Are you currently staring at your bare land, overwhelmed by the endless possibilities? Feeling stuck on step 0: where do you even start?

You’ve heard about all these cool permaculture features: swales, ponds, keyline, food forests…You’ve seen all the videos, read all the books and articles about all these permaculture farms working in harmony with nature, stacking functions, producing an abundance of food with almost no work…

And now you’re wondering how to create that permaculture abundance on your own land…

Well, as you know (and as everyone is going to tell you), fundamentally, everything in permaculture starts with a good land design and a plan. Without it you can’t really know how to start setting up your farm and what to put and where. Essentially, you don’t know how your farm will look and operate!

So it seems like all you need to do is put your permaculture designer hat on and design your property with permaculture principles in mind.

Easier said than done, right?

Permaculture design is this mysterious concept that everyone keeps talking about but it’s hard to convey. Hey, it’s a complex science, as many would like you to believe.

There are more than a million resources on permaculture design on the Internet. A simple Google search reveals about 14 million results pointing to a huge variety of pages, forums, articles, videos, podcasts…

There are 854 books on Amazon that are related to the topic of permaculture design, from Zen and the Art of Permaculture Design to A Designers Manual, but even the holy bible of permaculture design, Bill Mollison’s A Designers Manual can easily overwhelm you with information, as anyone who’s read it and lived to tell the tale can confirm.

Then there are PDCs, sometimes months long, involving thousands of dollars of investment, which frequently transform lives but just as often leave you in the dark when it comes to the exact design process.

So it’s not like the information on permaculture design is not out there, it’s just that there is too much information, it can quickly get costly, and it’s not structured in a way that makes the design process easy to follow.

With all the glut of vague information available, it’s easy to get stuck and then feel frustrated by the lack of progress and lost time.

And time is something we can’t afford to lose…

This is the time to act decisively and start building that better future, but…

Designing a property according to permaculture principles is challenging. 

That’s why most people tend to avoid it and then randomly implement things around their property, having no idea how it all connects…

Or

They try to Google and DIY it, and then fall short on key ideas that make a design – a permaculture design.

In both cases, without a well-thought-out plan, they are unknowingly sentencing themselves to years of unnecessary hard manual labor, stress and uncertainty, and money down the drain.

You see, on a permaculture farm you need to have all these different farm elements working in harmony together, you need to have dedicated growing zones, fencing enclosing these zones and following roads, roads following water lines, water lines following geography…Yep, ensuring that these elements work in synergy sounds complex, all right!

The reality is, without taking the time to properly design your farm, you could be planting things in the wrong location and then watching them die, putting the roads on the wrong spot and then pouring away money maintaining them year after year, doing swales to sink the water when the soil was already oversaturated…

This can quickly add up to tens of thousands of dollars spent in vain, irreversibly lost time and even broken relationships. Scary… and all you want is to do the right thing for yourself, your family and the environment.

But you know what’s even worse?

Being so afraid of getting it wrong that you get paralysed. Trying to find the “perfect” design, and getting nothing done… 

I’ve helped over a thousand students design permaculture farms and homesteads in the last 6 years, and I’ve seen this happen over and over again. 

Let’s look at two farms I know to see how it plays out in practice.

During the pandemic when everyone’s movement was restricted, reality sank in for Dan … 

Like many houses there, Dan’s was small with no yard of its own. They had a balcony where his wife grew plants and vegetables but she could only do so much given the limited space. 

So Dan bought some land and decided to develop it using permaculture principles and techniques. Around the same time Sarah did the same. 

They were similar in many ways:

• Both had watched YouTube videos and read some of the classic permaculture books, but still couldn’t figure out where to start. They had too much information but were unable to design the farm in terms of where to put what to make the best use of their land. 
• Both were overwhelmed by the endless possibilities of a blank slate. Had ideas for parts of it but struggled to organize them, put them on paper, and describe them to others. 
• Neither was a “spring chicken” anymore with a lifetime in front of them like folks in their 20’s… They needed to get work implemented on their properties while they were still able.

But within a fortnight, those similarities disappeared.

Dan was still going through his PDC’s “introduction to permaculture” module and learning about big scale permaculture systems. Great to know for a professional designer – but, frankly, not relevant to Dan’s situation as a homestead owner 

Sarah, on the other hand, had already finished her design. She had a masterplan for her site that told her exactly where to put things to maximise the potential of her land in accordance with permaculture principles.

Best part? It was a design that could be implemented in phases so that she could pay for it as she went rather than taking out any loans. 

Now, 5 years later, Sarah doesn’t just have a design. She has a farm. She implemented the design and built out a fully-functioning permaculture property that provides for her family’s needs while doing the right thing for the Earth. 

