Integrated Agroforestry | Food Forest & Compost Course
Your teacher for the course - Kane is the owner of Red Soil Organics and a farmer for the last 7 years, living self sufficiently producing food for family & friends, while also consulting and installing systems accross queensland. With backgrounds in certified organic market garden production, compost production, Biodynamics, seed breeding, soil science and landscape rehabilitation. Kane has been working the last 6 years full time studying and improving his systems of food production incorporating Permaculture, no-till, market gardening, biodynamics, traditional bulk cropping, agroforestry & syntropics, with the least amount of input possible. Kane is always challenging the conventional paradigms and shows us a different way through understanding the deep connections and relationships of plant, animal, soil, planet & human.
This unique approach, that combines all practises into one system is called Integrated Agroforestry, or IAF for short.
This is a two day hands on practical course,
We will be learning while doing - the basic understanding of Food Forest dynamics & successional vegetable production within the forest. Really dialling in on the reality of producing food for your self, and systematising it in a way that you have continuous supply. Everything from initial land conversion to harvesting & replanting will be covered as we work through the process together.
We hope to equip you with the necessary skills to understand the secrets of nature & the simplicity of her blueprint. Eliminating the strenuous mindset of " do i need to put this on, or put that on, do i need to check this, or check that, whats this insect"
Our farm is situated in Mooloo just outside of the Mary Valley, high up in the pie creek watershed on volcanic soil surrounded by rolling hills and grazing land.
Come and learn how we healed the past degeneration and stimulated it to revive it's true essence as a powerful ancient machine, taking compact, bright red clay and turning it into rich, friable chocolate brown soil in just 2 years. Through food production, regenerative grazing, pigs, chickens, covercrops and strategic fallows all while growing a food forest and working in the niche's of the forest.
Activities of the workshop
- Building a Red Soil Organics style thermophilic(hot), biologically rich fertiliser compost( a spin off of morpheus)
- Compost extracts, compost teas and field application
- Farm Tour, and understanding the basics of Food forest design, contour systems, terrace systems, North/South systems, bulk plot systems, Pig grazing systems, high density forest systems, permaculture guild systems, food forest windbreak strip systems - we have it all on display
- Start Garden bed preperation (directly into the earth) soil preperation and amending, covercrop designing and sowing & understanding, as we work through the preperation and planting of a 10m IAF row - with fruits, nuts, berry's, root crops, greens, herbs, survival foods and support species in one balanced ecosystem in its right structure, working for each other, to keep water in the soil, weeds at bay and crops abundant
Day 2
- Checkup on compost temperatures and moisture levels, compost troubleshooting and compost management
- Finish Garden bed preperation & planting
- Management of the system - as we work through a few different systems. One at a 3 months management stage, one at a 6 month management stage and one at a 1.5 year stage.
- finish up, fresh tea harvested from the forest, Q&A and departure
We will all open up the way we see the land and plants, as one connected system, as we walk around the farm, immersing & calibrating our senses for two full days.
There is going to be plenty of time for Q&A sessions, and to take things slow as we unravel it all, in a relaxed open learning environment
Most importantly you will learn more about growing food without all the "inputs" the conventional or organic industry use. In IAF we see the farm as one living breathing self sustaining organism, and look to produce our inputs from the farm itself.
What to bring,
- Closed shoes
- notepad
- water bottle for refilling
- hat
- camp chair if you wish to sit comfortably in the field
- lunch each day ( we no longer cater due to wide range of alternative diets and difficult caterers, course price has been lowered)
Address and details supplied on booking via email