SAGE's partnership project with Fusion Training Solutions has been a great success, seeing a big increase in the number of new wicking beds now located within the SAGE home garden.
Fusion provided twelve trainees along with their trainer Chris Pearson, and the goal to deliver practical and knowledge skills and competencies to gain a Certificate 111 in Landscape Construction qualification. The SAGE Garden in Moruya provided the space to gain those skills in a real hands-on project with the SAGE site offering a genuine horticultural and client-based context for the training.
SAGE’s Stuart Whitelaw developed a Landscape plan for layout and details of the area and SAGE maintenance co-ordinator Adrian Cram helped site manage the project and deliver training skills on some of the technical aspects of the job.
The group’s success in installing the components of beds and concrete paving as per plan can be best seen at the site. The trainees also developed other skills which were integrated within the course such as project costing, setting out a site for construction and calculating quantities of materials.
SAGE congratulate all the trainees who successfully gained their Certificates.
The wicking bed design allows water from the reservoir in the beds gravel base to wick upwards replacing water taken up by the plants or evaporation. This cycling of water keeps the bed constantly at optimum water capacity. Overall, the home garden has now an extra 29 square metres of growing space in these raised beds to grow food for SAGE's Community Food program.
The eager volunteers who regularly cultivate these beds have already sprang into action sowing seed and seedlings, propelling this space into instant production. The project has been a win-win for all involved and a future win for all who will consume the resulting fresh, seasonal and local produce that will grow from these beds.