Dan has a pretty certificate that costs $1500+. No design. No farm

After taking two PDC’s that were amazing and life-changing, he felt overwhelmed and intimidated with all of the information. While he understood most of the concepts, when it came down to actually applying them, he still had no clue where or how to start.

Have you ever wondered what makes this kind of difference in people’s progress? I know I have.

It isn’t that Sarah is a professional designer who can draw in Illustrator, Autocad and Land Architect, and Dan isn’t. (Neither of them had any drawing skills.)

It isn’t that Sarah had a huge plot, while Dan’s land was too small for permaculture techniques to be applicable. (Both had quite modestly sized plots.)

It isn’t that Sarah is young and at her physical/mental peak, while Dan is cresting 60. (They are roughly the same age.)

The difference is actually much simpler: 

Sarah learned a step-by-step process with practical design tips (“You put your house here because it’s in a sheltered microclimate protected from the winds”) instead of getting lost in unactionable principles (“Energy efficient planning”). 

Let’s look at how that played out over 5 years…

YEARS 1-3. Dan has been reading and loosely researching permaculture over the past 3 years.

While he feels it is in alignment with how he wanted to manage the farm, he is by no means an expert, has not had any formal training, and often feels lost as to how to incorporate the different aspects all together. 

He read multiple books and watched too many videos on YouTube that convinced him to go this route, but none of the books actually helped him make a plan and get feedback on his plan.

Dan wants to make the best use of his land. Knowing what to plant and build where so he’s not fighting the land or spending a bunch of time preparing to plant a particular crop in a certain area when there is already a good space for it that needs less preparation is just using good sense, after all!

He truly believes in the principles of permaculture but is kinda frustrated that no-one tells you how to start.

And now that he has bought some land, it has left him with a blank slate. He has ideas for parts of it but he struggles to organise them, put them on paper, and describe them to others.

Lots of design issues to work through, and it seems a bit overwhelming.

So he decides to take an online PDC, thinking: 

“I need a step by step plan. What exactly I should focus on, in what order. And which of the myriad tools will work best in my context.”

YEAR 4. PDC starts. After 7 months of permaculture theory, Dan finally gets to the design exercise. 

“Oh my gosh, all this information, where do I even start?! And how exactly do I DO these steps?”

He has too much information but is still unable to design the farm in terms of where to put what. He is getting bogged down in details.

And quite frankly he doesn’t get the kind of personal feedback he was expecting to get to solve site-specific issues, because he had to wait for office hours, weekly Q&A sessions, and talk to team members instead of the expert he signed up to talk to. 

Year 4: Month 9. Post-PDC, Dan does not feel like he took away enough practical knowledge of how to design/implement his vision. He does not feel like he has the tools necessary to assess a site and make a good design. 

Meanwhile, Sarah has long since finished her design, got 1:1 feedback on it, and is implementing it with confidence.

Like Dan, Sarah is confronted with the proverbial ‘blank canvas’ and wants to make as few mistakes as possible.

She is buying a new property and doesn’t want to lose any time getting it set up.  She wants to go into the property with a master plan: that is,  an overall design for water (as in ponds/swales etc), road, utilities, house location, and a better idea of what she can grow on the land for personal consumption as well as possible sale. 

She wants and needs to hit the ground running.

So she signs up to work with me.

YEAR 1. MONTH 1. WEEKS 1-2. Sarah’s goal is to create a well-thought-out plan in 2 weeks without sacrificing quality so that she can start implementing and setting up the farm as soon as possible. And that’s exactly what she does:

-> She goes through clear, methodical steps for designing a permaculture property, and discovers exactly where and how to get her information for site assessment.

Unlike Dan’s PDC, it’s a training that is easily translated into actual actions that can be implemented in her small holding: A step by step process laid out in worksheets, with a focus on implementation, and the support to pull her head out of the detail which had been holding her up without her really realising it. 

-> She identifies the strengths and weaknesses of her land, so that she can mitigate the less desirable aspects of the property and put her energies towards the most beneficial projects first. 

-> She determines the best spaces for future buildings, trees, animals, and symbiotic planting areas. The course provides the framework she need to move forward and showed him how to put the pieces together.

-> ​​She learns how to transfer her ideas on paper for her husband to see (with his technical mind). 

-> She maps out a step by step plan: what exactly to focus on, in what order. And which of the myriad tools would work best in her context.

-> She runs the design past a professional (me) for feedback and I make sure she doesn’t overlook anything significant. This gives her the confidence to implement the design.

By the end of Week 2, she has a design and a layout of her permaculture farm: something tangible to go implement on the property. 

Ultimately, that design also functions as a permaculture plan she can execute on over the years of owning her property: 

A roadmap that describes the way forward so she has an idea what to do and when. What to put where (and why); how to care for the soil; what to watch for and be attentive toward… 

Best part? 

