Week One: Introduction to Permaculture
(Sorry, week-1 has been canceled)
- Introduction to permaculture (including an expanded section on social permaculture and the “bio-cultural corridor”)
- Greywater systems and water harvesting
- Soil Building, composting, beyond NPK
- Site Analysis, reading the landscape w/hand-held surveying tools
- Food Forests, growing on multi levels
- This 5-day module is only $350 for the week.
Rather than the traditional Permaculture Design Course/PDC, we wanted to create an opportunity for a broader scope of what “sustainability” is and have more time for hands-on projects.
In the one-month “sustainability immersion”, the fundamentals of regenerative design will be covered, including an expanded section on social permaculture.
We’ll revamp a branch-drained greywater system, examine the soil and water abundance in the existing mulch basin and constructed wetlands, and learn about the larger significance of water, how to counter-act the drought, hydrology, etc.
A “somatic approach to reading the landscape” will get your body engaged, while you become familiar with how to use basic hand-held optical surveying tools to lay out level contours (for swales, trails, level building pads…).
Geoff Lawton Ted Talk on Permaculture, 2015
The word permaculture originally called “permanent agriculture”but extended to bear “permanent culture”, as it was observed that the social aspects were part of a truly sustainable system inspired by the philosophy of natural farming Masanobu Fukuoka.
Permaculture is a philosophy of working with and not against nature; long and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless work; and see the plants and animals in all their functions, rather than dealing with an area as a system of a single product.