Discover essential methods you need to grow great vegetables all year round, with less waste of time and space.

What To Expect

• Grow vegetables easily throughout the year
• Use time creatively to maximise growth
• Learn cost effective and productive-per-area methods
• Learn to plan, sow, plant, space, water, harvest, and succeed with succession
• Improve growth and work alongside nature.

Grow creatively – learn new skills – save time – enjoy growing success

Completing Online Course 1 – No Dig gardening, is not a prerequisite for taking this course

Charles Dowding is a world authority on no dig gardening, learn from his decades of experience. Tried and tested methods, common sense and easy to understand.

See the bottom of this page for Online Course FAQs.

Buy the entire course or in separate modules, price varies according to size of module.

 

Course content

I explain the skills and understandings you need, the essentials. My approach sometimes diverges from mainstream views because I assay and develop new or lesser known methods, for easier and better results. No dig is the main one, plus I give you a lot of short cuts, which are really just common sense. For more on this it may be worth your buying my first course about no dig gardening, but it’s not a prerequisite for taking this course.

Course 2 illustrates how you create planting plans, advises on succession and inter planting, how to propagate plants, and quick ways to set them in the ground. You learn spacing, picking methods, watering, and using covers for both warmth and pest protection.

The course advice is based on your having a clean and fertile area to grow vegetables. It may not be large and that is fine. I show examples of how much food you can grow every year in just one bed, and in containers too.

One technique I refer to often is interplanting and inter sowing. This is a form of companion planting, because seedlings like ‘nurse plants’ nearby, and plants generally like being close to other plants. Hence the success of multi-sowing, and there is a whole lesson on that.

The content is 18 lessons, totalling 58,000 words.
There are 900 photos with detailed captions.
30 exclusive videos which are not available elsewhere.

Where it leads

In the last lesson I consider how we can grow more easily, in tune with energy forces such as the sun, moon and others. I give easy and cheap tips for improving your harvests. There is much we don’t understand about how plants grow and how soil behaves, so an underlying theme of the course is to keep an open mind. Be prepared to try new things, even beyond what I suggest. This takes you further in how to grow successfully and easily.

The course is not accredited with official bodies.

KEY to CONTENT   V means one of the unique videos, pics + photos and w = words, not including quizzes + there are other videos embedded which are also on You Tube

Module 1 Growing skills and knowledge

An introduction to this exciting course. Sonia wrote, “I binge-watched and read the whole course in record time!”. My detailed explanations are fascinatingly different and are not the regular rules and procedures. They illustrate how to achieve success in your garden, simply and understandably. You can grow healthy plants with less effort.

Enjoy my fully illustrated examples of how to make full use of the growing seasons. You need less space to grow more food. See the most effective use of time and ground space to maximise growth.

1 Skills and Knowledge 1 The aim 2 How to succeed 3 Skills you need for top results V Spinach 10 months growth from one sowing +  V Sow at best time, 28pics 2200w

2 Fully use your time and space How to maximise growth, efficiently V Interplanting spinach and herbs + V Spacing and timing, small garden mostly,  44pics 2200w

Module 2 Plan for continual harvests

Planning can be fun! It’s about starting with intentions, and then staying open to change along the way. A plan is a start point.

I show how to plan over the four seasons, incorporating timings and spacings, with examples from beds in my own gardens at Homeacres.

Discover how to succeed with succession and rotation through summer and autumn, and learn my detailed advice on winter gardening. Keep your beds full! It’s easier than you may think.

Then we look at covers, to protect our plants from weather and pests. They are cheap and easy. How and when to use fleece and mesh, and what each one does best.

3 Sketch out the year Examples of my plans and successions for three beds V Wild rocket followed by decision time, result was cauliflower and chicory, 35pics 2200w

4 Succession and rotation How to plan for and succeed with new plantings throughout summer and into autumn, what can follow what V No rotation results + V Small garden autumn successions 45pics 2700w 

5 Winter gardening Growing and preparing for winter, and the harvests including during the hungry gap V Winter harvests outdoors + V Winter small garden, 47pics 2100w

Module 3 Perennial vegetables and herbs

This is about perennial fruit and vegetables, with a ‘growers manual’ of 12 perennial food plants. From seed or plant to harvests, year after year.

