KICKSTART YOUR FARM THE RIGHT WAY AND PRODUCE ORGANIC-EVERYTHING FROM THE GET-GO, WITHOUT COSTLY MISTAKES THAT SET YOU BACK YEARS…

Five years ago, one of my students (Rob), bought 5 acres in Vermont to start a permaculture property. Around the same time, a former permaculture certificate classmate of mine (Daniel) bought 10 acres in the regional part of Victoria, Australia to do the same.

They were similar in many ways:

• Both wanted to manage their land in a more enlightened way, but neither had any hands-on experience farming.
• Both worked a day job. They hadn’t made the switch to full time farming.
• And both were regular people, not permaculture celebrities. They didn’t have a massive team or hundreds of unpaid interns. They’d be managing the farm on their own with nobody to help.

 But within a year, those similarities disappeared.

Rob cleared the whole site from the scrub that was growing there, planted a permaculture garden, and started soil improvement works in the future food forest area.

Daniel had a PDC, 24 permaculture reference books on the shelf, graduation certificates from 3 online courses, but nothing real on the ground.

Now, 5 years later, Rob is the proud owner of a fully-functioning permaculture paradise with a food forest and annual gardens. He recently sent me a photo of his family sitting at a table outside the farmhouse, laughing, teasing each other, and eating the bounty of food they produced on the property. 

And Daniel is still a dreamer with big ideas, no resources and no results, forced to eat supermarket food.

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

It isn’t that Rob was young and at his physical peak, while Daniel was cresting 60. (They were roughly the same age.)

It isn’t that Rob grew up on a farm, with years of hands-on experience, driving tractors since he learned how to walk, and Daniel didn’t. (Neither came from an agriculture background.) 

It isn’t that Rob had ideal farming conditions (climate, soils, water, terrain) and Daniel didn’t. (If anything, Daniel had the better plot.) 

The difference is actually much simpler: 

Daniel was overwhelmed with options, so he kept READING about permaculture to get clarity. Rob wasn’t, so he IMPLEMENTED permaculture.

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

IN YEAR 1, Daniel was overwhelmed by the prospect of starting from scratch.

He had received a PDC a few years back, an online course with Geoff Lawton, and he’d read a lot of books on permaculture and food forests, but he still didn’t know where to begin… what to do concretely (eg. swales or not?)…  the practical steps of what to do next… 

There were just so many options, it was stultifying!

He had all these stacks of papers and computer files, he flipped through his books, but he was still unsure. Before long, he got sucked into analysis paralysis and went down the “I need more input” rabbit hole.

Daniel had been hoping to see small incremental progress that would keep him motivated to continue to move forward. Instead, he felt so overwhelmed that he just wanted to scratch the whole idea and shop at Woolworths!

IN YEAR 2, Daniel resolved to stop reading about permaculture and start implementing it. He resolved to take action. Because doing something is better than doing nothing – right?

And everybody in permaculture talks about swales, right? He’d start there.

Ten months later, he realised that swales don’t work well for him at all (his site is too steep, and he has too much rainfall throughout the year). He spent a lot of time, energy and $$ to find that out. Ended up getting into a huge argument with The Wife, also known in some circles as She Who Is Not Pleased With Dwindling Savings.

But this was his dream. He would not give up so easily…

IN YEAR 3, Daniel planned to  start an annual garden (something he should’ve done in year 1), but got off track because other demands kept popping up as distractions. House renovation projects needed attention, young children needed attention,  mains water pipes burst and needed attention…

Determined to finish something before the year ended, he began clearing the forest to make room for a sheep pasture. But there was a LOT of forest and the enormity of that task made him realise he needed a plan. Thus passed another year, without results…

YEAR 4. Frustrated by his lack of progress, Daniel made lots of rushed, poorly thought decisions. 

He bought a bunch of bare root trees in late winter that needed to be in the ground before spring kicked in. But the thing is, he didn’t know where to plant them precisely as he didn’t take the time to plan the design, so he selected a spot randomly in the worst possible microclimate. Half the trees died.

He also jumped the gun and got a milking cow to at least produce some milk for his family, but his fences weren’t ready, so she kept running away until he got around to building a fenced-off area for the lonely animal.

