Permaculture Design

Join us for a Permaculture Design Course!

We will be hosting two Permaculture design courses. A 2-week spring PDC intensive as well as a 12-week summer PDC.

Many of us are hungry for a deeper connection with the land we live on and a deeper understanding of the water, soil, plants, and animals that share that land with us. We’ve become disconnected from the wisdom of our ancestors and struggle to visualize an abundant future.

Permaculture is a web of the deep wisdom that humanity has accumulated over the millennia through a relationship of observation, symbiosis, reciprocity, and respect for the land.  This course will help you reconnect and bring yourself and your life back into balance and abundance with the natural world.

 Permaculture gives us a path to realign our lives with the cycles, patterns, and rhythms of the natural world, It is the re-weaving of broken relationships between plants, animals, Earth, and humans, it shows us we can all live in abundance and together heal the land. 

Our lectures will be focused on temperate climate permaculture in urban and rural environments. Some of the topics that will be discussed in the lecture series include:

  • the principles and ethics of permaculture
  • sustainable regional food production
  • small scale designs for yards and gardens
  • Earth and the soil food web
  • Water conservation and resiliency
  • Wind, weather and climate patterns
  • Fire and how to live on our daily sun
  • life/death cycles and working with natural patterns
  • designing integrated systems with the web of life
  • social and structural community building

Summer class time may occur outdoors so come prepared to learn both inside and out. This consists of observations walks and interaction with the permaculture demonstration site.

The purpose of these classes is to spread the knowledge and the joy of practicing permaculture and to empower our community to create a resilient and healthy world.

Spring PDC Intensive

February 20th – March 5th, 2023

(Class will meet all days, except February 26th & March 4th)

Summer 12 Week PDC

Mondays, June 19th – September 4th, 2023

Tracks to Learn Permaculture:

  1. Certified course, take either the 2-week spring intensive or the 12-week lecture course plus 15 hours of free hands-on experiential learning in the Permaculture gardens and get your Permaculture Design Certificate for $1,000.
  2. Noncertified course, don’t need a certificate? Just take the 12-week lecture series for only $800, no final design project is required.

How do I sign up?

Daily Schedule:

  • 9:30-10:00 Coffee and Greeting
  • 10:00-12:00 Lecture
  • 12:00-1:00 Lunch (Bring a sack lunch)
  • 1:00-3:30 Lecture
  • 3:30-4:00 Q&A

Where: The lecture hall at Compass Rose Farms – 1463 W Uncas Rd., Port Townsend, WA 98368

course Outline

Day 1: INTRODUCTION

Teacher: Kateen Fitzgerald

Morning Introduction to Permaculture

Afternoon Ethics Principals (Holmgren’s 12)

Day 2: CONCEPTS AND THEMES OF DESIGN

Teacher: Kateen Fitzgerald

Morning Concepts and Themes of Natural Systems

Afternoon Concepts and Themes of Design

Day 3: METHODS OF DESIGN

Teacher: Kateen Fitzgerald

Morning Functional Analysis Zones, Sectors, Slope & Orientation Yeoman’s Scale of Permanence

Afternoon Building the Map

Day 4: PATTERN AND CLIMATE

Teacher: Evelyn Cilley

Morning Pattern Understanding

Afternoon Nature and Climate Factors

Day 5: CLIMATE AND TREES

Teacher: Evelyn Cilley

Morning Climate and its Effects on Design

Afternoon Succession/Establishment of Vegetation Trees Food Forests and Guilds

Day 6: SOIL AND FOOD SYSTEMS

Teacher: Kateen Fitzgerald

Morning Understanding and Working with Soils

Afternoon Garden Strategies Seed Saving

Day 7: WATER

Teacher: Simon Walter-Hanson or Kateen Fitzgerald

Morning Water Cycles and Management Keyline Design

Afternoon Water in Landscape Aquaculture and Mariculture

Day 8: ANIMALS

Teacher: Kateen Fitzgerald

Morning Introduction to Mycology

Afternoon Domestic Animals Partnering with Wildlife

Day 9: APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY

Teacher: Simon Walter-Hanson

Morning Buildings and Structures

Afternoon Appropriate Energy Conserving Technology Waste Disposal and Recycling

Day 10: RESILIENT COMMUNITIES

Teacher: Kateen Fitzgerald

Morning Designing for Catastrophe

Afternoon Settlement Design

Day 11: SOCIAL PERMACULTURE

Teacher: Evelyn Cilley

Morning Vision and the Inner Landscape of You:

Afternoon Cultivating Social Permaculture

Day 12: PRESENTATIONS

Morning Present Final Projects

Afternoon Pot luck, Presentation and Graduation

How do I sign up?

Get in touch

Don’t hesitate to reach out with the contact information below, or send a message using this form.

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