It’s a design that can be implented in stages, without having to take out any loans. So it removes the ‘it’s too big for us to start right now’ – ‘it’s going to be too expensive’ thoughts from her mind.

She walks out of the programme with a sense of “yes, I can do this!”…

… with the motivation and confidence to move forward with the practical work on the site 

… and the self-esteem that she could do it on her own and have the flexibility and skill to alter her initial designs as life requires, because she finally understands the Why of things and can adapt the design with time or need. 

She proposes the plan to her family, and illuminates a better way for present and future generations.

REST OF YEAR 1. She digs out swales to harvest rainwater runoff and rehydrate the land, seeds cover crops to improve the soil, and plants trees and shrubs to start her food forest.

She is excited to heal the land, making some parts a natural sanctuary, and creating a lower maintenance permaculture farm. Her daughter and grandchildren will be enjoying the fruits of her labours long into the future…

YEARS 2-5. Over the years, she gives back to the community by creating a sustainable farm and gardens for others to learn and to enjoy. She teaches children about where their food comes from, how to farm/garden sustainably and how to be self-sufficient.

By the end of Year 5, she is no longer a woman with a dream. She is the woman who made her dream come true. An inspiration to others. 

Now imagine if you could emulate Sarah’s success instead of Dan’s mistakes. Wouldn’t that be great?

As it turns out, there is a simple framework you can use to design your permaculture property without spending thousands of dollars, feeling overwhelmed, and losing years of your life on internet research or PDCs… 

… and today I’m going to share with you what that is.

But first, you may be wondering, “How’d you figure all this out William?”

After working with 28,000 email subscribers and over a thousand students, I’ve come to the conclusion that existing permaculture resources are simply not designed in a way that makes the design process easy to follow.

These are some of the best permaculture properties on the planet:

They are absolute masterpieces of smart design.

But look at your own plot: Do you really have access to 100 acres , paid staff and volunteers each season, and a multimillion dollar budget for building commercial farm infrastructure (greenhouses, roads, house, drainage network…) from scratch?

Probably not.

Modeling your design after celebrity farms is an expensive mistake. Those properties are often manageable only because they have hundreds of unpaid interns helping out behind-the-curtain.

Please don’t buy into the myth that you’ll use free unpaid labor when developing your permaculture property. Like you have probably seen permaculture celebrities do.

It might help you to kickstart things, but in the long term it’s not sustainable and it’s potentially dangerous for a solo farmer/homesteader to establish systems that depend on so much outside free labor.

What are you going to do when for some reason (such as…let’s say a pandemic) people stop coming, and you can’t find volunteers or interns?

Let’s be honest, then you’d have a huge management and maintenance issue on your hands and your dream farm could turn into a nightmare.

And at any rate, as subscriber Naomi points out:

“The reality for most of us is that we don’t have access to loads of volunteer labour and get paid like a superstar for our books and teaching.”

That’s why you need a permaculture design that you can implement as a one-person show with finite funds.

Let’s explore how these unrealistic teaching examples hobble you:

First, because you are mimicking these massive designs, you are more likely to force a design on land that can’t support it.

For example, long swales across the whole property rehydrating the landscape are a great water harvesting strategy. Unless… the land is too steep, too wet already, has plenty of organic matter, or is covered with a thick forest. In that case, you are working against the natural tendencies of the land – which complicates your life, makes things harder on yourself, and wastes resources.

Second, you run the risk of designing something you cannot manage in your retirement – especially as a solo farmer without unpaid labour.

For example, having vast swaths of property “open” as pasture means that you must actively maintain that pasture, so it remains a pasture. This is fine when you have animals roaming there and the energy and time to manage them. Remove the animals from the equation somewhere down the line, and you potentially have a “vast” liability on your hands, as now you will have to “graze” acres and acres of grass somehow.

Third, it often results in a design you can’t implement incrementally with your existing budget and equipment. So you have to take out huge loans and trap your family in debt. Or you postpone indefinitely because it feels “too big/expensive” to start.

Here is what you should do instead:

First, when you’re designing your property, choose permaculture elements that work for your specific plot size.

For example, if you own only 2 acres of land, you should design your perennial food production systems using food forests or permaculture orchards instead of agroforestry.

Second, make sure that your design can be implemented in stages.

The truth is, those of us who will be implementing our own designs are going to do it incrementally as time and budget allow. We’ll be learning as we go, changing our minds based on feedback from the site and family members and other decision-makers.

Third, conduct site assessment to make sure that your land can indeed support your design/vision. Then do the math and calculate how much you actually need to plant to meet your needs.

