Ballymaloe Cookery School Diploma in Practical Horticulture 2011 Course Syllabus
Ballymaloe Cookery School Diploma in Practical Horticulture 2011 Course Syllabus
Requirements for Course
1. Pair of Secateurs
2. Pocket Knife
3. Wet Weather Clothes and Wellington Boots
Saturday 5th March, 2011
How to keep a few chickens in the garden – one day course with Darina Allen
Tuesday 8th March
Winter pruning of soft fruit choosing soft fruit varieties and the garden layout and other shrubs.
Wednesday 9th March
Plant new soft fruit. Learn how to propagate soft fruit from hardwood cutting. Growing and forcing rhubarb and seakale.
Thursday 10th March
Possibly a short course with Norman Platz on building live willow structures.
Identification of salad and crops and creating a cropping plan. Mulching of soft fruit with compost/manure.
Friday 11th March
Sowing of courgettes, basil and cucumbers. Harvesting and preparation of crops for the market organic requirements for markets. Students rota to work at market. Pruning wisteria. Choosing wall shrubs for different aspects.
Monday 14th March
Pruning fan-trained figs, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries. Apple and pears cordons and espaliers. Pruning grapes
Tuesday 15th March
Identification of herbs available now and creating a cropping plan. Direct sowings in relation to soil temperature, sparing for different methods of weed control to include the use of a swivel hoe, mulching, flame weeding, stale seed beds, crop rotations and green manures.
Wednesday 16th March
Double digging and single digging. Digging in green manure and ground preparation using seaweed and manure.
Monday 21st March
Understanding the service requirements for a rotavator, strimmer, rotary lawn mower and hedge cutter. Sharpening hand tools.
Tuesday 22nd March
1 day per week in the glasshouse from now onwards. Work will include looking at all areas and learning how to prioritise your work schedule. It will also include looking at the propagation area and the movement of plants from the growing room and hardening off crops for outdoors.
Wednesday 23rd March
Soil preparation and planting of potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, and asparagus. Understanding the walled garden cropping plan.
Thursday 24th March
Soil management, crop rotations, aspect, micro-climates and frost packets. Planting potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes by machine/
Friday 25th March
Mulching herbaceous borders and identification of plants with interest now. Pruning ornamental shrubs at this time of year, eg hydrangeas.
Monday 28th March (possibly short course on Saturday 26th instead)
Herbaceous borders. Designing with plants – the thought process to create seasonal interest.
Tuesday 29th March
Poly tunnel production and construction.
Wednesday 30th March
Planting beetroot and peas in gutters. Preparation of a leek seed bed. Planting garlic, shallots, onions and 2nd early potatoes.
Thursday 31st March
Soil management (continued from last Thursday.) Identification of weeds at the cotyledon stage (particularly with direct sowings done previously.)
Friday 1st April
One day in the glasshouse.
Saturday 2nd April – Beginners Guide to Beekeeping – Michael Woulfe
Staking herbaceous plants. Planting out and ground preparation for broad beans and sweet peas. Potting on brassicas and understanding the principles of inter-cropping. Successional lettuce sowing. Start outdoor direct sowings of spring onions, radishes, turnips and beetroot.
Phacelia and its uses as a summer green manure. Understanding Latin names. Formative pruning of outdoor plums and cherries. Sowing tender annual cut flowers. Sowing sorrel, chard, Orientals and other salad leaves. Planting tomatoes. Irrigation systems. Herbicides – should I be using them? Growing shrubs for floristry.
May
Carrying out pre-use checks on a tractor. Driving and reversing with a trailer. Hitching and unhitching a trailer. Operate a PTO driven implement attached to a 3 point linage. Understanding the requirements for successful ploughing and ground preparation.
Growing pumpkins, marrows, courgettes, cucumbers, sweetcorn and sunflowers.
Successional direct sowings of various crops to create the correct continuity.
Chillies in pots for Christmas.
Growing barlotti beans, runner beans, Florence fennel, kohl rabi.
Twisting and shooting tomatoes. Pests and diseases – prevention and control. The management and propagation of indoor plants.
June
Growing brassicas for the winter production – kale, romanesco, winter cauliflower, sprouting broccoli and winter cabbage.
Training and cropping grapes, apricots and peaches.
Designing and growing herb garden. Growing herbs for year round cropping. Propagating – growing herbs from seed and taking cuttings.
Compost workshop. The principles behind making ‘Hot Compost’ and its practical applications in a domestic situation. What to put in your compost heap. Choosing the right bin for your compost. Making worm compost. Visit to a compost waste management scheme.
Horticulture therapy as a career.
July
Summer pruning of soft fruits and figs.
Hedges and their management .
Cut flower preparation.
Day trip to a market garden.
Wildlife habitats – woodlands, ponds, meadows and native hedgerows.
Herbaceous borders – summer maintenance, extending the season of interest, design ideas and plant identification and cut flower material.
August
Holiday Monday 1st to Friday 5th August
Seed saving – practical, basic botany and pollination methods, heritage varieties and preserving our food, heritage, seed storage.
Pruning fun – trained plums, cherries and peaches.
Pruning espalier, cordon and step-over apples and pears. Pruning loganberries, tayberries, blackberries and summer raspberries.
Autumn onions and garlic.
Bulbs for naturalising cut flowers and extending the season of interest in the herbaceous borders.
Outdoor winter lettuces.
Spring cabbages.
Re-design of the herbaceous borders.
Darina Allen – demonstration of bottling and storage of vegetables.
September
Winter salad cropping.
Pruning the walled garden for next year.
Sowing winter green manures.
Planting snowdrops ‘in the dry’
Winter indoor bulb production.
Pests and diseases life cycles and their management (continued from May)
Trip to Irish Seed Savers Association for Apple Day.
Saturday 24th September – Foraging with Darina Allen.
October
Halloween break Friday 28th to Monday 31st October.
Planning next years soil management – compost and manure.
Re-design of herbaceous borders.
Designing and laying out an orchard, understanding rootstocks, pollination groups, pests and diseases, planting and staking a tree.
Historical garden reconstruction - the theory of garden history looking at practical construction of historical gardens.
The importance of winter work in the garden.
November
Pruning ‘free standing’ apple and pear trees in an orchard,
Formative pruning.
Pruning the cropping tree.
Pruning the rejuvenate an old orchard.
Basic carpentry for gardeners. Winter pruning of grapes. Pruning autumn raspberries. Planting bulbs, pruning roses, climbers and other ornamental shrubs.