Designing Edible Spaces – Leeds

When: 24/25th March 2018.
10-5pm
Where: LUU room 2
Email: ediblecitiescourses@gmail.com to book

Would you like to be:
* Growing your own food but feel you don’t have space or the time?
* Eating more organic food but think it’s too expensive?

This course will give you the design skills and knowledge to transform your garden or urban space into an abundant, edible garden, that is full of food, friendly to wildlife, looks good, and needs little maintenance.

Topics/Solutions Covered on this Course
Food Production
* Edible Gardens, Forest Gardens & Edible Landscapes
* Edible Mushroom Growing
* Edible Hedges
* Fruit trees/bushes – varieties
* Home Orchards & Community Orchards
* Vegetable Gardens, Container Gardens, Covered Growing
* Vertical growing

Water Systems
* Ponds & Greywater
* Self-watering containers/sub-irrigated planters
* Rainwater & Irrigation

Animal Systems
* Backyard Chickens & Ducks
* Freerange and Rotational Systems
* Beneficial Insect Plantings

Soils & Fertility
* No-dig
* Composting Systems & Wormeries
* Natural Fertilising & Feeding
* Mulching & Weed Management
* Biochar
* Ecological Lawncare

Concepts Covered on this Course
* Designing
* Creating & augmenting micro climates
* Permaculture principles
* Vertical growing
* Mapping & surveying
* The Soil Food Web
* Composting
* Mulching
* Pruning

What you take away from the course
* Printed, full colour, 36-page A4 course handbook
* Digital A4 colour handouts on: soils, mushrooms, backyard chickens etc
* Digital presentations
* Digital resources and links

Who is this course for?
* Homeowners
* Allotment holders
* Gardeners
* Community Groups
* Building Managers
* Landscape & Maintenance Gardeners
* School teachers
* Schools workers

Testimonials
‘This was a very well constructed training event from an expert in the field – thanks to Niels.’
Miranda Clarke
‘Really enjoyed the day and meeting some great people! Niels was top, I thought his humour relating to the subject and opinions was brill. Thanks!’
Tom Dorsett

Directions to the room:
Head into the student union and take the stairs or lift to Level 2. Meeting room 2 is down the corridor. There are toilets on the corridor.
https://www.luu.org.uk/accessibility/venue-accessibility/

What to bring:
* A packed lunch/food to share
* Suitable outdoor clothes & shoes
* Raincoat/umbrella
* Notebook, camera etc

About the Tutor

Niels Corfield is a designer, educator and consultant, working to create sustainable/regenerative landscapes and farms in the UK and Europe. He is someone with a diverse skill-set who can tie together disparate projects into a coherent whole using cutting edge- and best practice systems.

He is passionate about tree-based, ecological systems that are low maintenance and productive.
He has extensive experience with designing, establishing and managing diverse agroforestry systems, forest gardens and ecological orchards.
He is a skilled orchardist, propagator and nurseryman.

Since 2007 he has been teaching certified Permaculture Design Courses, as well as a range of specialist training and education, from design through to practical skills. He has created a suite of professional education resources to carry-out multi-stakeholder/participatory design workshops (Designing for Real).

He is the director of Edible Cities, a successful urban design consultancy, education and nursery business. Creating productive and ecological low maintenance edible landscapes since 2008. He counts amonst his clients: the Ecology Building Society and various councils and is currently working on a 500 home development in inner city Leeds.

He runs a commercial nursery and is proficient in propagating productive, named-variety: trees, shrubs, vines and herbaceous plants. He also delivers specialist courses for designing tree nursery and plant production systems.

He designs and installs rainwater harvesting and irrigation systems for growers in the UK.

He has been supporting and consulting on small-medium UK farms since 2012. Implementing, designing and consulting on rotational grazing systems, agroforestry plantings and water systems, as well as whole site design. He also offers a specialist mapping service to growers and farmers to facilitate design-making and planning on-site.

This year he is coordinating a research trial of organic no-till cover crops across a number of sites in the UK. Establishing an empiric case for soil organic matter generation in these systems.

He has been trained by Darren Doherty (RegenAg Design), Kirk Gadzia (Holistic Management), Starhawk and Penny Livingstone-Stark (Permaculture Design).