For example, a family of four will eat some 180 kg (~395 lbs) of potatoes in a year. To grow this amount of potatoes, you’ll need to plant around 400 seed potatoes, roughly taking out 100 m2 (1000 ft2) of space.

Mind you; this is space required just for the potatoes! So if you’ve only fenced off, for example, 200 m2 (~2000 ft2) for an annual garden in your design, that simply won’t work. Given everything you would need to grow to be self-sufficient in vegetables, especially other staples, you’ll have to double the garden space and cut back from another established system to make room.

Lastly, make sure you can get 1:1 feedback from the expert you actually signed up to learn from (rather than less experienced team members). That expert will alert you if you’ve designed something that will become unmanageable in your retirement and help you scale it down.

Most permaculture resources give you principles. They don’t give you the practical design instructions you actually need (such as: put your house here because of x, do y because of z).

For example, I remember reading one of the most recent books on the permaculture design process. In the design section of the book, it kept talking about principles and methods of design, but there were no practical design tips.

I kept thinking, “Ok, but where exactly do I put the road on my property?” I sifted through the whole 30 pages of that section and couldn’t find that one sentence of practical advice I needed: put your roads on the ridges or contours so that they are easy to maintain and require less energy to travel and install.

Now let’s explore how this focus on unactionable principles (instead of practical design tips) hobbles your progress:

First, you get overwhelmed with all the information – especially if you lack permaculture experience and don’t come from a farming family.

Second, you end up with lot of ideas for parts of your property, but you have no idea how to tie it all together.

That’s why you need practical design instructions/tips/recommendations that outline what to put where and why, automatically connecting all the design pieces into a greater whole…

… instead of getting lost in more permaculture theory and unactionable principles.

Of course they teach you to make complex, unnecessary illustrations in front of your computer using expensive software…

Of course they put you through 8 MONTHS of permaculture theory, ranging from the unsustainability of the current system to soil microbiology, from wet tropics to arctic climates (90% of which, by the way, will be irrelevant to your own property)…

You’ll need it if you are going to charge thousands of dollars to design for other people’s properties in wildly different contexts: deserts, prairies, boreal forests, islands, seashores… 

But if you are just looking to design your own property so that you can start developing it asap, 90% of that is noise not signal. 

And it isn’t just unnecessary; it’s actually counterproductive – especially for someone who is just starting with permaculture. 

First, creating detailed designs can be overwhelming. 

You need to come up with all these minuscule details and connections, usually before you have much practical experience on the site. 

On top of this, you need to express yourself artistically, drawing by hand or using complicated computer software. Just this alone is enough to discourage some people from ever trying to design.

Second, you get bogged down in details and lose sight of the woods for the trees. 

That’s why I’ve seen people go through FOUR (!) PDCs and STILL make “type 1” design errors – like using swales where they are not appropriate, placing a garden in full sun without providing adequate water, placing a driveway on the wrong side of the house – mistakes which are prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to fix later on.

Because they forget the fundamentals. 

Third, it’s unnecessary to go into so many details upfront. The plans we make need to be flexible and tested immediately so we can get feedback from the site as soon as possible.

You see, permaculture involves a lot of learning by doing. So as soon as you break the ground, you might learn something new, such as the soil in this location being too shallow. This real-life feedback might require you to change your beautifully illustrated detailed plan, and you went to all that trouble to ‘paint’ a root cellar right in that location. 

That’s why I’m a big fan, for us land-owner designers, of keeping our designs on a conceptual level without going into overly detailed plans upfront, basically working out those details as we go.

To my mind, this is the best way to establish a property as a landowner/designer…

And this is something I heard David Holmgren, the permaculture co-originator, talk about doing when he was establishing his property. 

Recently in his book Retro Suburbia he even said that the typical permaculture design process needs a retrofit! (Suggesting we need to look at the big patterns before jumping to technical solutions.)

Plus, now you can relax, as you don’t have to worry about creating beautiful illustrations and making ridiculously detailed decisions ahead of time.

That’s why I teach my students a different approach to permaculture design. 

We won’t be inventing anything new, as laws of permaculture design are immutable, but we adapt the process to your needs as land owners/designers and make it easier for you to start taking action on the land… 

…because at the end of day that’s the only thing that matters – practical results in real life. 

With the systematic and practical approach to permaculture design that I outline, you’ll be able to create a layout of your permaculture farm or homestead with all of its essential systems for growing food, managing water, optimising infrastructure.  

Then, with that plan in your hands, you can start implementing immediately and take practical steps towards establishing a resilient and self sufficient property that provides for your needs while helping nature to thrive.

You need an actionable design framework tailored to your needs as a landowner designing your own farm (instead of the needs of a professional designing for other people).

