Enrollment closes in…
Day(s)
:
Hour(s)
:
Minute(s)
:
Second(s)
From Blank Slate to Abundance
HOW TO DESIGN A PERMACULTURE FARM THAT PRODUCES AN ABUNDANCE OF FOOD, REGENERATES THE LAND AND BUILDS SELF-SUFFICIENCY
(Without endlessly searching the Internet, feeling overwhelmed and getting stuck in analysis paralysis)
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.
PUZZLED BY PERMACULTURE DESIGN? NO WONDER!
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…
THE WORLD IS CHANGING AT AN ACCELERATED PACE, HERE IS WHY YOU NEED TO START PLANNING YOUR FARM RIGHT TODAY
A global pandemic, a global recession, a global transformation of the world as we knew it…
We are entering a period of a great unknown, and nobody can say with certainty how long this current situation will last – the only thing that’s certain is that things will never be the same again.
Although the current and coming crises are not desirable, in a way, we can view them as a catalyst for a positive change that’ll push more and more people to create better lifestyles for themselves and the planet.
We permaculturists are at the forefront of that change as we already have all the tools we need to make this sustainable, self-reliant, and resilient life a reality. We can be the guiding light we need in the world and lead by example.
We need to utilize permaculture design first to prepare our farms or homesteads to weather this storm and provide for our needs. Then, as the dust settles, we need to showcase a better way of living, producing food, and working with the environment.
As the current system becomes more restrictive and less capable of providing us with the essential services, people will increasingly start to look for alternatives. We’ll be able to show them with our example how they should proceed.
This is the time to act decisively and start building that better future, but…
THE DANGERS OF A RECKLESS FARM DESIGN
In both cases, without a well-thought-out plan you’re just hoping for the best but probably unknowingly sentencing yourself 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.
HOW I TURNED MY PROBLEM INTO A SOLUTION AND CAME UP WITH AN EASY DESIGN PROCESS THAT WORKS
I’ve worked with hundreds of people seeking to start a permaculture farm and live a permaculture lifestyle, going from analysis paralysis, struggling with practical steps of designing a permaculture farm to creating a masterplan of a fully functioning farm that produces an abundance of food, regenerates the land and builds self-sufficiency.
Like many of you I’ve long dreamed of having my permaculture farm and creating my own permaculture paradise.
This dream become my obsession during my career as a geologist. At the time I had many positive experiences, and I earned a good wage in doing it. Still, overall my work was contributing to environmental destruction, and for a nature-oriented person like myself, that fact was morally tortuous.
So a few years ago, I decided to leave my engineering job and take over my grandparents’ farm. This was an amazing opportunity, only – as many of you have also experienced – it turned out not to be as easy as I hoped. I was suddenly overwhelmed by what to do first and how to set things up correctly.
What I was missing was a plan with a clear set of goals…
Not long after, I decided to take a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) and, although this was a fantastic experience and helped me to start thinking in the right direction, I was actually hoping to get a step-by-step process for creating a design for my farm, yet instead all I got was vague guidelines. I felt out of my depth…
As a result of this, I was forced to clarify and come up with that design process myself. So, I dove into the permaculture literature, and read many books and countless blog posts. I listened to innumerable permaculture podcasts covering all aspects of permaculture design. Since I started my website, I’ve consulted with experts in the field and learned from them about permaculture design and their methodology.
All of the research I’ve conducted has led me to develop a simple process that I used to design and plan the layout of my farm and one that I use today in my consultation work. It builds on previous work of great permaculture designers but it’s tailored, simplified and adapted to the needs of a farm-owner designer.
So every time I’m faced with designing a piece of land I have a framework and set of instructions on what precisely I need to do. I don’t have to constantly think about what my next step should be and I can relax knowing that the process works, and today I want to share this framework and this design process with you.
There are a lot of voices in Permacultre and sustainable agriculture these days, but I’ve never found one more reliable, insightful and useful as William Horvath and Permaculture Apprentice. The way that he connects the dots from a wide variety of progressive practices such as holistic grazing, food forestry, keyline earthworks and many more, can only come from someone who has put them into practice through experimentation and constant observation.
