This hands-on intensive Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course will deepen your environmental awareness and will equip you with the tools to design stable systems on any farm, small holding or homestead, economically and sustainably.
When: 19 July to 31 July (excluding weekends)
Times: 8am to 5pm daily
Where: Inspire Permacultures, Bergvliet
Course Days:
Thursday 19 July: 8am till 5pm (Course Starts)
Friday 20 July: 8am till 5pm
Saturday 21 July: no class
Sunday 22 July: no class
Monday 23 July: 8am till 5pm
Tuesday 24 July: 8am till 5pm
Wednesday 25 July: 8am till 5pm
Thursday 26 July: 8am till 5pm
Friday 27 July: 8am till 5pm
Saturday 28 July: no class
Sunday 29 July: no class
Monday 30 July: 8am till 5pm
Tuesday 31 July: 8am till 5pm (Course Ends)
Course Skills & Topics:
An introduction to Permaculture, our ethics and design principles.
Various systems to harvest and filter water:
Harvesting and filtering drinking water
How to build a sand filter and their placements (practical)
Grey water harvesting, filtering and composting systems
Anaerobic composting Banana circles (practical)
Alternative hot water systems
Capturing and storing water
The construction and considerations for dams and ponds, gabions, check dams and silt traps
Wetlands
Siphoning (practical)
Irrigation and pumps systems
Swales – the functions, marking/planning out of and their construction (practical)
The benefits and considerations of various animals:
Chickens, geese and ducks
Black soldier fly and meal-worms
Aquaponics
Pigs
Rabbits
Composting worms (practical)
Wildlife integration
Bees and other essential pollinators (practical)
Attracting beneficial insects and animals, such as ladybirds, owls and bats
Holistic management
Cell grazing
Living fences
Bio-digesters
Supportive animal feed and housing systems
Attracting beneficial wildlife such as owls, bats and insects ect
Growing food and supportive systems to build up soil nutrition:
Nursery skills and propagation (practical)
Tree pans and net ‘n pan systems (practical)
Market gardens (practical)
Kitchen gardens (practical)
Growing Mushrooms
Aquaculture, Hydroponics and Aquaponics
Designing and growing windbreak
How to build up a food forest
How to carefully save and store your seeds (practical)
The multiple uses for Bamboo
Vetiver, land rehabilitation and erosion control (Guest facilitator from Kenya, Ecosystem Restoration Camps and Platform For Land Use Sustainability, Jane Nakhana Wegesa Fraser)
Companion planting for plant resilience and pest management (practical)
The importance of having a Mother Bed
Alien plant eradication (practical)
Various composting methods and liquid manure (practical)
Biochar (Guest facilitator from Uganda BEU Permaculture, Mugarura Charles)
Soil analysis (practical)
Living roofs and fences
Planting green manures (practical)
Medicinal and culinary flowers, plants and herbs (practical)
Wild foraging (practical)
Alternative energy:
Solar
Wind
Water
Rocket stove construction (practical)
Biodigesters
And more:
Recycling systems and functions (practical)
Composting toilets (practical)
Biodegradable personal hygiene and cleaning products (practical)
Where to start in your area?
Applied Permaculture and working with communities at grassroots level (Conference call with Greg Knibbs from Edge5, Australia)
In summery:
Module 1: Introduction
Module 2: Concepts & Themes in Design
Module 3: Methods of Design
Module 4: Pattern Understanding
Module 5: Climatic Factors
Module 6: Trees & Their Energy Transactions
Module 7: Water
Module 8: Soils
Module 9: Earth Working & Earth Resources
Module 10: Humid Tropics
Module 11: Dryland Strategies
Module 12: Humid Cool to Cold Climates
Module 13: Aquaculture
Module 14: Strategies of an Alternative Global Nation
Cost: R6500
This price includes a well formed manual with practical applications and instructions of everything covered in the course.
Organic tea and coffee daily.
A light organic vegetarian lunch daily.
Materials needed for the final design assignment.