Courses

Join Alexia Martinez (incrEdible Gardens) with special guests including Nick Ritar (Milkwood Permaculture) for an amazing twelve days of permaculture theory, practical workshops, site visits and intensive design exercises exploring permaculture in the middle of Sydney. Our PDC graduates leave our courses ready to design and implement permaculture principles into a wide range of scenarios; from urban permaculture systems to small farms and overseas aid projects.
The class size for this course is limited to ensure quality learning outcomes for everyone, and students emerge as accredited Permaculture Designers. Permaculture is set of principles that result in sustainable and productive systems. Systems for living, architecture, food production, land management and community. No chemicals and no excuses. Just good, thoughtful, innovative and effective design for the needs of our species.
This PDC will be taught in combination within both a classroom and a community garden environment, with site visits to amazing Sydney permaculture systems. During this PDC, examples of designing for energy conservation, food production systems, nutrient cycling and more will all be addressed with a combination of rural and urban examples. All workshops during the course will focus on Permaculture in practice within city and suburban areas.
Following each week of your part-time PDC, we follow up the class by emailing students an extensive notes and resource document that details and enhances your weekly learning... >> Here's a couple of examples...
Our PDC is based on the curriculum set out by the Permaculture Institute, and uses Bill Mollison's "Permaculture: A Designers Manual" as its central text. We also blend into this curriculum new material from a range of other world-leading thinkers and activators on subjects like transition, food security, regenerative agriculture, urban water harvesting and many more.

About our Part-Time format:

We're presenting this PDC in a format that allows you to really integrate Permaculture into your daily life,  one day per week, for 12 consecutive weeks. Due to overwhelming majority of Saturday class preference, we're just running a Saturday class this time around...

We're offering this PDC in this way because we recognize not everyone can take 2 weeks out of life to do one of our intensive PDCs. Plus for some, one day a week is just a better style of learning. Our PDC courses are an intensive learning experience that for some are best absorbed bit by bit, which gives you time for both contemplation and action so that you can truly put Permaculture into practice as a result of your PDC experience.

So if you're passionately curious about how to start making a difference in your city or town, please join us!

Sessions will include the following:

•    
Permaculture principles and ethics
•    Permaculture design for urban and rural situations
•    Creating a balanced soil food web
•    Pattern Understanding
•    Designing water into landscape (or streetscape)
•    Passive water harvesting and drought-proofing
•    Intensive food and animal systems
•    Orchard and food forest design
•    System planning + intergration
•    Design for different biospheres: tropics / drylands / cool climates
•    Appropriate technologies for future communities
•    Trees, water and energy cycling
•    Strategies for building healthy, resilient communities
•    Site visits to wonderful Permaculture gardens and amazing community initiatives

Some resources to get you thinking:

• Some of our student's previous urban permaculture designs
  
• David Holmgren's Permaculture Principles
• All our articles on Permaculture

About the teachers:

Alexia Martinez is a French/Australian permaculture designer and teacher based in Sydney. She knows all about the challenges of both strata-title apartment permaculture, as well as inter-generational family farming. Alexia has co-taught Permaculture courses in France with Rosemary Morrow and now brings her experience and passion for Permaculture to Sydney.

Alexia was attracted to Permaculture originally by the holistic and systemic approach to empowering individuals being drivers of change, and is now a fulltime urban permaculture designer and teacher.

Nick Ritar is a permaculture designer, consultant and educator who works extensively across a wide range of bioregions, farms, watersheds and city environments. He is recognized nationally as a leading advocate on how permaculture principles can contribute to food security through good design and regenerative farming and living.

Nick divides his time between extensive permaculture teaching, permaculture consultancy, advocacy and farming in central western NSW. Nick's full profile.

Included in your course fee:

The course text Permaculture: A Designers Manual (RRP $120) is included in your course fee. We also make available our extensive library of Permaculture and associated texts.

Your course fee also includes extensive take-home resources on all subjects covered in this course, as well as our ongoing advice and assistance in questions that might arise beyond the course completion.

Your course fee includes tea + coffee + organic fruit during the day. For lunches, we usually put in a joint order to a great little organic cafe around the corner, LoveGrub - or feel free to bring your own.

Course dates:

Saturday class: 9am - 5pm each Saturday from March 17th until June 9th 2012 (12 days in total - no class Easter weekend)

Mates rates: we know that you're more likely to succeed in changing the world with a like-minded crew. To enable this, we arrange a 20% discount for group bookings of 2 or more. Please get in touch for details.

As part of our Fair Share policy, we provide pensioner and unwaged discounts where needed. Please get in touch for more information.