Year One Course Outline

UNITS

  1. Permaculture Principles and Design - food gardens, medicinal plants, and ethics.
  2. Planning for Sustainable Food Production - key aspects, tools, considerations, budget, and record keeping.
  3. Nutrition and Dietary Needs - importance and principles of nutrition, sources, balanced diet, hiv/aids nutrition, and under- nutrition.
  4. Trees and Shrubs - role of plants, planting, windbreaks, live fence, species, agro-forestry, and orchards.
  5. Vegetables and Crops - types, growing, seed multiplication, nutritional value of different vegetables.
  6. Herbs and Medicinal Plants - types, herbs for nutrition and medicinal purposes, preparing and storing herbs, and growing healthy herbs.
  7. Small Livestock - types and integration of livestock for crop farming.
  8. Soil Management - soil types, preparing the soil, mulching, composting, earthworms, crop rotation, and the different types of manure.
  9. Companion Planting - identifying crops that grow well together.
  10. Water management - water harvesting, water management, water conservation, grey water management, and irrigation techniques and technologies.
  11. Plant Propagation - sexual and asexual propagation, propagating fruit trees, seed germination, nursery establishment and management, bee keeping.
  12. Pest Management - manage pests, diseases and weeds in your garden - understanding pests, disease and weed management, design natural habitat for pest predators, inter-planting, natural sprays for specific pests, supportive strategies, helpful insects control pests, diseases, and weeds.
  13. Crop Harvesting - timing of harvesting, effective methods of harvesting.
  14. Seed saving - collection and storage, selection, saving, and importance of seed saving.
  15. Recipes and Food Preparation - ways of preparing food and key considerations when preparing specific foods.
  16. Green Building and Green Technologies - what is green building, different types of green building, and green technologies (water tanks, bio-gas digesters, and alternative energy sources).