PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE Intensive – JANUARY 20 – 29, 2023

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For more information and to register  email:  permiesthai@gmail.com

COURSE OVERVIEW

  • Do a course that is led by Internationally recognized instructors with over 25 years combined project experiences in well over 21 countries, both Temperate and Tropical climates. (Canada, USA, Laos, Thailand, India, Cambodia, Malaysia, Africa).

  • We take this knowledge by breaking each subject into bite size one topic a day. Each day includes a practical “hands on” application of the mornings knowledge building skills layer by practical layer for a really unique 2 week permaculture experience and a practical Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on a real sustainable Permaculture farm with real organic food and real sustainable development professionals.

  • Do a course that is ‘cutting to the chase’ and respects your valuable time, investment & involvement? and includes deep knowledge, valuable practical hands on skills and an opportunity to network with like minded Professionals.

  • Do a course where you are learning and cementing your new knowledge by applying it daily to a real sustainable Permaculture project.

The Curriculum is Based on “PERMACULTURE A Designers’’ Manual by Bill Mollison co-founder of Permaculture. Students are invited to bring details of their own sites or potential sites to consider during the course. There is hands on in the afternoons daily. Permaculture movies and videos each night. Days are full, so expect to be busy. (WiFi is available in the evenings).

 

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Topics covered include

  • Introductions: Origins of Permaculture, Why the need? Permaculture Ethics, and the principles of permaculture

  • Design Concepts and themes in designs- Zones, sectors, aspect, slope, micro-climate, elements in designing.

  • Design Methods – Energy laws, natures resilience and interconnections, building soils theory, Ecology basics.

  • Climates and climatic factors in design

  • Understanding Patterns in nature – why is it important

  • Water – Duties of Water – harvesting, urban and rural water management, methods of harvesting, economical methods, grey water, drought proofing strategy

  • Trees & their energy transactions – types of forests, pollarding, coppicing, closed loop systems, food forests, stratification, forest succession planing and acceleration.

  • Soil – Soils Horizons, types and measurement of soils, parent materials, topsoil, soil life, Vermiculture, Effective micro-nutrients, Chop and Drop, Nitrogen fixers, Hugle culture, Compost Teas, Bokashi making, Carbon sources, Nitrogen cycle, 58 elements and trace elements in healthy soils, NPK

  • Eco-friendly houses, house placement and design –

  • Energy and efficient design and architecture

  • Energy conservation techniques for cold climates

  • Healthy nutrient dense foods, Brix metering how to measure food nutrient values, healthy food production

  • Earthworks – reading the land, keyline and keyline strategy,

  • Animals systems, Nitrogen and Broadacre strategy

  • Aquaculture – efficiency of freshwater systems, techniques, natural aquaculture foods, harvesting methods, pond designing.

  • Humid tropic climates – designs for housing and gardens

  • The temperate climates– designs for temperate climates in housing and gardens, extending seasons

  • Humid cool climates

  • Dry lands – strategy and water drought design

  • Strategies for urban permaculture – hardware and software, water and soils in urban environments

  • Alternative Nations – Eco communities, Building Permaculture groups, Ethical investments, Non violent communications, Social Permaculture, Bioregions & Transition Towns, Group Design

 

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  • HANDS  ON Practical Training: Make a Berkley Compost and “create the best topsoil”; Make a Bio-Intensive Garden get high yields and healthy food in a small area; Make seed balls the easy way to create a food forest; Make soil and Mulch the easy way to a fertile soil; Make a Banana Circle – create a guild of bananas, taro, cassava and lemon grass; Do  Soil testing for pH, soil compositions, NPK; Do Earthworks – read the land, make and A frame determine slope, transit, keyline, contour; Make a Vermiculture habitat – grow worms and make great fertilizers, Make a Black Soldier Fly habitat to  compost food and produce food for your chickens, aquaculture, fish and animals free of charge.

