Permaculture Design Course at Center for Deep Ecology

This past week, I finished a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) at the Center for Deep Ecology. The class was taught by Wayne Weiseman who has taught over 120 other PDC classes. The class of 18 spent eight days together camping and learning. The days were long, but filled with lots of information. It was very relaxing not to have to worry about food, time, or money during the class. It created a positive environment to focus on learning without many other distractions.

Well, besides the near non-stop shower of acorns from the mature oak trees. The only thing to worry about was if I was going to get hit in the head with an acorn falling out of the trees. It only took two days for the first one to connect. lol.

Permaculture is a design system with ethics for creating sustainable human settlements and agriculture by following natural patterns. I had not heard of permaculture until earlier this year, but have been interested in some of the components for years (organic food production, energy efficiency, green building, etc).

I plan on using the training to continue to transform our yard from primarily growing grass into a productive, sustainable system.

One of my favorite days of the class was visiting Kinstone Academy of Applied Permaculture in Fountain City, Wisconsin. We were able to participate in building a cob cabin and expanding some sheet mulching beds. There were also numerous other permaculture systems in progress. I’m looking forward to going back to see more. It is a very beautiful property.

Kinstone also posted some photos of our work day on their facebook page here.

The local media came to visit one day during class. You can see the video here.

Wayne posted some photos on his site from the class on his website here.

It was a great class, and well worth the money. I learned a lot and had fun while doing it. I’m looking forward to drawing out some designs for our property.