If you're looking to make significant changes in your life, then the full permaculture design course will almost certainly help you. It provides a broad introduction to the applications of permaculture in a number of different situations.

 

It's for anyone who believes that we need to find ways to care for ourselves, for each other and for the Earth. This practical course, offered both in a two week residential format or as six weekends spread out over several months, will bring the possibility of significant and positive life changes.

 

Although permaculture is most commonly thought about in connection with gardening and farming, its principles, ethics and design methods can be adapted and used in each individual's own work, interests and home to bring about a more harmonious and sustainable lifestyle.

More than half of us in Britain it seems are unhappy in our jobs and yet most don’t do anything about it. Discovering permaculture however can be the catalyst for many of us to start considering how we might make that transition to the more positive-impact lifestyle we aspire to. We'll use our time together to take you through a design process, considering what skills and resources you already have, what you love to do and what you're excited about learning. We'll identify the gaps in the current permaculture community and where you may be able to fit in.

We'll identify where you are leaking time, energy or resources and what's holding you back from creating that positive-impact livelihood now. We'll apply the permaculture principles to help you create a poly-income (multiple elements for each important function) with a good seasonal spread (work with nature) and that allows you to work as much as you want but no more (appropriate scale). We'll identify who loves to do the jobs you don't (everything gardens) and seek out ways to get you noticed (increasing edge).

A three-day residential course where we apply permaculture design principles to the care of the place we all spend the most time in - our own bodies!

What 'Physical Education' should have been like...

Join us for an exploration of the body's remarkable adaptability, rebuilding your natural resilience and reconnecting you with it. We will provide you with a better understanding of your body as a whole system, give you expert individual feedback on your own movement patterns, and show you how to fix the issues that lead to those all-too-common aches and pains. Begin a journey of holistic body health and well-being and come away with your own customised permaculture body design.

This training has been developed to assist participants in understanding how to take the basic principles of permaculture design and apply them on a land-based project. While a few days is insufficient time to fully observe a site and come up with a design that optimises energy use there, a lot can still be learned. Hence this training takes participants through an albeit brief hands-on land-based design process on a real site, bringing permaculture theory to life.

 

While this is primarily offered as a training to groups and organisations, I'm also happy to hear from anyone with a venue who would like to facilitate this as a public course. It is useful for anyone stewarding land, from gardeners to smallholders and farmers and is offered in formats between three and five days.

This advanced training is intended for students who have already completed a Permaculture Design Course or done significant reading and begun applying the design tools to their own projects. Permaculture basics will not be covered.

 

 

Edible forest gardening is the art and science of putting plants together in woodland-edge-like patterns that forge mutually beneficial relationships, creating a garden ecosystem that is more than the sum of its parts. You can grow fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, other useful plants, and animals in a way that mimics natural ecosystems (Jacke). The aim is to create a low input, high output system that benefits people and the environment, providing a great range of products. A forest garden is designed and established according to the site and the needs of the client.

 

This practical hands-on course is offered in a five day format and will assist participants to visualize, plan, establish and continue to maintain, harvest and learn from a forest garden, be it at home or on someone else's land such as a community garden, school garden, etc.

The course is suitable for all abilities: both apprentice and experienced teachers and also for those who have just completed their Permaculture Design course (PDC). During the course we will be focusing on the tools and techniques for teaching and facilitating permaculture learning and the practicalities of convening and running courses. We don't revisit the topics on a PDC in any depth, so it is recommended that if your permaculture knowledge is a bit rusty you do some preparatory background reading before the course.

 

The course concentrates on methods of delivering permaculture training, but the techniques covered can be applied to any other subject and hence the course would be valuable for any teacher wanting to expand their creative teaching techniques. The course will be lively and interactive on all levels using plenty of diversity in teaching styles. We use the course as a working example of how much can be achieved using accelerated learning techniques. We examine the whole process of running a course – from finding a venue and course publicity to evaluation and follow up.

This course is an experiential journey into the world of systems and patterns and their value in designing for both land and people. We explore them in our own lives and the world around us, through games, observations, artwork, mindmapping, slide shows, talks and discussions. This experiential learning embeds the language into our own thinking enabling us to become fluent in using patterns and systems in our formal and informal design work.

We think it's important to deepen our understanding of systems and patterns to become more effective permaculture designers. Systems and patterns feature heavily in both Aranya's and Looby's writing projects, and they bring their different perspectives together to further expand your thinking. The course is a journey of collective discovery with teaching methods suited to harvesting the wisdom of the group.