  • MOVIES: Sepp Holtzer – Farming with Nature, The Man Who Planted Trees, Bill Mollison – Global Gardener, Mysteries of Mycology – Stamets, SOIL – Gabe Brown, The Chikukwa Project, The Power of Community, Polyface Farms – Joel Salitin, Easy Food Garden – Ruth Stout, Aquaculture – Sepp Holtzer, Anima Mundi – Peak Oil, Greening the Desert, The Real Dirt on Farmer John, Living with the Land, Micheal Pollan-2007, Willie Smitts – Planet Boundries, Curtis Stone – Urban Permaculture

The course will be conducted in accordance with the internationally standards and curriculum of PRI Asia. The 72 hours of course work required to receive the International  Permaculture Design Certificate will be covered a 2 week period. This course is a classroom course with daily hands-on practice daily in afternoons and practical Permaculture Movies and videos, days are full.   All students are required to be present for the two weeks and must complete and present a Permaculture design to receive the Permaculture Design certificate. Join us learn and have some fun January 20 to 29th, 2018. See you there!

 

OUTCOMES:

  • Thorough understanding of what permaculture is – and how it can transform garden, communities, and people
  • Reasons why permaculture was devised in the first place – and which still threaten the planet
  • Principles and ethics that permaculture is built upon
  • Solutions for people to live harmoniously with nature
  • Role observation plays in informing our design decisions
  • Analyze any site to appreciate the processes that are occurring within it
  • Types of energy resources described by permaculture
  • Strategies to create soil, food, housing and energy yield from any site
  • Interrelationships between plants, animals and human systems
  • How patterns work in nature – and how you can use them in your designs
  • Evaluate climate factors – from rainfall and temperature to snow and wind – and recognize how they influence the site.
  • Cycles in time and space and creating niches
  • Sustainable Lifestyles
  • Natural housing designs and appropriate climates
  • Circular and sharing economies
  • UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals
  • Planetary Boundaries their definition and measurement
  • Resilience and new frontiers of alliance
  • Urban Permaculture

INTERNSHIP Course  topics   click here

 

 

 

Natural Building Course – hands on – make adobe bricks from clay

Earth Brick is also abundant material is one of human’s oldest building materials and used regularly for building projects.  This materials has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years throughout the world as building and homeowners better understand the variety of benefits of using this ubiquitous materials.  We are happy to reintroduce earth as a building material as trees for wood are getting scarce.

Straw/Natural Grasses -We collect straw after each rice harvest and gather strong natural grasses from the roadsides and pastures in and around our location. The materials are free and plentiful. Once dried in the sun for a few days, these materials are used in our floors, cob buildings and wattle and daub walls. In cob construction, the straw/grass acts as the rebar would in a concrete structure. It essentially holds everything together.

Bamboo – Bamboo is one of our favorite building materials over the years. We build from our own farm, what we have planted and a great deal of this magical grass that we use for a variety of building and non-building applications. Bamboo’s versatility, functionality and flexibility are unbelievable. When you visit the Farm, you will see that we use bamboo for just about everything, from posts that hold up a building to pencils.

TECHNIQUES

Cob – is ancient method of building that utilizes clay, sand and straw or other fibers. The raw materials are mixed thoroughly together, in our case with our dancing feet motivated by a bit of bluegrass or rock and roll, and then applied wet by hand. This is a great building material. There’s just something about the ease and beauty of cob. It is incredibly sculptural. Anyone working with cob becomes an accomplished artist in a matter of days. We use cob to build ovens, lay floors, and construct houses. For the fibrous material, we harvest a plentiful and incredibly strong rice grass. Our sand and clay comes from local soils. Cob seems to be making a comeback throughout the world and we are pleased to be using this material.

Wattle and Daub – traditionally consists of a woven latticework of flexible wooden or bamboo members called wattles that are daubed with a mixture of mud, clay, animal dung and chopped rice straw. It is normally whitewashed to increase its resistance to rain. This is a technique that we are incorporating more and more into our buildings. It is a wonderful system for non-structural walls and goes up relatively quickly. We have been using split bamboo for the wattles and a mixture of clay, manure, sand and wild grasses for the daub.

 

INSTRUCTOR:

Howard Story