Learn about herbs! There are so many you can have to enjoy all year. With a video and details on how to grow, harvest and maintain both annuals and perennials.

6 Perennial vegetables and raspberries A growing manual of 12 perennial food plants, V December among Homeacres perennials + V July perennial fruit & veg, 55pics 4100w

7 Herbs How to grow and harvest and maintain annuals and perennials, from basil and coriander to sage and thyme, sow, care, prune, V Herbs, 40pics 2500w

Module 4 Seeds, sowing, propagation

The mystery of seeds – or is it? A fascinating subject and I explain how to source, buy and save seeds, including potential problems. 

Next we see how to grow them into healthy plants, the cornerstone of successful gardening. There are many ways to propagate lovely plants and it’s an important subject.

One of the loveliest parts is multisowing, which has been adopted by thousands of gardeners recently, following my teachings. Learn more here and enjoy greater success.

8 Seeds and sowing How to source, buy and save seeds with illustrations of my seed saving, V Lettuce harvests and seed saving,  50pics 3700w

9 Propagation skills The biggest lesson, packed with information on this important subject V July propagation and planting, 56pics 4300w

10 Multisowing why and how, many examples, a big timesaver and garden filler V Beetroot and turnip late spring showing growth from multisowing,  40 pics 2700w

Module 5 Spacing and transplanting

Space closer! I show how to do it and why it works so well, with examples and details for many vegetables. We also look at wider spacings, including how you can space a broad range of vegetables under cover.

There are many ways to transplant! Often easier and quicker than supposed, and I show you my methods, as well as those for direct sowing.

11 Close spacings How to do it and why this works so well, within reason, details for many vegetables,  V Spacings examples in July of different vegetables, 38pics 3100w

12 Wider spacings Many examples and explanations, see the results from small plants to harvests, V Kale 30cm plants in October + V Spacing a wide range of plants in the polytunnel in July, 36pics 2300w

13 Planting methods and sowing direct Ways to transplant and how to do it quickly V Interplant of August showing growth by October + V How to work out spacings with a dibber, dib holes and transplant, 44pics 2700w

Module 6 How and when to harvest, and container ideas

Clever picking makes such a difference to your harvests. You learn how and when to pick for different vegetables, and then discover three different methods of harvesting – picking, pulling/twisting and cutting.

Then we look at growing in containers and small spaces, many cheap and reusable: pots, boxes, sacks, and a single bed.

14 Picking skills (1) when to pick for different vegetables, seasons, plant growth and harvest requirements V April showing greenhouse salads picked all winter + V chicory hearts in October (radicchio), 51pics 3300w

15 Picking skills (2) more on picking including discussions and examples of cutting, V cutting baby leaves + V Cutting frizzy endive in autumn + V picking salad leaves. 38pic 2600w

16 Small space growing Vegetables in containers, sacks, vertical and one bed, V Methods to support peas + V Small garden intensive planting October, 56pics 3500w

Module 7 Early growing, watering, energy

We examine watering in detail –  there is so much to know about it, a skill to learn – and you will then enjoy the big benefits of wise watering. Plus I give you information about the frost tolerance of different vegetables, and how to protect them if needed.

The course finishes with a look at ˜energy gardening” – the potential effects of the sun, moon and even hidden energies that science struggles to measure. Such as the green fingers this course is giving you!

17 Early cropping and covers  Using fleece and mesh, their relative values and effects in different seasons, V Frozen vegetable plants in April then see their recovery on same day, 50pics 2800w

18 Water, frost, moon, energy How to water, what you need to know about frost and some of my ‘secrets’ of lateral thinking plus action, V Winter watering + V Effects of lack of moisture + V Soy & French beans, 60pics  4300w

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