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Short Course

Advanced Permaculture

  Take the Next Step This course takes you well beyond Permculture foundation courses. It's intended for Graduates of other Permaculture courses Garden Designers, Landscape Architects, Horticulturists, Ecologists or other professionals who understand aspects of permaculture; but want to take their knowledge to the next level. “Complete this course after Permaculture Systems and you are ready to create a design for a range of situations - as a consultant to others or for your own property.” - Adriana Fraser Cert.Hort., Cert.Child Care, Adv.Cert.App.Mgt., Cert 1V Assessment and Training, Adv.Dip.Hort. Learn to plan and manage the detailed development of a permaculture system.

Advanced Self Sufficiency (II)

  “A step on from Self-Sufficiency 1 this course will develop your cooking, bottling and productive gardening skills whilst at the same time emphasising health and nutrition. Understand the importance of good health in a self-sufficient lifestyle and how to provide your own food.” - Adriana Fraser Cert.Hort., Cert.Child Care, Adv.Cert.App.Mgt., Cert 1V Assessment and Training, Adv.Dip.Hort. You learn about nutrition and how to balance your diet, as well as how to produce, process, store, and use different types of food. This includes berries, nuts, milk, cheese, eggs, bread making, preserves, & dried food. Cooking, freezing, drying, bottling, making bread, planning a vegetable garden to give produce all year round, and lots more are covered during the ten lessons.

Alternative Energy

  Learn to become less reliant on the electricity and gas companies and save money through alternative energy sources. This course will equip you with knowledge and understanding of the types of alternative energy, better ways to manage energy consumption, how electric and non-electric systems work, different techniques for storing electricity, and use this knowledge to plan how to convert a buildings energy supply to an alternative system.

Beginners Guide to Self Sufficiency (I)

  Learn how to live self sufficently in this modern age! With this course, develop your understanding of self sufficiency. Learn about food and nutrition, and making the right decisions about changes in lifestyle; as well as showing you how to do a whole range of practical things such as mud brick building, making crafts, growing fruit, vegetables, herbs, and other crops; raising poultry, sheep & goats, extending the life of clothing, conserving energy, recycling, simple home medical care and first aid, and lots more. Content This course covers many aspects of self sufficiency, including the following: how to live with lower income identification of essential and non-essential services offered by society identification of services that one can be self sufficient with identification of self skills that can aid in self sufficiency skills that can be developed to assist in self sufficiency identify needs, wants and likes; and the purpose of prioritising needs identify items one can provide for oneself development of cost efficient meals identify purpose of fitness to self sufficiency

Home Fruit Growing

  To pick and eat fruit from your own garden is a wonderful, healthy and satisfying experience.This course aims to expand your capacity to do just that. "This course is for those who would love to have their own healthy crop of fruit in the back garden. The course teaches you about all aspects of growing and maintenance of a large variety of fruits, nuts and berries in the home garden.”- Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming. Grow fresh fruit, berries and nuts efficiently and economically. Learn how to raise soil fertility, choose the best fruits for your situation, and grow them in a way which controls pests and diseases without using dangerous chemicals. Both cool and warm climate fruits are covered, and throughout the course you are given the option to concentrate your study on the types of fruits which are of more interest to you.

Home Garden Expert Course

  This course has been Producing Garden Experts since 1985 Want to know more about gardening?Whatever your reason for gardening, this course will help you to garden more efficiently and effectively. There are 8 lessons involved in this course. Each lesson is made up of 2 or 3 parts. “If you would like to be the ‘gardening go to person’ of your neighbourhood, Home Garden Expert is great for expanding your skills in all aspects of caring for your home garden. People of all ages have benefited from this course.”- Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming.

Home Hydroponics

  Develop a solid grounding in the principles of soil less cultivation of plants. When you remove the soil from a plant and take control of it's roots, it is essential that you have a good understanding of how it grows. Any body can grow plants in soil with reasonable success. To grow plants in hydroponics you must understand how the plant grows so that you can control the temperature, water, oxygen, nutrients etc. in the root zone. “If you want to have your own hydroponic system for growing healthy food at home, look no further. This is one of our biggest selling courses, and has been studied by many happy hydroponic food growers.” - Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming This is a good starting point for those who have little experience in horticulture or hydroponics; whose main interest is in growing AT HOME. Unlike our other courses, this course is NOT intended for commercial growing in any way. You will learn the theory behind hydroponic culture, as well as receive first hand practical experience as you set up your own basic hydroponic system.