In short, you need a set of practical design instructions that outline exactly what components to put where (water features, roads, fences, growing areas…), and what’s the permaculture reasoning behind each choice.

This greatly simplifies the design process and makes it step-by-step, while still abiding to the overarching permaculture principles of working with nature, making connections, energy efficiency, creating redundancies…

Most importantly, it allows you to hit the ground running, and start implementing your permaculture plans ASAP.

You will no longer have to spend your days watching YouTube videos, reading articles or philosophical permaculture books, navigating the sea of complexity, hunting down simple instructions on how to design your land but instead you’ll be working on your permaculture masterplan and know exactly what design steps to take.

You will no longer be anxiously staring at that blank canvas, stuck in trying to decide what to do first. Instead, you’ll finally start executing your plan bit by bit, day by day and making progress towards your goal of healing the Earth, producing an abundance of food, leaving a legacy for your kids and feeling at ease and optimistic about what the future holds.

You will no longer feel like a permaculture amateur, not confident in your knowledge, afraid to implement any significant changes to your land, feeling small and insignificant compared to more established growers. Instead, you’ll be knowledgeable and confident enough to put your plan into action, manage your farm, and share your wisdom with others, and contribute to the growing permaculture movement…

I have a simple system that will help you achieve all of that!

If you can spare only an hour a day for the next two weeks, I can help you create a design for your permaculture farm so that you can finally make a start on converting your land into a permaculture abundance.

This online course is the culmination of my research into permaculture farm design. To create the material I’ve dissected many permaculture books, videos and study notes from workshops, and systematically laid down the entire design process.

I’ve packaged together everything you need to know about permaculture farm design so you can start planning your property with confidence today. The best thing is, you can achieve this without having to invest thousands of dollars on a PDC, 16-week live coaching, a permaculture consultant or endlessly searching the Internet and winging it on your own.

It’s like A Designer’s Manual but with simple easy-to-follow instructions that clearly lay down the nuts and bolts of the design process so anyone can understand it, regardless of their level of design experience. Even if you have never designed anything in your life, even if you’re just starting out in permaculture, this course will help you to come up with a permaculture design for your farm.

Once you’re in the program, you’ll receive specific and simple actionable material with practical advice guiding you through the entire design process, so you won’t feel overwhelmed. With a plan in hand you’ll finally be ready to move from analysis paralysis to getting your hands dirty creating the permaculture paradise you’ve always dreamed about.

Now you might be wondering, “Is this course right for me?”

If you can say “YES” to any of these questions…

… I believe you’re PERFECT for the course:

-> Do you have a piece of farmland that you want to develop and have no idea of how to proceed with it? (You are confronted with the proverbial ‘blank canvas’ and want to make as few mistakes as possible.)

-> Are you buying a property and don’t want to lose any time getting it set up?  (You want to go into the property with a master plan. You want and need to hit the ground running.)

-> You do not own a piece of land right now, but you want to be prepared and get a feel for what you should do in the future? 

->You don’t have a PDC or it’s been many years since your last PDC and you don’t feel like you took away enough practical knowledge of how to design/implement your vision?

-> Are you overwhelmed? (You’ve been reading and researching permaculture over the past X years, and often feel lost as to how to incorporate the different aspects all together.)

-> Do you want to get an idea of how to go about developing your retirement farm the right way, and not turn it into something that you cannot manage on your own in the future?

-> You prefer reality to fantasy. You know you won’t have a massive team to assist or hundreds of young unpaid interns, it will be you. You need the design to reflect that. 

Sounds like you?

Good.

Let me walk you through everything you’ll learn inside the Permaculture Farm Design Course, and what makes it different from other design courses…

The course is broken down into four modules with nine video lessons, all of which you will receive immediate access to once you join.

With its systematic and clear two and a half hours of video material, the Permaculture Farm Design Course is designed to be simple and focused – the easiest way to design your permaculture farm.

Video lessons are accompanied with worksheets and detailed step-by-step tutorials where key concepts from the video lessons are explained, with clear and easy-to-follow design instructions.

In addition you’ll get access to a curated library of videos, ebooks, web articles, and book recommendations where you further your knowledge of the design task at hand. 

You can also download the video lessons, and print the worksheets and tutorials if you wish and use them for your study.

MODULE 1. GOALS AND CONTEXT ARTICULATION

Your Roadmap to Creating a Resilient, Easy to Manage and Productive Permaculture Farm

This is an incredibly important first step in the design process, and one that lays the foundation for your design work because it gives you clarity and guidance.

You see, once you start thinking about designing your permaculture property it’s common to become totally overwhelmed with all the possibilities. There are all these features, functions, elements, tools and techniques that you could utilize on your property and your mind starts buzzing with thoughts of which one you choose and where to start.