If only he’d known what to do first, second etc for his farm, he could have avoided all these consequences… 

YEAR 5. Looking back, this is what Daniel saw:

Wasted time on swales, arguments with wife, not much accomplished after 5 years, distractions popped up and got side-tracked. And on the ground, a sad picture: swales half collapsed from excess rainwater, a few trees planted and wilting, a stinky compost pile, eroded access ways. Twenty projects half completed. Zero results.

Meanwhile Rob was making steady, visible progress towards his permaculture dream…

Rob kickstarted his farm by establishing key permaculture systems on his land.

IN YEAR 1, Rob planted an annual garden to grow veggies for his family, cleared the native shrubbery to make room for a perennial orchard, and sowed cover crops to build organic matter and improve soil fertility.

By the end of Year 1; the soil of his future food forest was fertile enough to support the first bare-root trees and shrubs to be planted. And he had his first crop: 50kg of potatoes, 15kg of carrots, 20kg of onions, 10kg of leafy nutritious greens!

It was the best year of his life because healthy organic food for his family had always been a major goal. His wife was a breast cancer survivor and she intended to stay that way!

IN YEAR 2, Rob planted a perennial herb garden, planted initial patches of his food forest with a combination of nitrogen-fixing trees and fruit trees and shrubs, all while expanding his annual garden production by building a greenhouse to extend his growing season. 

He had an overall plan for the year: a framework to work to that told him exactly what to do month by month. So he spread the load and bit off manageable chunks with his limited time.

By the end of Year 2; he had a steady supply of medicinal herbs for potential ailments, a newly established food forest patch filled with fruits and soon-to-be-producing berries, and he was now supplying  50% of everything his family ate from his permaculture garden.

As a couple, Rob and his wife had been dreaming of this for years and wanted to see it actually happen! They were determined to care for this small area of the world and nurture it.

IN YEAR 3, Rob focused on increasing the fertility of his garden and food forest. He established composting systems with hot compost bins, worm farms, and fungal compost piles to be more self-sufficient in inputs. He maintained the food forest by applying soil amendments and fertilizers, foliar sprays, compost teas, and fungal composts. And to boost the productivity of his gardens he supplied nutrients via compost, amendments, compost teas, and green manure crops.

By the end of Year 3; he had a closed-loop system for producing the compost he needed for his permaculture gardens, his food forest was growing vigorously, and his permaculture garden was already growing all the food for his family and others staying there.

Farming to Rob has always been his act to save the world and bring healthy nutrition back into the food system. And he was succeeding!

IN YEAR 4, Rob decided to expand his food forest by establishing a nut grove, so he installed swales and planted trees in a new area of his farm while continuing the yearly maintenance tasks that boost the fertility and productivity of his existing systems.

By the end of Year 4; he had a sizable new stand of trees in the ground, and his food forest started to yield berries and fruits. The couple was now self-sufficient in regards to fruit and veggies for not just themselves, but their future grandchildren and even THEIR in-laws!

IN YEAR 5, Rob added infrastructure for processing and storage to commercialize some of his food production since he had a surplus of everything. He improved the fertility of his growing systems with biofertilizers and holistic liquid sprays, fine-tuning the production cycles.

By the end of Year 5; he was producing all the fruit, berries, medicinal plants, and vegetables he could consume, he had a food forest and a garden that were easy to keep up, and a side income from selling extra produce and value-added products.  

Best part? He felt secure about his family’s future: 

He was now producing his own food, had extra cash to invest into the farm, and a nut grove as insurance for challenging times ahead (it will yield a crop in about 10 years, planting a nut orchard is a long-term investment).  

His family had a flourishing environment, medicinal plants, and food free from chemicals to keep them healthy. 

Rob knew that even in his retirement years the system would be easy to maintain and produce income.

In just five short years, Rob became 80% self-sufficient in food and produced almost everything his family needed without harming the planet. 

He had dreamt of it for years, and now he was well on the way to achieving it: a pastoral paradise where his family could live a healthy life in harmony with nature. 

He was no longer a man with a dream. He was the man who made his dream come true. An inspiration to others. 

