Agroforestry Systems for Productive Landscapes (0.5 day)

About This Event

Agroforestry offers a way to produce food that works with natural systems rather than against them. This half-day session introduces a range of agroforestry approaches suitable for the UK climate.

You’ll explore:
Agroforestry systems and principles
Forest gardens and layered growing
Syntropic systems
Unusual edible plants and perennial vegetables
Compost teas and Bokashi as fertility tools

This session is particularly valuable for those interested in long-term productivity, resilience and lower-input systems, whether at garden or enterprise scale. This morning forms part of a 6-day FARMstart course, but can be booked as a standalone.

Refreshments and lunch included, using as much produce as possible from the market garden.

Course Facilitator
Rachel Hammond is an experienced grower and educator specialising in regenerative, perennial-led and agroforestry market garden systems. She has developed and demonstrated a 75% perennial, climate-resilient and commercially viable market garden model, designed to balance productivity, biodiversity and profitability.

Rachel’s teaching is practical, honest and grounded in lived experience. She is particularly skilled at helping people understand what works in reality – including labour, margins, and long-term sustainability – rather than idealised growing models.

Her approach combines ecological thinking with commercial clarity, making FARMStart especially valuable for those serious about turning growing into a livelihood.

Course Setting
You’ll be learning within:
A working market garden, designed around permaculture principles
The Grange Hub, a purpose-built education and community space
Wide, open views across the rewilding site

The setting supports learning that is grounded, practical and unhurried, with time to ask questions, share experiences and connect skills to a wider ecological context.