Home Study Herb Culture Course
“If you want to gain a very solid understanding of herbs, their culture and how to set up your own herb business then you need look no further. This would have to be one of the most detailed courses around. This is not a light weight course – you will be challenged throughout.” - Gavin Cole B.Sc., Psych.Cert., Cert.Garden Design, MACA, ACS Tutor
"This is the first correspondence course I have done and I have thoroughly enjoyed it and I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU. I appreciate everyone's effort in such a professionally-run organisation with seamless administration. The office staff's happy can-do attitude, their fast responses to all queries, tutor Shane Gould's quick turnaround in assignment marking and his supportive and motivational feedback and last but not least, the sound subject guides. Most importantly I hope my thanks and appreciation can be communicated to all the staff who have supported me long the way of my learning! I work full time and study on the weekend but really don't stop thinking about what gardening solution I need in order to answer my assignments every day of the week. Thank you for such a great learning experience and I cant wait to start the second half of my course!!" - Skye
Duration :
COURSE AIMS
* Differentiate between different varieties of herbs in cultivation.
* Explain the general cultural practices used for the growing of herbs.
* Determine harvest and post harvest techniques for herb crops, including processing, storage and use of herbs.
* Develop a production plan for a herb crop grown for harvesting.
* Develop a production plan for a herb nursery.
* Design a herb garden for a home or public garden.
* Evaluate the production of herbs or herb products in a commercial business.
COURSE STRUCTURE Unit 1: 1. Introduction and Herb Identification
WHAT YOU WILL DO IN THIS COURSE
-With illustrations and minimum comments, distinguish between major plant families which herbs
belong to.
-Compile a resource file of fifty different sources of information regarding cultivated herbs.
-Prepare an herbarium collection of one hundred different herb varieties.
-Develop guidelines for the general culture of herbs in your locality.
-Explain six different propagation methods suitable for herbs, using illustrations.
-Demonstrate how to prepare cuttings for three different herb varieties.
-Propagate three different varieties of commercially farmed herbs, using appropriate, but different propagation
techniques for each.
-Explain natural pest and disease control methods for a specified herb species.
-Explain the concept of companion planting, including three examples of proven companion planting
interrelationships.
-Write a maintenance schedule for either a herb garden, nursery or farm.
-Describe two different harvesting techniques for herbs, by outlining the steps to follow for each.
-Determine criteria which are critical to success in the process of drying herbs.
-Compare two different drying processes for herbs, with reference to: *equipment used *procedure *cost.
-Produce two marketable herb products by harvesting, and processing material from a herb plant.
-Prepare five different herbal products for home use.
-Estimate the costs associated with processing four different herbs to a marketable stage, itemising the
components of costs for each.
-Determine ten different species of herbs which have potential to be grown commercially as broad acre crops in
your locality.
-Describe the process of producing a specified commercial herb crop being grown organically.
-Describe the process of producing a commercial herb crop being grown hydroponically.
-Compare broad-acre production methods, used for three different herbs, including: *propagation
*planting *crop management *harvesting *post-harvest processing; by constructing a table or chart.
-Design a simple trial, to test the commercial potential of different varieties of a specific herb species.
-Conduct the simple trial you designed recording details of tasks undertaken.
-Analyse the results of the trial conducted to test the performance of a herb plants.
-Determine the variety with greatest commercial potential from those trialled.
-Prepare flow-sheet broad acre crop production schedules for four herbs; one each from Allium, Apiaceae,
Asteraceae, Lamiaceae groups.
-Determine minimum facilities required to produce saleable plants in a specified herb nursery.
-Prepare a potting media suitable for growing a container herb plant of a specified species, as nursery stock.
-Describe the procedures used in a commercial herb nursery, to produce plants for sale.
-Differentiate between the procedures used for production of different products in a herb nursery, including:
*Punnets of seedling herbs *Bare rooted plants *Standard container plants *Hanging baskets *Topiary.
-Grow a herb plant to a commercially acceptable standard, as a tubestock container plant, through all stages of
production, without supervision.
-Prepare production schedules for two herbs from four different minor herb groups, for a specified nursery.
-Explain the use of general landscape principles and practices in the designs of two different herb gardens.
-Determine different applications for herbs in home gardens.
-Determine applications for herbs in public landscaping, referring to both difficulties and advantages in different
situations.
-Design for a herb garden for a site of between 30 and 100 square metres surveyed by you, preparing a scale
drawing showing the placement of at least 20 different varieties of herbs.
-Explain the reasoning behind the herb garden designed.
-Determine critical factors to establishing a new herb business, in the learners locality.
-Analyse the business operations of a specified herb enterprise.
-Assess market demand for a herbal product, through a phone survey and information search.
-Compare the commercial potential of three different types of herb enterprises, in your locality.
This course is also available to be studied online... Click here to enrol in the online course
Distance Learning Herb Culture Course
Understand herb growth and herb culture.
A useful course for the enthusiastic amateur or someone wanting to set up their own business.
Study in your own time and at your own pace.
Learn with industry experts – our tutors!
"If you want to gain a very solid understanding of herbs, their culture and how to set up your own herb business then you need look no further. This would have to be one of the most detailed courses around. This is not a light weight course – you will be challenged throughout." Gavin Cole B.Sc., Psych.Cert., Cert.Garden Design, MACA, ACS Tutor. This course is designed to develop a solid grounding in herb growing and the herb industry. Half of the course deals with general herb culture, including identification, soils, mulching, feeding, watering, propagation, pest & disease control, harvest, storage, processing, companion planting, nursery management and herb farming. The remainder of the course involves detailed studies of major groups of herbs such as: mints, thymes, lavenders, scented geraniums, garlic, roses, artemisias and parsley.
