Practical Permaculture Gardening

This course explores how permaculture design can be used to create beautiful, productive and wildlife-friendly gardens.

What will the Practical permaculture gardening course cover?

This course will be taught almost entirely through practicals and a tour, with an opportunity to work on your own designs at the end of the weekend. The course will be entirely outside.

By the end of the course you will have the skills to carry out a Permaculture Design for your plot and to start a garden from scratch without digging. Other topics we will cover include annual and perennial food crops, encouraging beneficial wildlife, composting, pest-control without chemicals, rainwater harvesting and maintaining soil fertility.

NB: This course is not certificated, but will give the participant a much deeper understanding of using permaculture principles in creating healthy, low maintenance gardens.

Who is the course for?

This course is open to anyone aged 16 or over who is interested in applying Permaculture ideas in their home garden, community garden or allotment. It is suitable for complete beginners as well as those with some experience who wish to increase the sustainability and productiveness of their plots. You may have some prior knowledge about, or qualifications in, Permaculture but this is not a necessity as we will cover some basic theory.

This hands on course will be taught entirely outdoors.

Please note that, unfortunately, this course is not suitable for wheelchair users.

Learning methods and outcomes

In this course we will be introducing the concepts of permaculture design, with a specific focus on growing an edible garden with polycultures of annuals and perennials. We will cover beneficial growing relationships, pest control, mulching and no dig systems and how to best place your plants for maximum yields. We will spend a large part of the weekend out on our forest garden at Stanmer Park, applying our learning.

Course tutor

Fran Pickering is an experienced permaculture teacher who has worked on our site for over 12 years, so has an in-depth knowledge of our land, with years of experience and experiment.