We ran the Permaculture Living Course in October and November 2023 and it was a wonderful success. We’re writing up a new blog about what happened, and will run the course again in October 2024.
Would you like to hear when the 2024 dates are set and tickets on sale? Express your interest Here.
In the meantime please read on to learn more about the design of this special experience.
Are you keen to live a more connected, sustainable, healthy and enjoyable life?
Our Permaculture Living Course is here to support you in that quest, with the skills, inspiration and community to help you live your version of the ‘good life.’ This exclusive course is happening for the first time in October 2023 and we’re thrilled to tell you all about it.
Over five full days our teachers will share the skills and techniques you need, a ‘best of’ selection of City Farm’s education offering.
What exact skills will I learn?
So many! This is a kind of ‘best of’ of Perth City Farms adult education program. You will gain skills in:
- Applying permaculture zones, ethics and principles to your home, garden and life
- Designing a productive food garden
- Plant propagation including cuttings and seed saving
- Sowing, tending and harvesting food plants
- Making beeswax wraps
- Gardening for urban wildlife
- Installing and maintaining a frog bog
- Making great soil including composting, green manure and weed tea
- Waterwise small space gardening including wicking pots and ollas
- Solar oven cooking
- Using animals in your garden: chickens, ducks and worms
- Fermenting vegetables
- Foraging for wild foods and identifying and cooking safe weeds
- Maintaining tools
- Using medicinal herbs including making herbal balm & oxymel
- Slowing down your life, spending less money and enjoying life more
- Supporting and developing more local and ethical economic systems
- Infusing gin using seasonal ingredients and making edible flower canapes (that’s an end of course celebration!)
Most importantly though the course will start you on a journey of lifelong learning, connect you with like-minded people and is designed holistically to have a real impact on your life.
This course is exclusive to Perth City Farm, developed to make use of our unique working urban farm. The teaching will be hands-on, practical and fun, and geared towards what’s possible in an urban setting. We split the five days over three weeks, so you have time to reflect and absorb the learning and fit it in with other commitments.
Our Teachers
Rod Hughes and Martina Hoeppner have developed this new course together with the unique site of Perth City Farm in mind. They will be joined by specialist guest teachers throughout the course.
Rod Hughes
After nearly three decades in environmental management Rod turned his attention to permaculture learning and how this system of thinking can create new and critical connections between people, the environment and the food we eat. Rod has completed a Permaculture Design Certificate, Advanced Permaculture Design Certificate and Diploma of Permaculture and uses these skills in his business Leafcutter Permaculture.
Rod’s motto is “be nice and grow things” and believes that being kind to each other, looking after mother earth and ensuring fair share is critical to our survival.
Rod served as Farm Manager at Perth City Farm from 2018 to 2022 and knows the site intimately. He now lives at Fair Harvest Permaculture in Margaret River, where he is a teacher in their Permaculture Design Certificate courses.
Martina Hoeppner
Originally from Germany, Martina Hoeppner has completed a Diploma in Permaculture in Australia and is the founder of Dandelion Permaculture and the Permaculture Educators Alliance. She has grown up a suburban girl and specialises in urban permaculture und RetroSuburbia topics. Martina teaches PDCs and accredited Permaculture courses, has served as the co-convener of Permaculture West for three years, and campaigns for the rollout of permaculture into schools.
When she isn’t teaching or baking for courses, she gardens in the northern suburbs of Perth, builds community in her street, reads a mountain of permaculture books and goes out dancing.
Course dates
Five days spread over three weeks to fit around your life:
- Friday 20 October: 9 am – 4 pm
- Saturday 21 October: 9 am – 4 pm
- Saturday 28 October: 8.00 am – 2.30 pm
- Friday 3 November: 9 am – 4 pm
- Saturday 4 November 9 am – 4 pm
Location
All sessions will occur at Perth City Farm in East Perth, in our education room and out in the Farm and gardens. City Farm has excellent public transport links, bike parking and paid car parking nearby.
Pricing
These prices include GST and booking fees.
$750 Early bird price (ends 31 July 2023)
$825 Full price
Book Now
Please book through Humanitix. If you would prefer to pay over two installments via bank transfer (incurring a $20 admin fee) please contact us at education@perthcityfarm.org.au.
Ticket price includes all tuition, learning materials, farm fresh morning teas and take home materials. Students should bring their own lunch each day.
Refunds
If you notify us at least 30 days prior to the commencement of the course, we are able to refund your course fee minus administrations costs of $150. No refunds are available within 30 days of the course commencing, although if the course is sold out we will do our best to resell your ticket for you. You are welcome to give your ticket to a friend.
If we need to cancel the course you will receive a full refund.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is permaculture?
Great question because everyone seems to be buzzing about it recently! Most simply, it’s a methodology for designing a way of living that is ethical and sustainable. The term comes from the words ‘permanent’ and ‘culture’ and was developed by two Australians in the 1970’s.
The Principles of Permaculture are design principles that can be applied to design our homes, gardens, farms, communities and even cities. They have been developed from careful observation of healthy ecosystems and modified over the years to the principles that are taught all around the world today. For more information check out our blog about permaculture’s influence on Perth City Farm , or check out Permaculture Australia.
How is this different to a Permaculture Design Certificate course?
In short- it is about half the length (and cost) and cuts out the elements that aren’t relevant in an urban environment. The PDC course has a big focus on design skills and homework. Participants can work as a permaculture designer afterwards.
The Perth City Farm Permaculture Living Course has been developed to suit someone keen to learn about permaculture and sustainable living to apply it to their own urban life. This course suits people not looking to work as a designer. PDC’s a are great and our teachers teach those courses too, but we recognise not everyone needs or wants a full PDC experience to get the benefits of permaculture in their life.
Who is this course designed for?
The Perth City Farm Permaculture Living Course has been developed to suit someone keen to learn about sustainable living to apply it to their own urban life. It’s great for people who can relate to any of these statements:
- Tried a bit of food growing but it wasn’t too productive and didn’t feel worth the time and effort involved
- Worried about problems like climate change, species loss, widening gap between the rich and the poor and want to live a life that helps alleviate those issues
- Looking for some motivation, inspiration and skills to make some changes in your life
- Seeking new values-aligned friends
- Have heard about permaculture and are curious to learn more, but without the bigger time and money commitment of a Permaculture Design Certificate qualification
- Just generally love learning new things
How is this experience different to an online course?
Online learning has its benefits but for this kind of content, but we believe in-person on-farm education is ideal for these key reasons:
- You learn new skills better when you try them for yourself under the guidance of an experienced teacher. We’ll be out of the classroom frequently, hands in the dirt together
- You’re better able to bond with other students and the teachers, starting new friendships that will support you after the course wraps up
- It’s easier to focus and avoid distraction with a real person in front of you so you’ll get more out of each teaching hour. You’re also more likely to finish all sessions because we’ll notice if you aren’t there!
- In person is way more fun, and it’s healthy for you to be out of your chair and in the garden
- It’s tastier! We’ll make a fresh farm morning tea together each day. We share lunch, make food from weeds and finish with some spritzer cocktails and edible flower canapes. Yum!