Clear Sky Farm: Permaculture & Heritage Garlic, BC

Full Residential Course, June 2nd-15th 2012
with Jesse Lemieux of Pacific Permaculture

We are pleased to be offering a permaculture design certificate course at Clear Sky for the second year , from June 2-15 2012. 

This 2 week intensive residential course will again be taught by Jesse Lemieux of Pacific Permaculture.  This PDC will arm you with the skills needed to design for sustainability in any situation and climate. Permaculture is not just a system of organic agriculture, it is a practical design approach that produces sustainable and positive solutions regardless of where we find ourselves. Course content will cover the full 72 hour standard PDC curiculum as laid out in "Permaculture, A Designers Manual,"(Mollison 1983) and a certificate will be issued upon completion.  

About Jesse Lemieux:

An inspiring teacher, Jesse's style is a healthy mixture of theory and practice, which utilizes picture slides, schematic diagrams and hands on activities to demonstrate design concepts.  Design exercises are used often to help students integrate theory, and the classroom setting is open and comfortable to encourage discussion and exploration of permaculture design strategies and concepts. Jesse's thorough training in Permaculture included two permaculture design certificates (PDC), under the instruction of both Geoff Lawton and Bill Mollison and intensive hands on practice at the Permaculture Research Institute. His practical work experience in Permaculture includes projects in Western Canada, Australia and the Middle East. 

In September 2008 Jesse his wife Tanya founded Pacific Permaculture, a permaculture design and education company.  Jesse and Tanya are fully committed to the dissemination of permaculture and its ethics and divide their time between maintaining an organic apple orchard, teaching permaculture, design consulting, and establishing the "Permaculture Research Institute of Canada." 

Course Content
 The certificate gives students tools to think outside the box in order to deal with any design situation.  Permaculture design is a holistic system of decision making that can be applied to the development of any human system.  It is not a catalog of gardening and building techniques.  It is information intensive, not labor intensive.

Using a combination of classroom, field observation and hands-on activities, your PDC will cover all of the following topic areas and more:

• rain water catchment
  
• organic gardening
  
• soil biology
  
• sustainable energy systems
  
• solar passive house construction
  
• renewable fuel production
  
• waste water treatment systems
  
• forestry
  
• animal systems
  
• transportation
  
• Earthworks 
  
• disaster preparedness
  
• social systems
  
• legal systems
  
• business models
  
  

It is not possible for anyone person to be an expert in more than one or two of these fields.  The role of a permaculture designer is to understand how, why, when, and where any of the above mentioned elements fit together in an integrated and self managing system.  Permaculture is the connections between things, not the things themselves.



Once you have completed a PDC you will have a new way of looking at the world around you.  Rather than taking a design problem at the first glance you will think laterally around the problem, this is where positive solutions are waiting to be found. Many PDC graduates move on rapidly to initiate community groups and viable green business alternatives quickly building a strong resume of advanced practical experience.

Course Survey results from Participants at the 2011 Permaculture Design Certificate Course:

Overall, the permaculture design course: “Exceeded my expectations” - 100% of responses

Instructor & Course Content and Networking Opportunities:  “Excellent”- 100% of responses

Networking Opportunities: “Excellent” - 100% of responses

Photos from the 2011 Permaculture Design Certificate Course

Course Fees - Early Bird Prices - book now! All prices include HST.

On-Site Basic : $1595: All meals and tenting
On-Site Indoors: $1695: All meals and indoor accommodation
Non Residential $1395: For those who live locally, or have accommodation elsewhere, lunches included.

Late bird prices will be approx 10% higher, after April 30 2012

For More information:

contact : cara@clearskycenter.org or call Cara at 250-429-3929

with Richard Walker
October 20-21st 2012

Explore permaculture based food forest gardening for cold climates. Learn how to combine layerings of perennial nuts, fruits and medicinals for an abundant and diverse food and medicine supply in your garden or on your farm.  Great for garden & food enthusiasts of all ages & experience levels. If you have done a permaculture course you will find that this course provides the practical details you need to implement permaculture's broarder principles & theories.

Course Instructor Richard Walker currently lives in Oliver BC, but spent his early years as an organic farmer in Alberta. He later moved to Grand Forks BC where he developed a 3 acre food forest, called Dragons Eye Nursery, over a 20 year period. Having converted a degraded piece of land into an abundant mix of rare, unique nut, fruit and medicinal plants from all over the world, he is one of Canada's most experienced food forest gardeners.

Course Reviews from Participants at the 2011 Food Forest Workshop: 

[I gained] “priceless, lifelong education & skills for stable, self reliant, independent living”

[Richard Walker was] “effective, approachable, engaging, insanely knowlegeable” and “his experience in nutrition, herbology & food forestry was very informative”.

[The course] “exceeded expectations” and was “the best value for money for a course I have attended in years”. It was “great to get to know the course participants, others who also have an intense interest in food forests”.

[Food Forests are] “a chance to build a sustainable future” and “the most inspiring gardens of all”.

For More information:

contact : cara@clearskycenter.org or call Cara at 250-429-3929