So what exactly is Permaculture?
At its heart, Permaculture is a systematic way of thinking, aimed at designing systems that function as well as a healthy ecosystem. Derived from principles learned by close observation of nature and land-based indigenous systems, the design science strives to reduce labor and capital investments while increasing yields, allowing us to use less of the earth to provide for our needs.
Permaculture is a holistic approach to thinking about how to live your life. Initially it shows you how to design your home and surrounding land to provide for your family’s food and shelter, but that is only a beginning. As you deepen your understanding of Permaculture thinking, and your understanding of nature, you can extend the design process to absolutely anything: urban design, design of school systems, watersheds, public spaces, even the design of dinner.
If you learn to use nature instead of fighting it, you will find things that once presented difficulties now become solutions. Where once you might've thought you needed poisons to control pests, now you find that with careful, thoughtful design those pests are kept in check by their normal predators. Much of the time it may seem that waste and toxins are a fact of life that we just have to put up with, but with proper design (and design is the subject of Permaculture), those wastes become resources rather than built-up toxins. Many of these potential overloads are blessings in disguise when handled appropriately.
The Permaculture design system is applicable at any scale, from your front yard garden on up to the largest farm or ranch. It applies to food production, but also to home design, healthcare, or industry. It is not just a collection of techniques. Far more importantly it is a way of thinking that teaches you how to choose from the many possible techniques to find the ideal approach to each unique situation. You learn to read a landscape quickly and with great insight. Where are the potential energies, inputs and outputs? Where are the possible dangers? How might you convert those potentials to exciting realities? By applying the insights from the study of ecology and learning to think in terms of "systems" rather than individual elements, we can learn to live within the limits of the earth, and have a fantastic time doing so!
What is the SPI approach to Permaculture?
At SPI we consider the lack of attention to the human sector to be a missed opportunity in Permaculture teaching and one that we are uniquely able to address. We do not teach this at the expense of the traditional curriculum. Using our professional training in mental health and Naturopathic medicine, we weave Human Sector in Design integrally throughout the curriculum. By constantly redesigning the course we are able to transmit an enormous amount of information, while keeping the course lively and fun.
What really sets us apart from others teaching the introductory Permaculture Design Course is the emphasis we place on the Human Sector. To paraphrase seasoned Permaculturist Dave Jacke, “90% of the Permaculture designs that fail, fail due to poor design in the human sector.” By understanding all the physical and technical aspects of a site, but failing to consider the human parts of the design, chances are the project will fail, no matter how beautiful and elegant it is. To prevent this scenario, we spend a lot of time dissecting the human energies at play on a site, and understanding how to accommodate, adjust, or manage them in our designs.
The SPI teaching team takes great pride in our courses and workshops. We work very hard, continually, to improve our teaching product with every outing. All three of our core teachers are professionals with years of experience in the various fields that are taught in the full Permaculture Design Course (PDC). Our 80-hour PDC is woven together with great deliberation, paying attention to the variety of learning styles that students bring to the course. Every lecture, every demonstration, is critiqued by the team to identify areas were it can be improved the next time out. With four diverse voices, steeped in competency, we strive to have something for every sort of student.
"It's obvious that teaching is a shared passion within the SPI team. You are all supportive of every student as well as the rest of the teaching team. You are truly "walking the walk" in Permaculture. Your polyculture teaching team is outstanding." - Tom Parfitt, SPI PDC Graduate.
We bring decades of Permaculture teaching experience to our courses, with hands-on experience from home-scale, to 4- acre market garden scale, to broadscale applications. We have taken marginal land and created thriving farmland. That hands-on experience comes through in the teaching, with the ability to teach beginners to professionals with equal ease.
"All my needs were met. I learned more than I expected. There was no right or wrong answer in group discussion, and there was no judgement." - Tracy Porter, Extension Agent & SPI PDC Graduate
We have worked in the non-profit world and the for-profit world. We have deep, professional, experience with medicinal herbs, mushrooms, and other aspects of natural medicine. We bring professional experience in design, and we can teach design methodology such that all students are doing excellent design work by the end of the course.
