Sustainable Living Workshops in Armidale and Tamworth

TAFE New England is once again running a series of topical workshops on the art and practice of living more sustainably.

The presenters: Ray South and Jane Pickard are both highly regarded and experienced practitioners, both of whom have delivered many such workshops, both nationally and internationally.

Jane Pickard is an ecologist and permaculturist who was a founder member of Sustainable Living Armidale and was the first coordinator of the Armidale Local Food group. She has run sustainability courses for TAFE and been part of the SLA Home-Grown Garden Tour in previous years. She has recently returned to Armidale after 5 years in the UK where she first studied at Schumacher College, Devon and then for the last 2 years was employed there as senior lecturer and program leader in Ecological Horticulture and Land Use. She is currently developing a 40 acre farm near Armidale using regenerative agriculture and permaculture approaches

Ray South, a qualified science teacher and permaculturist, has been involved with the local sustainability group, Sustainable Living Armidale (SLA), since its inception in 2007 and has run a number of gardening related SLA workshops. He is passionate about Australian native plants and landcare and has been a supporter of the Armidale Urban Rivercare Group, part of Southern New England Landcare, since 2006. He has taught both mathematics and biology at Armidale TAFE on a casual basis for a number of years and has run previous TAFE sustainability workshops.

Once again, the workshops will be highly practical and participants will leave each workshop, armed not only with the knowledge of how to apply the knowledge and skills in their own lives, but with food, herbal preparations and bits and pieces ready for the garden.

Cost: $97 or $80 (TAFE concession) for one or all of the workshops
Bring: Your lunch, water and appropriate clothing
Further advice will be sent out to participants about equipment required for individual workshops.

I. Fermented Foods and Beverages

Date: Sat 25/7/2015
Venue: TAFE commercial kitchen
Fermenting is an excellent way of preparing food to improve storage life, enhance nutritional qualities and/or improve digestibility. In this workshop you will learn how:

• to make and care for a sourdough starter,
• to make sauerkraut (and related ferments)
• to make water kefir based drinks.

Other fermented products such as yoghurt, cheese, milk kefir and kombucha will be discussed.

II. Feeding Your Garden

Date: Sat 22/8/2015
Venue: Community garden
Building and maintaining fertility in the garden is an important activity for any gardener and there are numerous ways of doing so. This workshop will cover hot and cold composting, including trench composting, mulching, worm farms and green manures. The use of manures and mineral supplements will be discussed.

III. Starting a Vegetable Garden

Date: Sat 17/10/2015
Venue: Community garden
Starting a vegetable garden can seem a daunting task, especially for those with little or no experience. In this workshop you will learn the basics of vegetable gardening – simple, no-dig methods to create a garden, sowing seeds, planting seedlings, keeping weeds to a minimum and simple ways to deal with some common pests.

IV. Herbs and Their Uses

Date: Sat 21/11/2015
Venue: TAFE commercial kitchen
Herbs have traditionally been used for nutrition, medicine and personal care and using them frequently can help maintain good health. This workshop will introduce you to some easily grown herbs and show you how to use them. You will learn how to make teas, infusions, hair rinses, tinctures, creams and poultices.

Times and dates
Six hours for each workshop broken up as follows:

• 10am – 12.30pm Workshop
• 12.30pm – 1.30pm Lunch
• 1.30pm – 4pm Workshop

To enrol, please drop into TAFE New England – Armidale Campus, fill in an enrolment form and pay the enrolment fee. Due to State Training Requirements, you will need to set aside ½ hour to complete this process.

For further information, please contact Viv Nano {local landline prefix}3 7769

By: Vivienne Nano