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Ready to Learn Permaculture?

We offer online and in-person courses including the well known Permaculture Design Course. We also do design 
and consulting work to help you
accomplish your goals.
ONLINE
Design CourseIN-PERSON
Design Course
Endorsed by:
pina.inGraduates in Action

Why Permaculture?

Today we are facing issues such as lack of food security, climate change, and continuously diminishing agricultural land, which indirectly tend to lead to things such as health issues and economic insecurity. Fortunately they can readily be resolved through the use of permaculture.
Rich landscape
Farmers degrade the soil they depend on by not ensuring the three things that healthy soil needs - air, water and nutrition - are present. Driving a tractor on soil compresses it, and oxygen and water cannot enter. Any fertilizer applied does not enter either. (Buying expensive tools to inject fertilizer into the soil is unnecessary with this technology.)
Rain washes away unprotected, plowed topsoil along with chemical fertilizers. This fertility often end up flowing into water systems that lead to the ocean in Florida and other Gulf state where the sudden inflow of nitrates feeds the infamous toxic red-tide algae, killing millions of fish and other sea life and causing a health hazard for humans. It's very possible to prevent all of this, with the right approach which is well within our capacity to implement.
Bill Mollison travelled across continents to find the most successful farming methods over the long term used by indigenous people for hundreds or thousands of years. From this hands-on research he formulated a number of principles based on a whole systems design. It starts with the ethics of care for the earth, care for people and care for the future. He noted that working with nature instead of against her increased the longevity and abundance in these systems. These principles help us create a more resilient, holistic, permanent culture, which is how the word permaculture was formed
Growing food using these principles is simple, does not require expensive machines or tools, and anyone can learn how to do it. Permaculture is about designing one's life to be more regenerative. This can be broken down into design projects; for instance, a permaculture landscape design would include fruit trees, edible landscaping, and gardens. Using these regenerative gardening techniques, it's possible to grow enough food to be able to sell excess at farmers markets and other local outlets.
Where do we go from here
Sustainable means that something can continue without depleting resources. Regenerative means that you are not only sustainable but you put more back than you took out; you are actively improving or healing the system. Regenerative systems retain their ability to produce abundance. This approach becomes a long term “way of life” and are key parts of permaculture.
Mollison laid out an internationally recognized 72 hour course that teaches these techniques. Our courses far exceed the minimum requirements, to give you a better start and help you on your journey. We focus on practical application. Our goal is to help you to be successful in applying these techniques.
You can start with a backyard, a family farm, or homestead, or simply learn an easier garden technique. These in themselves create great examples that inspire others to do the same. Or build a career designing, teaching and helping others to help all of us!

Learn more about our in-person and online permaculture design courses below. Check out the calendar to see what is coming up.

Sign up here!
The introductory course to permaculture is called the Permaculture Design Course (PDC) and is the foundation for how to learn and apply permaculture. With the full PDC under your belt, you are ready to dive into any area of interest from any and all of the main eight areas of permaculture.

In-Person

Our In-Person PDC have a class limit and is done over six months. Delivered in both urban and farm settings you come one weekend a month (fall courses skip December) to suit those who cannot get away from work. 

We incorporate multiple learning styles including: 
• hands on, 
• visual aids, 
• immersion, 
• lecture, 
• interaction 

With the course we include materials, videos, expert speakers, field trips - when feasible, focused hands on activities (that give you step by step useful skill sets), Florida-specific information (and other areas when asked for), written materials, networking and help with career opportunities.

We live in this community and care about its future. We continue to work with graduates to create something better, together. We also offer assistance in coordinating carpooling and housing during the class between student and graduates who live locally.

(Graduates of the In-Person PDC can attend the Online course at 50% discount with the same benefits.)
Tell me more what the In-Person course look like?

Online

Our online courses includes practical activities much the same as if you were in front of our instructors in the in-person course but you gain the freedom to follow your own schedule, and there is an added bonus for online material as it remains available to you after you graduate and includes more optional material than can be delivered in-person. 

This can be considered part of your personal library. 

We are taking great care to not deliver a purely theoretical course, but one that is as close as possible to the in-person class. To that end we have similar hands-on activities you perform where you are, we have video conference calls where we have guest speakers and students have an opportunity to have a direct interaction with instructors and students alike. 

In addition each class has its private forum where questions and ideas can be exchanged. You retain access to the course after you complete it, which you can use as a reference and or to review when you need to.

Personal mentoring is included, there are optional additional In-Person classes available on the farm for when that is not enough. Though with the minimum requirement of 4 students.

Tell me more what the Online course look like?

Depending on the season we also offer a number of different courses (and events) varying in depth and scope from an hour to whole days, often as a direct response to requests from students and clients. Our goal is to increase the application of permaculture for the greater good.
Events and classes are listed on the calendar.

Sign up here.

How do you want to learn?

You can learn Online or In-Person, or you can do a combination. 
Talk to us about the details to see what matches your needs best!
Talk to us!

Student Survey

Feedback: What did you like the most about today's class?
  • I loved showing the thoroughness of a site assessment, and the wealth of useful references available therein. So much gratitude for showing not just the end result, but also the references you used to get there!


  • I'm amazed, this is extremely professional, friendly, interesting and highly educational. Excellent job!!!


  • Many solutions to solve problems and graphics included; & sections on how indigenous people were way ahead in there practices & principles of growing food. 


  • Enjoyed reading about techniques used in other cultures. Others just boxed it up and slapped a label on it.


  • Marvelous. I had no idea that the mind could be expanded so, without drugs. Mind-Mapping. Most Excellent.


  • The accessibility of information for beginners, very digestible.


  • What I like the most is the simplicity in videos and questionnaires, options in participating and ways to do so through each lesson, and availability to fast forward video for a faster pace.


  • The various review of visible structures. How they are made, especially the pros & cons of each. Very well done.


  • The behavioral influences in developing cultures among group; also the Lakota people & horse pictures were beautiful. 


  • The content is very thorough and applicable.


  • I loved the examples of previous permaculture projects, emphasizing the fact that it takes a lot of initiative to build something that benefits a whole community.


  • I also really liked the possible energy efficient housing set ups. I would love to one day create a passively climate controlled home with berms and attached greenhouses!


“Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.”
-- Bill Mollison

(Father of permaculture)

Graduate Testimonials

Watch a short video of what students have to say.
This Permaculture Design Certificate Course changed my life. I feel so fortunate to have the information that will allow me to be fully self-sufficient, off the grid, living with true abunadance, and I am grateful that I know how to create abundance for entire communities. I'm certain that working in and with Permaculture is how I can contribute to dramatically improving the world, right now. We really can feed the world and solve most of the world's problems in a garden. Kudos to Koreen for a valuable, practical introduction to all the key elements of permaculture design. I am so grateful I took this course.

I.O.

I really enjoyed the whole PDC experience. I knew I would, but it was even better than I had thought. I loved the detailed theoretical classes in which I learned how to build soil, how to make it faster than it would happen naturally, how plants benefit each other. I also liked the hands on experiences a lot, it made many concepts so much clearer. I enjoyed the teacher's methods, and the warmth of the teachers' helpers.

It was a learning experience in every single level not to mention a great opportunity to meet nice people and grow. Thanks!!!

S.M.

I've had my permaculture friends tell me this course changed their life. I never understood why, or what the fuss was about, until I did the course myself. It is a paradigm shift to a much nicer and better paradigm. Don't hesitate to do this course!

A.N.

MORE TESTIMONIALS
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