"Thank you again for literally the best class I’ve ever taken." - Eleanore Pollard, SPI PDC Graduate
At its heart, Permaculture is a systematic way of thinking, aimed at designing systems that function as well as a healthy ecosystem. Derived from principles learned by close observation of nature and land-based indigenous systems, the design science strives to reduce labor and capital investments while increasing yields, allowing us to use less of the earth to provide for our needs.
Permaculture is a holistic approach to thinking about how to live your life. Initially it shows you how to design your home and surrounding land to provide for your family’s food and shelter, but that is only a beginning. As you deepen your understanding of Permaculture thinking, and your understanding of nature, you can extend the design process to absolutely anything: urban design, design of school systems, watersheds, public spaces, even the design of dinner.
If you learn to use nature instead of fighting it, you will find things that once presented difficulties now become solutions. Where once you might've thought you needed poisons to control pests, now you find that with careful, thoughtful design those pests are kept in check by their normal predators. Much of the time it may seem that waste and toxins are a fact of life that we just have to put up with, but with proper design (and design is the subject of Permaculture), those wastes become resources rather than built-up toxins. Many of these potential overloads are blessings in disguise when handled appropriately.
The Permaculture design system is applicable at any scale, from your front yard garden on up to the largest farm or ranch. It applies to food production, but also to home design, healthcare, or industry. It is not just a collection of techniques. Far more importantly it is a way of thinking that teaches you how to choose from the many possible techniques to find the ideal approach to each unique situation. You learn to read a landscape quickly and with great insight. Where are the potential energies, inputs and outputs? Where are the possible dangers? How might you convert those potentials to exciting realities? By applying the insights from the study of ecology and learning to think in terms of "systems" rather than individual elements, we can learn to live within the limits of the earth, and have a fantastic time doing so!
What is the SPI approach to Permaculture?
At SPI we consider the lack of attention to the human sector to be a missed opportunity in Permaculture teaching and one that we are uniquely able to address. We do not teach this at the expense of the traditional curriculum. Using our professional training in mental health and Naturopathic medicine, we weave Human Sector in Design integrally throughout the curriculum. By constantly redesigning the course we are able to transmit an enormous amount of information, while keeping the course lively and fun.
What really sets us apart from others teaching the introductory Permaculture Design Course is the emphasis we place on the Human Sector. To paraphrase seasoned Permaculturist Dave Jacke, “90% of the Permaculture designs that fail, fail due to poor design in the human sector.” By understanding all the physical and technical aspects of a site, but failing to consider the human parts of the design, chances are the project will fail, no matter how beautiful and elegant it is. To prevent this scenario, we spend a lot of time dissecting the human energies at play on a site, and understanding how to accommodate, adjust, or manage them in our designs.
The SPI teaching team takes great pride in our courses and workshops. We work very hard, continually, to improve our teaching product with every outing. All three of our core teachers are professionals with years of experience in the various fields that are taught in the full Permaculture Design Course (PDC). Our 80-hour PDC is woven together with great deliberation, paying attention to the variety of learning styles that students bring to the course. Every lecture, every demonstration, is critiqued by the team to identify areas were it can be improved the next time out. With four diverse voices, steeped in competency, we strive to have something for every sort of student.
"It's obvious that teaching is a shared passion within the SPI team. You are all supportive of every student as well as the rest of the teaching team. You are truly "walking the walk" in Permaculture. Your polyculture teaching team is outstanding." - Tom Parfitt, SPI PDC Graduate.
We bring decades of Permaculture teaching experience to our courses, with hands-on experience from home-scale, to 4- acre market garden scale, to broadscale applications. We have taken marginal land and created thriving farmland. That hands-on experience comes through in the teaching, with the ability to teach beginners to professionals with equal ease.
"All my needs were met. I learned more than I expected. There was no right or wrong answer in group discussion, and there was no judgement." - Tracy Porter, Extension Agent & SPI PDC Graduate
We have worked in the non-profit world and the for-profit world. We have deep, professional, experience with medicinal herbs, mushrooms, and other aspects of natural medicine. We bring professional experience in design, and we can teach design methodology such that all students are doing excellent design work by the end of the course.
"Thank you again for literally the best class I’ve ever taken." - Eleanore Pollard, SPI PDC Graduate