He gave back to the community by creating a sustainable farm and gardens for others to learn and enjoy. He taught children about where their food comes from, how to farm/garden sustainably, and how to be self-sufficient.

Now imagine if you could emulate Rob’s success instead of Daniel’s frustration. Wouldn’t that be great?

As it turns out, there is a step-by-step implementation system you can use to kickstart your permaculture property and produce organic everything from the get-go, without costly mistakes that set you back years…

… 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?”

Let’s be honest, everyone has big permaculture plans when the season starts.

I’ll sort out the gardens, orchards, compost piles, earthworks, renovate that garage, build that greenhouse…

And you enthusiastically start all these different projects, all at the same time, stretching yourself thin, overworking and putting extreme pressure on yourself and your relationships.

Then, eventually, despite your best efforts, enthusiasm and goodwill, things just don’t go as planned.

At some point, you start falling behind, overwhelmed by everything you still need to do, until you are forced to throw in the towel, saying: “well, that’ll just have to wait until next year!”

I know, in an ideal world, we would already have our fully-functioning permaculture farm or homestead.

…swales hydrating the landscape, food forests producing an abundance of fruits and nuts, soil teeming with life, gardens full of produce…

And the quicker we can get to that, the quicker we can enjoy the abundance, the freedom, the security, and the peace of mind. The math there is fairly simple…

But practically getting there, that’s a bit complicated because of that inconvenience known as life.

We all love farming, being outdoors and the agrarian lifestyle, it’s our calling. Ultimately, the dream is to have beyond-organically grown everything, long-term energy/food/financial independence and a farm that makes others go green (as it were) with envy …

The biggest challenge in achieving that is not necessarily having the money, but actually living a life: having a family, an off-farm job that pays bills, a social life… and then finding enough time left over to do anything substantial on the farm.

There’s simply not enough hours in the day, days in a week, weeks in a month to do everything that needs to be done in order to establish that permaculture farm in the timeline you were originally hoping for.

If you could only quit everything else and just devote your full time to the farm, obviously that would be the optimal solution, but then how would you pay the mortgage, still have your marriage and the kids around you, keep your social network…

The reality for most of us is that we’re developing our farms on our own, with our limited time and budget. The resources and manpower are always going to be scarce.

So how can you have a life and despite everything still achieve your big farming goals?

The answer lies in breaking the work up into manageable chunks, prioritizing, knowing WHAT to execute and WHEN, sticking to a pre-planned schedule, and being effective at what you do!

That’s the only way to realistically achieve what you want with what you have and speed up your farm development.

Because if you prioritise the wrong projects and miss out on important planting/management/maintenance/establishment deadlines, you fall behind and then have to wait for the next year!

Realistically, making progress with your farm development in today’s world is more crucial than ever before….

I personally feel that there isn’t that much time left for living the life we’re all used to today. It’s a gut feeling but one that’s backed up with a ton of research.

If you’re reading this you probably have that feeling as well. You can see that there are a lot of things wrong with our society and consequently there will be some major changes headed our way.

I think we can all agree they are coming sooner rather than later, and today there are many concerning developments that all point to a future that will look drastically different:

I believe that your ability to weather the financial storm is in direct proportion to how many productive systems you have in place on your permaculture property.

As Rob Avis would say the farm is your insurance, and acts as a hedge against whatever might be coming… especially in the age of economic and political upheaval, civil unrest, food supply disruptions, and mass unemployment.

To survive the next financial crisis, we need to become as self-sufficient as possible..ideally within a community of likeminded people.

This was always the case, and it will only be exacerbated in the coming age of pandemics. (Covid-19 was just the beginning – deforestation is still on the rise, increasing human exposure to viruses and bacteria that can make cross-species jumps.)

We know this from our own lived-in experience back in 2020:

Remember how supermarkets ran out of stuff when the pandemic hit?

If the lockdowns and border closures had continued unabated for a full year, two years, three… countries that are net-importers of food like Sweden, the UK, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Japan would have starved.

That experience was a very rude awakening for the entire world: there will come a time in the near future when you won’t be able to BUY food – no matter how much money you have.

Of course we permaculturists are way ahead of the “worry-curve”. Most of us have been worried about the food security of our families for years or even decades.