Williams content is a “go to” resource for anyone wanting to build freedom for themselves by establishing their own self reliant systems. In my opinion, he is overly generous with his all inclusive, hands on, step by step instructional material. Any contribution whether it be time, money and/or energy for his information will certainly yield 10-100Xs your investment.que.
HERE’s HOW I CAN HELP YOU
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!
INTRODUCING THE PERMACULTURE FARM DESIGN COURSE
THE SIMPLEST, EASIEST WAY TO DESIGN YOUR PERMACULTURE FARM WITHOUT SPENDING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS AND LOSING YEARS OF YOUR LIFE ON INTERNET RESEARCH
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.
HOW PERMACULTURE FARM DESIGN COURSE WORKS:
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 lesson 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.
You will be able to 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
You see, once you start thinking about designing your permaculture farm 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 do 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
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
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 the site assessment so that you understand your site’s potentials and limitations.
Lesson 2. Basemapping
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.
Lesson 3. Site Assessment
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.
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
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
It outlines the thinking tools and design methods that all your favorite permaculture gurus, and everyone else who calls themselves a permaculture designer, use when designing.
Then, armed with that knowledge you start unfolding your design.
Lesson 5. Water systems planning
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.
Lesson 5. Water systems design
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 21-page step-by-step instructional PDF with design examples that remove any doubt on what to do exactly.
Lesson 6. Infrastructure design
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 farm.
Lesson 6. Land use design
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.
At the end of Module 3, you’ll have overall pattern of the whole farm layout, outlining major site features.
MODULE 4. DETAILED DESIGN
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.
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.
If You Have A Question…
You’re Only One Click Away From An Answer
When you join the course you’re not just getting access to the course materials, you’re getting the personal support from me and from my growing Permaculture Conversion community.
If at any time you get stuck or feel unsure about your actions you can rest assured that someone from the Permaculture Conversion community or myself personally will help you move forward.
You’re not on your own on this journey, and by investing into this course you will receive personal support if you need it and you get to leverage the insight and wisdom of others.
BONUS 1: Type 1 Design Errors to Avoid at All Cost
Certain design mistakes will torment you every day of your life. They are enormously expensive and practically impossible to undo once they are implemented on your site.
You’ll want to avoid these at all cost, as these are the type 1 errors, the fundamental design flaws that make everything else built on top flawed or ineffective.
Luckily these are very easy to avoid if you know what they are. I’ve listed eight most common and most expensive ones so you can avoid them and thus free up years of your life on something more productive.
BONUS 2: Implementation Planning Worksheet
To implement your design in the real world, first, you need to create an implementation plan for what you’ll be doing to guide you.
In the implementation planning worksheet, you’ll get a template and instructions that will help you identify and prioritize all your major implementation projects.
This plan will pinpoint in what projects to put your time, money, and energy first.
BONUS 3: Design Implementation Training plus One-year Implementation Plan
Wondering how to implement your design once you’re done planning? How can you start setting up your farm?
In a 15 min. video tutorial, I will walk you through the implementation steps from planning the earthworks to improving the soil.
In addition to the video training, you’ll get a pocket-sized spreadsheet that provides you with a one-year plan with all the essential implementation stages and steps.
JOIN THE SELF STUDY PROGRAM FOR ONLY $USD197
Videos
Nine (downloadable) video lessons detailing everything you need to know about designing you permaculture property.
Workshets and Step-by-Step Tutorials
Worksheets and written step-by step instructions accompanying video lesson detailing goals and context articulation, site assessment and the desing of your permaculture property.
Special Bonus:
- List of type 1 design errors to avoid at all cost
- Implementation planning worksheet
- Video training on design implementation
- One-year pocket implementation plan
Community and Support
Personal support from me and from the growing Permaculture Conversion community.
$USD397
one - time payment
$USD95
5 monthly installments
You can try out Permaculture Farm Design Course (risk-free) for 30 days.