For example, should you use a food forest, alley cropping, silvopasture, ponds, dams, tanks, greenhouses, hugelbeds, contour beds… The list goes on.

What you need is a way to sift through the seemingly endless number of possibilities and select the ones that are truly necessary. You do this by going through the process of articulating your context and your goals. This process surfaces out your design goals, and, consequently, what features, functions, tools and strategies to use on your property.

Lesson 1. Goals and context articulation

Once you open the first module of the course, you’ll get an 18-minute video lesson on how to articulate your context and your design goals. This video explains the entire process of quantifying your resources, envisaging your future, and coming up with design goals. 

Then in the attached 11-page worksheet, you’ll get step-by-step instructions on goals and context articulation with multiple exercises for each step of the way.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• How to quantify available resources for your project using a simplified “RVD (Resource-Vision-Design Goals) Framework” so that you can quickly assess your potential and understand the boundaries around your planning
• How to identify your vision and goals for the property so that you can select the right features, functions, tools and strategies to use in your design
• How to extract concrete design goals from your aspirational vision

At the end of Module 1, you’ll have a list of clearly defined resources, a vision for the project, and a set of design goals.

MODULE 2. SITE ASSESSMENT

Understanding your site: putting everything together and identifying how nature can do the work for you

Once you have clearly articulated your context and your goals, and have a roadmap for the rest of the design steps, you go to the site assessment phase of the design.

Here your main goal is twofold:

–> Create a basemap so that you have the crucial base template on which you’ll create your design and map your observations.

–> Perform a site assessment so that you understand your site’s potentials and limitations.

Lesson 2. Basemapping

Developing a base map: preparing the crucial base template on which you’ll create your design and map your observations

Fundamentally a basemap is a real-life bird’s-eye view of your property, overlaid with topographic contours. In a 17-minute video you’ll get the rundown on how to create one in the easiest possible way using Google Earth. Google Earth already shows satellite photos as your background, you just need to import a topographic map and plot the contours.

You’ll learn about three methods of importing topographic contour lines into Google Earth, ranging from the simplest and less accurate; using the free web tools, to the more complex and extremely accurate; extracting contours from DEMs and doing the survey of the site. For each method there is a comprehensive written step-by-step tutorial that helps you implement what you’ve learned.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• The two basic components of a base map and the easiest way to find them
• How to create a simple base map based on your level of expertise (from using free online tools to performing DIY survey of your site)
• Detailed step-by step tutorials on developing a base map for free in Google Earth

Lesson 3. Site Assessment

Permaculture site analysis and assessment: Identify your site’s limitations and strengths so you can easily create a responsive permaculture design

Then, in the site assessment lesson, you’ll get the tools and instructions on how to do a series of site-specific assessments. 

Some of the site assessment guides you get in this module include:

• • How to find out what are you allowed to do with your property so that you avoid huge fines
  • How to analyse your climate so that you understand your farming context and choose appropriate permaculture techniques
  • How to analyse the topography so that you can understand your site’s terrain and avoid placing elements in the wrong spot 
  • The simple 5 step method to determining the size and extent of your watershed so that you can identify the water harvesting capacity of your property
  • How to identify the basic water parameters of your site so you understand your water resource potential
  • How to map out the movement patterns across your property and identify weak links
  • How to perform a sector and microclimate analysis so that you understand energies influencing your site
  • How to perform an online and on-site soil analysis to get to know your soil 
  • How to do a vegetation and wildlife survey so that you understand your local biome
  • How to identify what off-site resources you’ll have access to for the development of your project

The site assessment essentially ensures that you don’t end up forcing your design on a land that can’t support it. Instead, it guarantees that your design will piggyback onto nature and work with its boundless energy.

In a 18-minute video lesson you’ll get a comprehensive overview of what the site assessment entails and how to perform one. You’ll learn about two different ways to do the site assessment, sector mapping and site assessment by the Scale of Permanence.

Then, you’ll get access to the set of step-by step instructions that will help you gather as much information as you can about your site, collate that information into the pre-made spreadsheet, and make the assessment, identifying your site limitations and its natural tendencies or strengths.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• The 10 site-specific assessments you need to perform to understand your property’s limitations and advantages
• How and where to find relevant information about your site online without wasting time on endless internet research
• How to use Google Earth to analyse various landscape features without complex tools and calculations
• How to read the landscape and perform the initial site observations without feeling lost on the field
• The most important things you need to know about doing a site survey (water, microclimate, soils, slope, aspect, wildlife…)

At the end of Module 2, you’ll have your basemap ready plus a deep understanding of the patterns in your landscape and how to unlock the potential of your land.