That’s why we got into permaculture.

That’s why we want that ecologically resilient homestead, that self-sufficient permaculture property, that abundant food forest…

Now is the time to stop dreaming the dream and have something materialise from it.

After listening to the stories of 26,000 email subscribers and over a thousand students, I’ve come to the conclusion that most permaculture properties fail because of the same seven mistakes.

And it makes my blood boil because the permaculture education community is almost actively encouraging you to make these mistakes!

Ever seen those YouTube videos where they are digging swales by hand? 

I’m sorry, I know it looks great on camera but you are not going to be building that with a shovel when you are doing this alone when you are pushing 60! 

It completely ignores the reality that for some people permaculture is a retirement project. To quote my student Danelle: “If I didn’t have my tractor we wouldn’t be as far along as we are. Physically we just couldn’t do some things or it would take 4 times as long.”  

When you’re in your 20’s, you probably have more energy (and to be brutally honest: time left on Earth) than you have funds. So certain types of permaculture projects make sense. 

When you’re older, the opposite is true. 

Therefore, you need to choose the right projects. For example, focus on lower-maintenance projects that will produce into your retirement years…

You also need to use the right tools. For example, tractors over hand-shovels when you are digging swales… 

Finally, know enough to supervise. For example, if you decide to hire help or get your children to lend you a hand. 

As one student points out: “In the past, I’ve struggled with getting hired help to do the necessary work because they are used to working differently and I can’t tell them EXACTLY how to do it if I don’t know myself!”

Good news? You’re not alone.

I hear this all the time from my students:

“I’m not young.  I just retired from a business career and I don’t come from an agriculture background, so at times I’m in shock.” – Mark H.

“One impediment for me – I didn’t grow up on a farm and have no idea how to use tractors or all their myriad attachments. It’s intimidating. I feel like a tractor might be needed if tackling a large plot by oneself… And nobody has “Tractor 101” classes.” – Keralee M.

So that was the good news. Now let me give you even better news:

I can teach you how to get from zero to functioning permaculture property without fancy equipment costing thousands of dollars. 

Imagine having implementation instructions for every task, so you can execute permaculture projects correctly even if you have little to no farming or gardening experience!

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 not having access to loads of volunteer labour and getting paid like a superstar for our books and teaching.”

That’s why you need systems and tasks you can implement as a one-person show (even if you aren’t young).

As my student Wendy so succinctly puts it:

“Over the past 7-8 years I have taken online courses in permaculture from Cornell as well as other sustainable farming courses from UMass Amherst. 

The cost of these classes per course were approximately $600 and in the end, I received so much information that I had no idea how to implement all of it. 

At this point, I think I have a good understanding of the principles of permaculture, but get hung up on which ones to do first and when – so that leads to your “analysis paralysis”.  Then I do nothing and another year passes.”

If you find it overwhelming to get started because you know that every mistake costs years and dollars that are already scarce on the ground…

If you read many books, and ended up with spaghetti brain…

Then what you need is a schedule and a plan, with concrete steps, so you can stop reading about permaculture, and instead start implementing permaculture. 

Something to help you stay on top of the unending to-do list. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Not missing important opportunities to do things (eg planting windows). 

And this kind of “turn-key process” is exactly what I created for you.

You can see a lot of people taking on intensive projects like building residential and farm structures, but that’s a terrible idea until you’re actually farming full time. Building requires time and resources, and you won’t have anything left for other things on your farm.

Instead, I want to focus you on the essential tasks that will get your farm started, growing, and flourishing while you continue to work your other job until you can make the switch to full-time farming.

(And once you make the switch, then you can dip into the more advanced roadmaps inside the program.)

Joseph hits the nail on the head:

“I’m worried that the majority of the content will be aimed at farmers with a larger plot. I want to create a homestead that takes advantage of the land and introduces balance and regeneration. Do I have enough Earth to make this a reality?”

You don’t need to have a huge plot of land to provide food for your family and have a surplus. For the commercial type of the operation, huge plots of land under production make sense. But for producing enough food to be food self-sufficient, all you need is ½ an acre to an acre.

