Wednesday 13th November 2019
Hackney and Tower Hamlets
Come on our brilliant, orcharding course and learn everything you need to know about designing and managing community orchards. You will benefit from our team of experienced orchardists who have already helped 60 students gain the Certificate. The course starts in November 2019 and finishes in January 2021 giving you a wonderful opportunity to learn a wide range of seasonally-appropriate orchard skills. In addition you can come on practical, reinforcement days and a computer skills booster day.
This level 3 training is free in exchange for 3 days of volunteering with The Orchard Project or with the Shoreditch Trust. However, you must be able to answer ‘yes’ the following 6 questions:
- Are you able to make all 9 ‘Key Dates’ below?
- Can you show that you are unemployed or ‘economically inactive’ and do you plan on getting a job or attending another training course after this one? Please see below for an explanation of ‘economically inactive’.
- Do you have the right to live and work in the UK?
- Do you think you could handle a level 3 course? It’s similar to doing an A level and you will be assessed. However, we can be flexible here – if it’s not for you, you could attend but not go for the Certificate.
- Are you able to do basic tasks on a computer? By basic tasks we mean write, save and email a document, and be able to do internet searches. NB, there is a training day to boost your skills on 1st November. See ‘Optional Dates’ below.
- Would you be really keen to learn loads about orchards, including how to design your own one?
If you can answer yes to all of these questions, please register your interest on Eventbrite and we will be in touch with you to let you know the next steps.
Economically inactive
This means you haven’t been looking for a job in the last 4 weeks, or you have been looking but wouldn’t be able work in the next couple of weeks. We’re really keen for this training to help people get a job, ideally in the community food growing sector. Some reasons why you might be economically inactive are: you’ve retired early, you look after children, you’re a lone parent, you are long-term sick or you’re looking after the home. If you are economically inactive you can sign a declaration, which we can provide.
Key Dates
| Wed 13 Nov 2019 | Orchard intro with Jo Homan | Learn about the historical context of orchards, important details of how plants work and some tree identification. |
| Wed 04 Dec 2019 | Group work with Ella Hashemi | Working well with other people can be tricky and it’s critical you know how to avoid the common pitfalls. |
| Wed 08 Jan 2020 | Soil day with Lewis McNeill | Understand why feeding the soil is so important. Covers soil science, the soil food web, promoting fertility. |
| Wed 05 Feb 2020 | Winter pruning and tree planting with Stephanie Irvine | Learn how to prune a young tree in winter and how to plant trees so they’re likely to survive. |
| Wed 04 Mar 2020 | Grafting with Lewis McNeill | Learn how to make new trees for free using the ancient technique of whip and tongue or cleft grafting. There are a limited number of people who have this practical skill, so it’s well worth learning. Learn more about tree identification. |
| Wed 08 Apr 2020 | Resilient orchards with Jo Homan | Learn how to make sure your orchard is resilient to the effects of climate change. What plants and features should you include? |
| Wed 13 May 2020 | Orchard survey and design with Jo Homan | Although we touch on how to survey land and produce scale drawings, the focus will be on the plant choice. We will cover rootstocks, plant properties and spacings. |
| Wed 10 Jun 2020 | Biodiversity, pests & diseases with Russell Miller | Learn why promoting biodiversity and tree health in your orchard will help address most of the pests and diseases you’ll be identifying and learning about. |
| Wed 05 Aug 2020 | Summer pruning & grafting with Jo Homan | Learn an additional way of grafting trees and how you summer prune the fruit trees in your orchard. |
Optional Dates
| Fri 01 Nov 2019 | Digital Skills | Learn how to create, save and send a piece of work, insert tables and images into documents and move images off phones or the internet. |
| Wed 08 Jul 2020 | Reinforcement day: summer pruning | Get some practice of summer pruning. |
| Wed 09 Sep 2020 | Reinforcement day: tree care | Reinforce what we have learned about caring for orchard trees. |
| Wed 07 Oct 2020 | Reinforcement day: group work | Reinforce what we’ve learned about working in groups, especially the decision making processes. |
| Wed 04 Nov 2020 | Reinforcement day: site preparation | Get some practical skills of preparing a piece of land for planting trees. |
| Wed 09 Dec 2020 | Reinforcement day: winter pruning | Reinforce what you learned last winter on how to prune young trees. |
| Wed 13 Jan 2021 | Reinforcement day: tree planting | Get some practice of tree planting. |
Venues
The venues are all in Hackney or Tower Hamlets, such as Redmond Community Centre, The Castle Climbing Centre and Bromley-by-Bow Centre.
Timing
The timing is 09.30am-3pm every day and you should make sure you arrive promptly for each session.
Why do we have the selection criteria?
We’re very pleased to be receiving funding from the European Social Fund and the government (via Paddington Development Trust) to help people find ways into work or into more advanced training – and we have set some ambitious targets for this. If you are looking for a way to be more employable in the community food sector and have signs of tree geekery, this course could be for you!