MODULE 3. WHOLE FARM LAYOUT

Designing the foundational components of a permaculture farm and creating a masterplan that you can start implementing right away

Nailing this macro pattern is the main challenge of the design, and, when coming up with it, it’s more important than understanding all the little tiny details.

Lesson 4. The permaculture farm design framework

Foundational tools and methods for designing your permaculture property

First, in a succinct 10-minute video you’ll learn about the permaculture design framework you’ll use during this design process. This lesson unveils the secrets behind becoming a good designer and coming up with a good permaculture design.

It outlines the thinking tools and design methods that all your favourite permaculture gurus, and everyone else who calls themselves a permaculture designer, use when designing.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• The exact design framework professional permaculture designers use to come up with their designs
• The three most important design tools for coming up with the permaculture design of your property
• The permaculture designer’s cheat sheet – a one pager with everything you need to abide by to create a working permaculture design 

Then, armed with that knowledge you start unfolding your design.

Lesson 5. Water systems planning

Calculate your water needs and your water budget so that you can create an optimised water design

You start your design with the water systems, and first do some planning to clarify your precise water management options.

In a 12-minute video lesson and the accompanying 8-page worksheet you learn how to assess and quantify your site’s water needs and resources. This then lets you design water systems according to the reality of your site and your needs.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• Two different ways of storing water on your property
• The three step process of planning your water harvesting system to sustain your needs
• How to calculate the water resources available to the property and what exactly your needs will be

Lesson 5. Water systems design

Smart Water Design: Developing Effective and Extreme Weatherproof Water Systems that Boost the Overall Resilience of your Farm

Following the water systems planning you create a layout for storing, harvesting and distributing water across your landscape.

In a 24-minute video lesson you get super-specific instructions on what water management features to use and where exactly to position your ponds/dams, water harvesting and distribution drains, how to connect your water features, how to lay irrigation pipes, and much more…

This is accompanied by a 21-page step-by-step instructional PDF with design examples that remove any doubt on what to do exactly.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• Harvesting: How to capture (or harvest) water by using harvesting drains, existing buildings and diversion from natural sources 
• Storing: How to identify the best locations for your ponds, dams and tanks so that you can store, harvest, and distribute the maximum amount of water for the least effort 
• Distributing: How to create a water distribution network across your whole property so that you can hydrate every corner of it

Lesson 6. Infrastructure design

Figuring out where to put your house, access ways and fences so you don’t end up making costly mistakes

Then, you design the core infrastructure layer of your property; the main access roads, house and fences. Permaculture planning of infrastructure, in contrast to conventional planning, facilitates or enables the productive use of your land instead of making it a maintenance nightmare and a drain of your resources, so there are certain design rules you’ll need to adhere to.

In a 22-minute video lesson and the accompanying 22-page step-by-step instructional PDF you’ll learn exactly what the best practices are to position your roads, what the best location for your house would be, and the best way to subdivide your property with fencing.

Just this information right here can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of your property.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• The #1 location for your house area that will optimise all potential energy flows
• Principles and best practices of positioning access ways across your property
• How to subdivide your property with fencing and which types of fencing to use

Lesson 6. Land use design

Defining land use: determining the placement of permaculture elements so that you can create a healthy farm ecosystem that produces abundance with less work

As you gradually unfold the infrastructure design, you’ll know precisely where to fit the remaining systems of the property. In designing land use areas you clearly define these areas and determine the specific purpose they’ll fulfil depending on your goals and the land’s capability.

In a 30-minute video you get a comprehensive overview of all possible ways you can put your land to use and clear instructions on how to decide where to place these systems according to the permaculture zoning concept.

You’ll learn about different zones of your property and their appropriate growing systems, livestock management, and functional spaces, from gardens, orchards, food forests and smaller livestock in the homestead zone to alley cropping, silvopasture, tree crops and larger livestock in the farming zone. The 27-page step-by-step instructional PDF accompanying the video lesson help you to further deepen your design know-how.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• How to use permaculture zones to organize your growing environment and farm activities so that you save time, energy and money
• The “Simple Zone Framework” for determining planting areas for gardens, food forests, orchards, and farm forestry 
• What type of food-producing systems and functional spaces to use in your design to maximise the land’s output
• Where to place various elements of your farm to make the best use of the land and manage the incoming energies in the best possible way
• How to integrate animals and decide on which types of livestock are best suited for your site

At the end of Module 3, you’ll have an overall pattern of the whole farm layout, outlining major site features.

MODULE 4. DETAILED DESIGN

Designing the foundational components of a permaculture farm and creating a masterplan that you can start implementing right away

Now you can zoom into different parts or specific areas of interest and work out the details.

For this step, you’ll get a series of detailed design guides you can use to plan the specifics of water systems, infrastructure, food-growing systems, and so on. You can use these as your point of reference in making detailed designs and implementation.

