Seven days on Ballymaloe Cookery School’s Practical Horticulture course
So, what will each day be like?
The course has been designed to be largely practical. This means being outside in the School gardens or glasshouses or on the School’s farm. You will learn about each activity on location, as it were, and then get plenty of opportunity to master it for yourself. Once or twice a week we will visit Ballymaloe House, which is located nearby and has a walled, kitchen garden. Once or twice a week, depending on the weather, there will be lectures in the School. If the weather is dire and it is impossible to work outside then you may be given a topic to research and study yourself. There will be regular tests as a way of monitoring your progress. The day starts at 8 am or 8.30 am in the morning and ends at 4 or 5 pm in the afternoon, depending on the season. But there will be lots of other things to do both in the evening and at weekends. This is an intensive course for students who are serious about a career in horticulture.
Monday 28th February
Welcome to the School. A tour of the school, farm and gardens. First lecture covering keeping a diary, keeping other records and creating a sowing, planting and cropping plan for fruit, vegetables and cut flowers. Making sure that you have all the required equipment. First practical session in gardens – lettuces.
Tuesday 1st March
Practical day spent learning how to sow crops requiring additional heat to germinate such as peppers, aubergines and tomatoes – these are sown in the growing room under lights. Sowing of lettuce and sweet peas and their special requirements.
We will record all crops being sown and also being harvested now. We will discuss cropping and cropping areas – hectares, acres and square metres.
Wednesday 2nd March
First visit to Ballymaloe House and its walled kitchen garden. Preparation of an electric blanket and sowing of seeds requiring additional heat at this time of year. It will be interested to compare this to the growing room at the Cookery School. Sowing of broad beans, parsley, sweet marjoram, celery, celeriac, spring onions and fennel. Chitting potatoes, dividing rhubarb and globe artichokes, lifting dahlias from outside and taking indoors to be forced for soft wood cuttings. Recording of all crops being sown and harvested now.
Thursday 3rd March
Morning lecture to cover growing from seed (including organic legislation; different propagation methods and sourcing equipment.) In the afternoon we will visit Midleton College Farm to see drifts of naturalised snowdrops. We will practise lifting, dividing and re-planting. We will also learn about trees – their role, how to manage them and how to estimate their age.
Friday 4th March
A practical day in the School gardens to be spent learning about and dealing with the division of herbs, herbaceous perennials and grasses. If wet we will explore School library and cover better practical gardening guides and sources of reference.