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18/04/2026 at 10:00 am
Event date:
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24/10/2026 at 4:30 pm
Event end:
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How to bookClick on the Book Now button
Learn all about permaculture!
Gain an internationally recognised certificate through this unique course, which is the best of both online and in person learning. We will visit 6+ different permaculture sites in Dumfries and Galloway – experiencing different ways of doing permaculture, learning from the people who designed, created and/or manage the site. Sites include a smallholding, small regenerative farm, community garden, food forest in a park, private garden, woodlands, garden share and community centre. The sites are incredibly inspiring ways of seeing permaculture in action where you get to do practical tasks!
In addition there are 23+ hours of online content, which includes nearly 17 hours of videos to watch. High quality videos have been made by permaculture educators from around the world including Lusi Alderslowe, Lorraine Ishak (Galloway), Clive Brandon (Black Isle, Scotland), Mandy Merklein (Mallorca), Nim Robins (Wales), Morag Gamble (Australia), Joe Atkinson (England), Jemma Findley, Ian Solomon-Kawall, Chris Evans, Looby Macnamara, and more! These will all be available for you to watch indefinitely, so that you can keep referring back to them in your future permaculture projects.
Permaculture is…
…a holistic design system for sustainable living, creating systems for minimum effort and maximum effect. The word was coined in the 1970s but is based on indigenous practices for many generations, as well as modern tools and techniques – making the best of the new and the old to design and create sustainable systems in the present day.
Course content:
The Permaculture Design Course is a 72 hour course which covers:
- The Permaculture Design Process (SADIMET), and the theory and practice of different design tools from mapping to implementation. This includes different opportunities to use the design tools and create an entire design in a small group.
- Permaculture ethics and principles and their application
- Learn in detail about each of the essential themes of soil, water, plants & trees, growing your own food, the built environment, resource use, and social systems and contexts. Each one is explored in detail with a combination of student research and sharing from all participants.
- Site visits to five different permaculture sites – each Saturday at a different location with different co-teachers. Learning through doing, seeing, experiencing and understanding different sites.
Course structure:
This course offers a unique blend of online and in-person practical sessions, which gives the benefits of having the core content available online for you to watch over again as you need to for years to come, as well as practical in person sessions which are all about learning through doing. There’s no better way to learn about permaculture than by whole body learning – actually visiting 6 different permaculture sites, and meeting the educators involved in establishing and running the site and organisation around it. The sites vary massively including community gardens, a market garden and a food forest in a city park. This will help inspire you to see what you could do in your community!
This course is a mix of online and in-person practical sessions. In person sessions will take place over six Saturdays 10am-5pm. Online sessions are a combination of set content (videos to watch or articles to read) and fully interactive Zoom (online teleconference) sessions on Tuesday evenings.
It is a 72 hour course. This is composed of 6 Saturdays (36 hours = half of the course), 8 x 2 hour live online (Zoom) sessions (one quarter of the course) and around 23 hours of pre-recorded content and activities on the Permaculture Association’s Community Hub.
Online sessions will be together with the Glasgow permaculture students.
The Saturday sessions will be fully interactive with lots of practicals and tours of permaculture places. The Zoom sessions will be a fully interactive opportunity for participants to discuss, share their work/research, ask questions (including about the content on the Community Hub), and do group work. The pre-recorded content will need to be completed in advance of the Zoom/ in person sessions to enable a dynamic discussion of the content. A full timetable of what is to be done when will be on the Community Hub.