Currently, there is a set of “permaculture farm essentials” available, detailed design guides that include instructions for designing the basic layouts of gardens, orchards, food forests, agroforestry systems and homestead infrastructure. More are coming as periodic updates to the permaculture farm design system and you’ll get access to all of them for free.

Here are some of the insights you’ll discover:

• How to link all the complex elements together and create an integrated permaculture property
• The best way to organise the homestead area with the accompanying infrastructure 
• The precise details of creating food forests with swales, permaculture orchards and farm forestry systems

Detailed Design Guides

You’ve already nailed the main layout so you have the confidence that the main farm elements are where they’re supposed to be. Now you are just working out the details and for this you need to take action!

And taking action is what’s all about if you want to turn your dream into a reality.

…instead of that bare hay field, old overgrazed pastures, abused and eroded barren soil, you’ll have food forests and orchards positively teeming with life…

…instead of your land being decimated by drought, floods and the changing climate you’ll have a network of ponds, dams, tanks and irrigation pipes, all supporting your food forest… making your property a haven of natural beauty which others can only dream about…

…instead of your non-existent or inefficient infrastructure that cannot support your farm development, you’ll have a system of roads, fences and structures that actually saves you money, time and energy.

This course can help you get there. After following these simple step-by-step instructions, you’ll have the know-how for how to design the permaculture farm you’ve always wanted. You’ll be confident in your plan and knowledgeable enough to put it into action.

There’ll be no more wondering about what you should be doing next and whether you’re on the right track. Now you can start managing your farm, contributing to healing the Earth and providing for her needs.

This is not for you if…

You live in a city and don’t plan on getting land in the future…

You believe that climate change and environmental destruction are not real…

You think there is no need and no hurry to regenerate the human-impacted landscape…

You are not willing to spend at least an hour a day for the next two weeks to create a design for your farm…

You want to pay $10,000 to hire Geoff Lawton to design everything FOR you…

However, if you are someone who has at least ½ acres to work with, is genuinely concerned about the future of our planet, wants to provide for their family’s needs while doing the right thing for the Earth, and wants to FINALLY stop endlessly researching permaculture design, save $10,000 and take advice from someone who went through all of it and knows what works…

Well, then you are in the right place at JUST the right time.

You can join the programme for 5 installments of $47 (or pay $197 in full and save 20%)

If you break down the cost to a year, that’s $0.50 per day, and you get a design that you’ll be using for life. 

You can either ‘save’ the $197, and risk a house in the wrong spot that can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, or a road in the wrong spot that needs thousands of dollars’ worth of repair yearly, or pond that never fills that cost you thousands of dollars to dig…

OR

You can invest $197 and save yourself literally tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of your farm, and have that peace of mind that nothing will come to haunt you or your family down the line.

Your dream permaculture farm is 2 clicks away. Buy the Farm Design course now, try it within the next 30 days, and walk out with a design you can start implementing this year. OR I will give you your money back.

ONE – You can decide to do nothing and wait for the day in the future when you’ll have enough money to buy into an expensive online course or a PDC, or hire a consultant or professional designer to do the design for you.

This, of course, comes with drawbacks: first, that day of having enough money might never come, and, second, what if you spend all that money, $1000 – $3000 a time, over the course of weeks or months, and realize it didn’t help you at all, you just found yourself even more overwhelmed with the information?

TWO – You can do as you have done up until now and try to solve this issue on your own. Read, watch, and listen to permaculture gurus, receive vague instructions and explanations and then wonder ‘Am I doing it right?’ and ‘What if I make a mistake I will regret forever?’

This might work… Honestly, it probably will work eventually as you gain more experience and learn from your mistakes, but it will take a great deal of time, money, and energy as you keep reinventing the wheel.

THREE – You can get everything you need to help you design your permaculture farm today. Without having to hire an expensive consultant, without having to research the Internet endlessly, without having to take a Permaculture Design Certificate… you’ll be able to create a design and start transforming your land into a permaculture paradise in coming weeks, not months or years.

Of course, I’m biased, but honestly only the last choice makes any sense at all. Especially because there is no risk on your part; with my 100% money-back guarantee, I’ll take that risk for you.

I believe that this course will be the best investment you can make in yourself as a farm-owner designer. People who have taken it can confirm that:

“Your course is by far the BEST, I mean the VERY BEST!! I have ever taken. I have taken 4 PDC courses and yours made much more sense to me. It was the glue that brought everything together. If I had not taken the other courses it alone would have been fine. Yours gave me everything that I was looking for in a way I can understand and work with. You have uniquely combined ALL learning styles in one fast, easy, simple fully packed course.” – Danelle

So when it comes right down to it, there’s really only one rational thing to do now and we both know it…:-)