| Our Short Course Starting a Backyard Nursery is a Self Paced 20-hour course to help you understand more about growing and selling plants.
This short course is a guide for the person attempting to start or run a small nursery, herb or flower growing enterprise as a backyard operation on their larger property. It aims to cover the most important topics you need to get you started.
You could use this course as a starting point to:
- Study the nursery industry and its sectors in your region & see what is and is workable.
- Look at what plants and related products are currently in demand.
- Consider opportunities open to you – for example:
- You may start small, propagating, growing potted plants and selling at a local market
- You may start by propagating herbs for sale, but also growing some, harvesting and producing some herbal products
- You may propagate flowers, selling potted flowering plants; or growing in the ground, then harvesting and selling bunches of flowers to a florist or at a market stall.
Nurseries, herb or flower farms that have humble beginnings on just a few dozen square metres of land; can eventually develop into a large, full-time business.
Our courses are designed to help you understand a topic in a short amount of time. You can work through the course when you like- test yourself with mini-tests along the way. There are extra case studies or research you can undertake if you would really like to get into the topic. Once you have completed the lessons and self assessment tasks, there is a final exam undertaken online- you can then download your personalised certificate.
This short course covers eight lessons:
Lesson 1 introduction and possabilties
- Introduction
- Form of product
- Growth stage
- Quantity
- Selling
Lesson 2 management and organisation
- Management and organisation
- Selecting the site
- Choosing what to grow
- Layout
- Managing manpower, equipment and materials
- Developing a nursery stock list – an example
- Nursery stocklist worksheet
Lesson 3 propagating techniques and equipment
- An overview
- Sexual propagation
- Treatments
- Asexual propagation
- Propagating structures and equipment
- Nursery irrigation techniques
- Propagating beds
- Shade houses
Lesson 4 propagating materials
- Containers
- Containers
- Potting mixtures
- Labels
Lesson 5 plant health problems
- Diagnosing problems
- Minimising the likelihood of problems
- Treating a problem
- Chemical controls
- Minimising chemical use
- Biological controls
Lesson 6 propagation – seeds and cuttings
- Where to plant
- Pre-germination treatments
- Handling seedlings
- Pricking out seedlings
- Propagating ferns
- Cuttings
- Practical exercise
- Budding and grafting
- Layering
- Propagation of specific plants
- Ornamentals
- Annuals, bulbs and perennials
- Fruit and nut plants
- Herbs
- Growing on
- Potting up plants
Lesson 7 starting a small herb or flower farm
- Herb growing
- Herbal products
- Growing flowers for profit in your backyard
Lesson 8 Management
- Starting a nursery
- Market research
- Planning
- Work scheduling
- Operational flow charts
- Nursery profile
- Costing your production
- Practical exercise
- Hypothetical case study
- Bibliography
- Other books
- Useful contacts
How it all works:
- You can enroll at any time.
- Once you have paid for the course, you will be able to start straight away.
- Study when and where you like.
- Work through at your own pace.
- You can download your study guide to your Smartphone, tablet, or laptop to read offline.
- There are automated self-assessment tests you can complete at the end of each lesson. You can attempt these as many times as you wish and each time, upon completion, you can see your results.
- You will need internet access to complete the self-assessment tests.
- At the end of the course, you are presented with a larger assessment that can be attempted online, anywhere, anytime. If you achieve a 60% pass in the exam; you immediately receive a downloadable certificate of completion with your name on it.
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