Instead of going bigger in scale, and spreading yourself thin, make sure that you have productively utilized areas for your food forests and gardens.

And that is exactly what my system will help you do.

Now, I understand, it’s completely natural that in the face of all these challenges, feeling pressured by the limited time, most of us want to get things sorted out as quickly as possible.

As the days of the growing season start to count down to zero, the race is on, and there are nature’s deadlines and planting windows when things ought to be done.

But with a million things on your plate, it’s far too easy to get side-tracked and then do things at the last moment without any real plan, recklessly, in the name of just doing something, anything.

This is a recipe for a disaster… 

The chances are… by doing things in a hurry and not being prepared you’ve done a poor job that will entail further setbacks in the long run. 

The worst thing is, it could take several years until you find out that things won’t pan out the way you initially imagined. 

For example, suppose it’s March 11th.

You only have four weeks to plant bare-root trees, because, by the end of April, the warm spring weather will kick in and wake up the dormant bare root plants. So you rush out and start digging some holes in the ground.

But in your hurry, you don’t realize that you planted them in the spot that gets overly wet and soggy during the late fall and winter months.

The problem is…

The week you planted your trees, everything was fine. The following week everything is fine. And during spring, summer, and early fall months, trees are growing beyond your expectations.

You don’t realize the mistake until next year when you start to notice that your trees aren’t growing the way they should and begin to look sickly and anemic. The stagnating water has created anaerobic conditions in the soil over the winter and caused the roots to die off.

You have thrown away your time, money and labor in vain and honestly, if you want to make a go at permaculture farming, you won’t get that many more chances. You have to make every year count.

Not just because you might be 60 and now you have only 10 more seasons left in life but also because, as I said above, the world economy, society, and environment may drastically change in the next year or so, and then you’ll be forced to abandon your dream because there is no functioning farm to fall back on as your safety net.

So yes, we need to start getting things done but when you do something you want to do it right the first time, do it efficiently, build it to last and make sure that all the time, money, and labor you’ve spent was worthwhile.

You need to know WHAT to do (the correct projects), WHEN to do it (planting windows and optimal months for each project) and HOW to do it (implementation instructions)…

… so you don’t waste your money and more importantly time on projects that won’t produce the yields you need.

And well, that’s where my new course will come in handy…

It’s your personalised roadmap for the year, with exact steps you should take. Everything is plug-and-play, customised to YOUR site context, and ready to take you from zero to functioning farm without expensive equipment. 

You won’t have to fight the chaos of an endless to-do list…

Because you’ll have your own yearly plan: a personalized roadmap that prioritises and plans your farm year efficiently and realistically, so that the right things get done on time. It will tell you exactly what you need to prioritise, what projects to tackle first, and what to leave out… 

You won’t have to worry about missing nature’s deadlines…

Because you’ll have a permaculture calendar that reminds you of those deadlines – AND pinpoints the BEST time to do each task, so you can work with nature to speed up your development. 

You won’t have to worry about making amateur mistakes that set you back years…

Because you’ll have implementation guides to execute permaculture projects correctly even if you have zero farming/gardening experience. 

And that’s why I’m PUMPED to introduce you to a brand new online programme.

Over the last seven years that I’ve been running my website and consulting/designing business, I’ve helped thousands of people kickstart their permaculture property and ramp up their food production.

Now I’d like to show you the exact system I use to do it.

If you’re a permaculture farmer or homesteader who is starting out with your property development and you long for practical guidance on implementation and a monthly calendar so you know exactly WHAT to do and WHEN, then you’re in the right place.

This is a system for land owners who want to kickstart their permaculture property development and achieve food security twice as fast and with less effort, without killing themselves from overwork, neglecting their family and always falling behind the schedule.

Because everyone wants a fully-functioning permaculture property yesterday, yet nobody wants to work themselves to death to get there.

With this system, you won’t always be late, falling behind, and doing a poor job of implementing things… eventually being forced to wait for the next year, and the next year, and the year after that…

Nobody likes setbacks, so why not implement your permaculture projects this year, the way they should be from the outset, and move faster to your ultimate goal of a permaculture abundance for you and your family?

Make this the year you stop dreaming the dream and finally have something materialise from it!

