
• Low labour management & closed loop systems
• Irrigation
• Packaging, Pricing and Reaching customers
• Compliance

Day 1

• Overview of crops
• Tour of our demonstration garden
• Tasting crops
• Veg production per m2
• Fruit production
• Further edible & market garden crops

Day 2

• Health & Safety
• Food Hygeine
• Insurance
• Compliance
• Pricing, Packaging, Labelling
• Set up finances and business models

Day 3

SOILstart programme - our LANTRA certified workshop on regeneerative soil health and management

• What soil is and what it needs
• Composting techniques
• No Dig systems
• Polycultures
• Fertility plantings

Day 4

• Edible Mushroom production
• Site design
• Landscape features
• Water management in landscapes

Day 5

• Agroforestry systems
• Forest Gardens
• Syntropic systems
• Unusual edibles & perennial veg
• Compost teas & Bokashi

Day 6

• Salads - year round leaf production
• Premium products - earning per m2
• Veg box schemes
• Example cash flows and business plans

We do offer payment in instalments and half work share option. If you would like to explore these options with us, get in touch on grow@edgelandscaping.uk

Practical elements

We will be working outside in our Market Garden for a lot of our time together, learning as we carry out tasks.

You will take part in sowing, planting and maintenance tasks, as well as harvesting, packing and pricing.

There will be many plant and edible tasters to experience over the duration of the course.

What’s included

6 days of teaching, refreshments and a number of handouts and planners to help with your learning.

There is also the possibility of access to land following the course, including our mentorship for your enterprise.

What you will leave with

You will receive various handouts on food production planning, and a good understanding of how to make money from growing food, how to do it and where to start.

What you will be able to do afterwards

We would expect you to go away with a firm idea of what you would like to grow, how and where you might grow it and where you can sell it - with our support if you so wish.

Next steps

You will be ready to start your food enterprise. We can potentially help you with access to land, plants, tools and further skills.

We offer further learning packages in the following areas:

• Mushroom farming
• Viable business plans & Marketing your project
• Polytunnel growing

*Booking onto one of our courses adds you to our mailing list, you can opt out at any time, or email us to request you're not added. We don't share your details externally, and only use them for our own newsletter.*

Testimonials:

We thoroughly enjoyed day and came away with a much better understadning of the importance of good soil and how to manage it.

VD, Berkshire

I have so many words of thanks, but it's been really inspiring meeting yourself and others wanting to pursue sustainable food growing as a path!

KZ, London

Thank you again for a great 4 months of learning, it's been fantastic and has really changed the way I plant and grow!

JS, Henley

Lovely course, thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend :)

Lyndsey, Berks

I would recommend edge (formerly incredible edible) to anyone. I have never been a very confident gardener but the courses I have done have provided me with such a wealth of information and expertise that I now feel encouraged to give things a go.

Lorna, Wantage

"Very interesting and supportive. It has given me the confidence to research and try things I hadn't thought about before. Thank you Rachael"

Sarah, Berkshire

"Urban Design OBU benefited greatly from a workshop on urban food production using the UFP toolkit by Rachel Hammond of Edge landscaping. The students managed to develop a masterplan for a global city site measuring the productivity of their designs, management issues as well as understanding the social and environmental benefits of UFP. The workshops are compelling and effective for valuing UFP."

Regina L. Oxford Brookes University

About the Tutors

Rachel is a Landscape Architect & Urban Designer specialising in regenerative food production. She designs spaces for food, soil health and wildlife and biodiversity, as well as maximising harvests and reducing the work needed to achieve it.

She learnt to grow food from her Grandparents in Jersey who grew much of their own produce on their acre - including Jersey Royal Potatoes! Rachel still loves potatoes.

Growing food all her life, and commercially for the last 10 years, Rachel has worked with CSA, farms, market gardens, urban farms, community gardens and corporate businesses to increase food production and efficiency, whilst reducing labour and costs.

Rachel founded edge, a non-profit design agency, with the main aims of designing urban food production systems, growing food within whole ecosystems and educating others on food production systems and ecological farming practices.

Georgina is trained in education, wildlife gardening and pond creation, heading up our schools and education area of work.

She has a passion for edible flowers and loves adding these into all of our growing systems, as well as bog gardens, mini ponds and pollinator planting.

Georgina has been working with edge for the last 8 years and would love every school to be growing food in some way to support children learning about food and nature.