Home Propagation (Beginner's)

  This course aims to develop a basic understanding of the principles of plant propagation, an overview of propagation techniques, equipment and a general knowledge of the methods of propagation of the more commonly cultivated plants. It is a great base for growing your own plants and is a skill  that you will have with you for the rest of your life. You will also be able to use it to teach others. “Learning about propagating your own plants will save you loads of money and give you a great hobby. Some of the toughest and most beautiful gardens I have seen were created with home made cuttings. Horticultural experts will show you how.” - Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming.

Home Vegetable Growing

  There are many different ways you can grow vegetables; and an almost endless range of varieties to choose from. The method you choose and the varieties you grow should depend upon the time, space, level of knowledge and other resources available to you. This course teaches you many different ways of growing, and what is needed for  just about every vegetable you can think of.    “Lots of people are keen to grow their own food, and this course helps them gain the skills required to create their own vegetable gardens. It is easy to understand, practical, and can be adapted to your own garden requirements.”- Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming.

Horticulture for Beginners (I)

  The ideal course for the beginner, this is a basic, yet thoroughly practical course which gives you a sound broad technical grounding in horticultural principles and practices. A section of each lesson involves plant identification. YOU WILL LEARN: To identify, propagate and care for 80 different types of plants. The systematic way plants are classified. Structure and parts of a flower. To identify different leaf shapes. Different ways to control weeds. Simple soil tests. Making propagating and potting mixes. Identifying pest and disease problems. How and why to prune different plants. Drawing a simple garden sketch plan. To plant or repair a lawn; and lots more.

Mud Brick Construction

  Learn to build with mud ....a home, a shed, a garden room, a wall, a community building. Mud Brick Construction aims to develop an understanding of how to approach building with mud bricks. Mud brick building is also known by the alternative name 'adobe'. There are other ways of building with mud brick apart from 'adobe'. These will be covered briefly in this course. For the novice, there is not a lot which can go wrong if you choose to build with mud brick.

Organic Farming

  Learn to manage both plant and animal production in a more natural and environmentally sensitive way and develop a sound foundation for understanding how to set up an organic farm, or convert an existing farm to organic practices. The course covers organic management issues such as certification, marketing, and environmental concerns, organic soil management and crop nutrition, weed management, pest and disease management, livestock management, pasture and crops.

Permaculture - Animals in a Permaculture System (III)

  As with Permaculture II, this course is also a natural progression from the earlier Permaculture units, but can be taken separately in its own right. It concentrates on the animals in a permaculture system, how they relate to each other, how they relate to surrounding environments, and selection and management of different types of animals in a permaculture design. The course covers the role of insects, animal husbandry of poultry, bees, pigs, goats and cattle, aquaculture systems, and how to integrate animals into a garden.

Permaculture - Permaculture Gardens (II)

  This course is a natural progression from Permaculture Basics, but can taken separately in its own right. It concentrates on the plants in a permaculture system, how they relate to each other and to the surrounding environment; and selection and placement of different varieties within a permaculture design. This course deals with preparing plans for different types of permaculture gardens.

Permaculture Advanced (IV)

  Learn to design and manage a comprehensive permaculture system. This course integrates all aspects of permaculture into the design and management of a comprehensive and balanced system. The course covers an overview of permaculture, energy efficient building alternatives, waste disposal systems, recycling, natural watering and sustainable energy alternatives, and designing for natural disasters. You will also undertake a full scale major design project using the knowledge obtained from the course and utilising the learned techniques.

Permaculture Basics (I)

  This course introduces the basic concepts of Permaculture, and develops a basis for permaculture design by explaining the patterns which occur in nature, such as weather systems, water cycles, topography, soil-plant interactions and forest ecology, and how a knowledge of these patterns can be used to reproduce balanced and productive garden growing systems.

Permaculture Systems

  Learn to Design a Permaculture Garden “In this intensive and practical course you develop the fundamentals required to implement permaculture principles, and to produce a design for a large or small property.” - Adriana Fraser Cert.Hort., Cert.Child Care, Adv.Cert.App.Mgt., Cert 1V Assessment and Training, Adv.Dip.Hort. Learn to prepare plans for permaculture systems. (i.e. A unique landscape where plants and animals live balanced in a self sustaining ecosystem).  It commonly involves developing a garden or farm where the plants and animals are put together in such a way that they support each others growth and development. The garden or farm may change over years, but always remains productive, requires little input once established, and is environmentally sound. This is an "intensive" foundation course. If you are only going to do "one" permaculture course do this! This course overlaps with our Permaculture I - IV courses. If you do this, do not do Permaculture I, II, III or IV as well (Permaculture Systems contains parts from the others)

Plant Health (Horticulture III)

  Learn with this practical course to identify and control pest and diseases in plants. Develop a deep understanding of plant health, the systematic identification of health problems in plants and the techniques for control of those problems. Learn how to maintain high quality gardens for business or home. There is always more than meets the eye and problems can be solved easily with this course. “If you want to know more about providing optimum care for plants, I suggest this course as a good foundation for learning to deal with any pest or disease problem.”- Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming, Tutor.