What if your land was different? imagine if…
…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 the healing the Earth and providing for her needs.
frequently asked questions
Q. Why should I take the Permaculture Farm Design Course?
A. I believe that we are entering a period of a great unknown, and nobody can say with certainty how long this current situation will last – the only thing that’s certain is that things will never be the same again. Although the current and coming crises are not desirable, in a way, we can view them as a catalyst for a positive change that’ll push more and more people to create better lifestyles for themselves and the planet.
We permaculturists are at the forefront of that change as we already have all the tools we need to make this sustainable, self-reliant, and resilient life a reality. We can be the guiding light we need in the world and lead by example.
We need to utilize permaculture design first to prepare our farms or homesteads to weather this storm and provide for our needs. Then, as the dust settles, we need to showcase a better way of living, producing food, and working with the environment.
As the current system becomes more restrictive and less capable of providing us with the essential services, people will increasingly start to look for alternatives. We’ll be able to show them with our example how they should proceed.
Q. Who is this course designed for?
A. This course offers you guidelines regarding how the permaculture farm design process works. When I built the course, I had a specific person in mind: a landowner who wants to start a permaculture farm and create a design by himself/herself but feels overwhelmed with where to start. Someone who is ready to hit the ground running and move the project forward in real life, but understands that permaculture thinking involves starting with a design first, and then translating that plan to more concrete actionable steps.
Q. Do I need any previous experience?
Q. What size of land do I need to take the PFDC?
A. This course is not intended for backyard permaculture projects. Although there are lessons that would still help you design smaller permaculture sites, to get the full value from the course your land would need to be at least bigger than one acre. There is no upper land size limit to get the benefits from the course.
Q. How will this course be conducted?
A.This is an online course that’s accessed through an online platform. The video lessons are pre recorded, and all the materials are available immediately. There are no set times you need to show up, you log in to the course platform and consume the materials when you want, how much you want, at a pace you want. You have lifetime access to everything.
Each module in the course is split into lessons that have a video tutorial describing the design process. The video tutorial is supplemented with an actionable steps and design workbook with instructions and examples. Each lesson also has a list of additional resources to deepen your knowledge about that specific design phase.
Q. What do I need to take part in this course?
A. Since this is an online course; all you need is a computer and an Internet connection capable of streaming or downloading course videos. You can use worksheets and written instructions on your computer, or download them and print them out. For your design work, I recommend using Google Earth, but you can use other software programs or make hand-drawn designs, whatever works best for you. Regardless of your choice I’ll give you instructions on how to create a design, but how you choose to do it is entirely your decision.
Q. I can’t draw, is this for me?
A. I see design as a means to an end, and that end is taking action to transform your land into a permaculture farm. That’s why we want to avoid analysis paralysis and getting stuck at creating overly complex and beautifully illustrated plans by software tools with steep learning curves. Simple design sketches in Google Earth are all you need to know how to draw to create a final design in the course. In case you can’t do that, print out your basemap and draw by hand on top of the printed map.
Q. How much time will I need to study?
A. The Permaculture Farm design course has some two and a half hours of video material, several detailed worksheets you’ll need to fill with data, and numerous step-by-step guides. I made this course to be as simple as possible, so that you get to the end result, i.e. the design, as quickly as possible, but that doesn’t mean it will be a piece of cake. You’ll need to put in the work, dedicate time for the course, and make an effort to follow through on what you’ve started.
Since this is a self-paced course, you can take it as fast or as slow as you want; it’s totally up to you. You’ll have lifetime access to the material, so there is no time limit. That said, on average, if you dedicate a few hours to it weekly, it will take you a few weeks to come up with a design, although depending on how many iterations of the design you want to go through, it might take longer. To create the best possible design, you’ll need feedback on your design as you go, and I’ll be happy to give it to you.
Q. How does Permaculture Farm Design Course fit in with other Permaculture Apprentice Courses?
A. This is a course that’s focused on creating a masterplan. It shows you how to plan the overall layout of your farm. The Permaculture Farm Design Course works beautifully when combined with the Creating Food Forest Guilds course, which goes into the specific details of designing the food forest growing area. The Permaculture Implementation Calendar then gives you guidance on the next step of the permaculture design process – the implementation.