Plant Knowledge (Horticulture II)

  Learn to Identify Plants Systematically and Scientifically. Plant identification is arguably the most important skill for any gardener, landscaper or professional horticulturist; and this is the course that builds that skill.  “This course is great for expanding your knowledge of a variety of plants that you will come across in all aspects of Horticulture. Plant id skills are an absolute requirement of being a Professional Horticulturalist, and this is a good place to gain that knowledge.” - Tracey Morris Dip.Hort., Cert.Hort., Cert III Organic Farming


Certificate

Certificate In Alternative Farming

  The successful farmers whether in a developed or developing country often share one thing in common: that being their adaptability. It is important to be able to change to remain sustainable, as the world changes. This may involve finding new things to farm; or it may involve farming in new ways. This course aims to develop your capacity to deal with change; find new markets, solve problems (whether management or technical); and overall, keep farms sustainable.

Certificate In Horticulture (Permaculture)

   “The principles of permaculture and the fundamentals of horticulture are covered in this extensive course. It creates opportunities to work as a consultant or to set up sustainable productive gardens for others.” - Adriana Fraser Cert.Hort., Cert.Child Care, Adv.Cert.App.Mgt., Cert 1V Assessment and Training, Adv.Dip.Hort. This course was developed for people working or wishing to work in Horticulture with a particular emphasis on the design, development and management of productive natural garden systems. The course was developed in liaison with both the Permaculture Institute and the Queensland Rural Training Council. Half the course involves Permaculture systems, Advanced Permaculture, and one relevant elective eg: Organic plant culture. The other half provides a broad, general foundation in Horticultural practices.

Certificate In Self Sufficiency

  The one thing that all fans of self sufficiency share in common is a desire to reduce reliance on goods and services supplied by others. In reality, we will never be totally independent for one reason: it is in our nature to be social, and we all need to interact with other humans in order to be psychologically fulfilled.

Proficiency Award In Horticulture

  A Proficiency Award requires the completion of 3 modules and demonstration of 200 hours work experience. For all the modules available in horticulture please visit http://www.acs.edu.au/courses/horti.aspx This course is designed primarily for people who already have some related qualifications or experience, who seek to supplement their existing skills and gain an industry specific qualification that enhances their employ-ability and capacity to work in a specialised area of horticulture. INDUSTRY PROJECT OR WORK EXPERIENCE This is the final requirement that you must satisfy before receiving your award.   There are two options available to you to satisfy this requirement:   Alternative 1. If you work in the industry that you have been studying; you may submit a reference from your employer, in an effort to satisfy this industry (ie. workplace project) requirement; on the basis of RPL (ie. recognition for prior learning), achieved through your current and past work experience. The reference must indicate that you have skills and an awareness of your industry, which is sufficient for you to work in a position of responsibility.   Alternative 2. If you do not work in the relevant industry, you need to undertake a project as follows.     Procedure for a Workplace Project This project is a major part of the course involving the number of hours relevant to the course (see above). Although the course does not contain mandatory work requirements, work experience is seen as highly desirable.   This project is based on applications in the work place and specifically aims to provide the student with the opportunity to apply and integrate skills and knowledge developed through various areas of formal study.   Students will design this project in consultation with a tutor to involve industry based activities in the area of specialized study which they select to follow in the course. The project outcomes may take the form of a written report, folio, visuals or a mixture of forms. Participants with relevant, current or past work experience will be given exemption from this project if they can provide suitable references from employers that show they have already fulfilled the requirements of this project.   For courses that involve more than 100 hours, more than one workplace project topic may be selected. For example, 200 hours may be split into two projects each of 100 hours. This will offer the student better scope to fulfill the needs of their course and to meet the number of hours required. Alternatively, the student may wish to do one large project with a duration of 200 hours.   Students will be assessed on how well they achieve the goals and outcomes they originally set as part of their negotiations with their tutor. During each 100 hours of the project, the students will present three short progress reports. These progress reports will be taken into account when evaluating the final submission. The tutor must be satisfied that the work submitted is original.   If the student wishes to do one large 200 hour report, then only three progressive reports will be needed (however the length of each report will be longer).   To learn how to enrol click here

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