Q. Will I get a Permaculture Design Certificate?
A. You will not be certified, nor is this course a substitute for a PDC in any shape or form. However, this course gives you some invaluable supplementary advice, and an actionable framework you can follow while creating your final PDC design assignment.
Q. Is this course made for a specific climate, or the content is applicable to any location?
A. I made the course with temperate zone climates in mind, but ultimately it’s not bound to any climate. The course gives you a framework for the design and step-by-step instructions. You, as the designer, are the one who collects and interprets the information regarding your property conditions, and then based on that, creates a responsive design.
People outside temperate zone climates, e.g., tropics, can still use the course but would probably need to find additional design advice geared more towards that specific climate.
Q. What if I get stuck or don't understand something, will you help me?
A. Of course, you get access to me and can send me your questions via email and I’ll answer them usually within one working day. If something is not clear it’s my duty to help you understand it! You’ll also get access to my private Permaculture Conversion community group where you can get useful peer support for your design project.
Q. What if this doesn’t work for me?
HERE’s WHAT MY STUDENTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE COURSE
All of these people were struggling with the design, and overwhelmed with the information, some of them even had multiple PDCs, but the course helped them to put everything into structured manageable steps and take action.
William has put together a comprehensive course to start a permaculture design from scratch. Many examples, videos, tools and worksheets come with the course that allowed me to hit the ground running. His personal guidance and very fast turnaround time when answering emails are amazing. The amount of time he invests to answer questions personally shows how much he loves what he’s doing.
A positive aspect of your course, in my view, is how you get straight to the point, a pragmatism that knows where you are going. And you do this through very objective tools, with clear and punctual instructions.
I think this course will be perfect for so many people who are stuck, wanting to design their land into farms but don’t yet have the skills to know where to start, like me. So many ideas, but how to put them into reality in a structured manner. So thanks !!!!
I like your course as an adjunct to Lawton’s, particularly the exact instructions of how to make the base map and all the layers from various websites etc. – I’ve never seen anyone else do that, and I very much appreciate it. I also appreciated the step by step approach, and it encouraged me to really think harder about what my goals really are for this property.
I do feel a sense of “I can do this” finally! I first learned about permaculture 20 years ago, and it has continued to feel like a mystery in many ways–and I have felt like I needed to depend on experts other than myself–to do design. so this is so empowering!
Thank you for creating such thoughtful content. It’s very well put together and has practical implications. It is supported by tools and technology as well as prerequisites for a great farm design.
If you can’t afford the time or money for a full on 2 week PDC this is definitely the course to take. He breaks everything down step by step in layman’s terms. Even after I had already taken 2 PDC’s there was still so many things I didn’t understand. Not because they weren’t explained well mind you, but because the information was so massive and overwhelming that I couldn’t absorb all of it at the time. William’s course is organized in a way that makes it manageable and so you can apply it to your own land.
This was the best course I have taken to help me connect the dots of all of the permaculture concepts and elements. I now have a step by step plan of how to develop my homestead.
WHO PERMACULTURE FARM DESIGN COURSE IS NOT FOR
This is not for you if…
You live in a city and don’t own any land.
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
However, if you are someone who has some land 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 $1000 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.
GET INSTANT, LIFETIME ACCESS TO THE COURSE FOR ONLY $USD197
Videos
Nine (downloadable) video lessons detailing everything you need to know about designing your permaculture property.
Workshets and Step-by-Step Tutorials
Worksheets and written step-by step instructions accompanying video lesson detailing goals and context articulation, site assessment and the desing of your permaculture property.
Special Bonus:
- List of type 1 design errors to avoid at all cost
- Implementation planning worksheet
- Video training on design implementation
- One-year pocket implementation plan
Community and Support
Personal support from me and from the growing Permaculture Conversion community.
$USD397
one - time payment
$USD95
5 monthly installments
Enrollment closes in…
Day(s)
:
Hour(s)
:
Minute(s)
:
Second(s)
COPYRIGHT © 2023 Permaculture Apprentice. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CONTACT PRIVACY TERMS MEMBER AGREEMENT