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

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

… I believe you’re PERFECT for the course:

• Are you trying to get your farm started, growing and flourishing, while you continue to work your dayjob until you can make the switch to full time farming?

• Do you have land you want to turn into a permaculture farm or homestead? (Maybe you recently took over your family farm and you hope to manage the property in a more enlightened way. Maybe you just bought a rural property.) 

• Are you overwhelmed? (You understand the theory but you’re lost on how to implement it practically. This is something you wanted to do but you know every mistake costs years and dollars that are already scarce on the ground)

• Do you have lots of unfinished projects? (You’re looking for structure as you are exactly at the point where you’re looking at 20 projects half completed.) 

• Are you a busy family and find that you’re spending a TON of time researching timing and techniques?

• 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.

Sounds like you?

Good.

Let me walk you through everything you’ll learn inside the Permaculture Implementation Programme, and what makes it different from other permaculture courses…

MODULE #1: THE BIG PICTURE

– THE IDEAL WORKFLOW AND TIMEFRAMES TO ESTABLISH THE FOOD GROWING SYSTEMS OF YOUR PERMACULTURE PROPERTY –

“I am tired of READING about permaculture and instead want to start IMPLEMENTING permaculture.”

One of the biggest problems people have with permaculture is drowning in too much theory.

We get excited by the prospect of food forests, garden farming, water earthworks, soil regeneration, or whatever else, and then start consuming theory out there on the internet and in the real world.

We read and listen and watch and take PDC’s and workshops, and for sure, it’s fascinating and world-changing information, but at some point, the constant learning becomes almost too much to bear.

Due to the sheer amount of it and lack of clarity, it creates a mental mess in our heads.

I understand the frustration of drowning in permaculture theory and not having a clear idea on what to do. That’s why in Module 1 of the PIP, I want to give you an overview of the hands-on work required to start your successful permaculture farm and homestead. 

You’ll learn specifically what you’ll need to do, step-by-step, phase-by-phase, big picture-wise, to start producing high-quality food. And I’ll also set some expectations around the development of these systems and timeframes so that you have an idea of how many years it might take you to get it all working.

MODULE #2: YOUR YEARLY PLAN

— GET YOUR PERSONALIZED ROADMAP FOR THE YEAR WITH EXACT STEPS YOU SHOULD TAKE —

“I need a strong plan with phases.”

We mapped out the exact yearly plan you should follow this year to kickstart your farm this year and ramp up your production every growing season thereafter.

Think of this as the game plan that shows you what route to take, what you need to prioritize, what projects to tackle first, and what to leave out. 

Say goodbye to analysis paralysis and instantly know what to prioritise when developing your farm: 

“How do I prioritise? I’m afraid of spending my time and money on things that aren’t that important, and wearing myself (and any help I get from friends and family) out. I want to make sure that what I do spend time (and money) on is worthwhile.” 

If you are stuck in analysis paralysis, this yearly plan can help you avoid common mistakes and prioritise projects that really bring in the yields.

For example, if you’ve just completed your PDC training this year and now the challenge is “What next? Which projects should I now start with?”, this plan is going to be the panacea to that headache.

Ever said to yourself “I need a strong plan with phases”? This is that plan. 

The yearly plan (aka your personalized roadmap) is split into two categories: growing a food forest and growing annual gardens. And it showcases the exact tasks you need to take in establishing these systems, in what order, and pinpoint the timing for these tasks.

Yearly plans for which projects exactly? 

In this edition of the PIP it’s all about growing food, so examples of yearly plans include food forest maintenance, starting a garden from scratch, establishing a food forest with/without swales from scratch.

You get access to 15 different yearly plans, 2 about establishing an annual garden, and 13 about establishing a food forest, for all types of climates, except the arid ones:

Mediterranian or Subtropical climates

• Yearly plan for the establishment of food forest with swales(winter planting)
• Yearly plan for the establishment of food forest w/o earthworks (winter planting)
• Yearly plan for the establishment of food forest with terraces (winter planting)
• Yearly plan for the establishment of food forest with sub-surface drains (winter planting)

Notice that we cover all kinds of different scenarios with the yearly plans based on the type of water management strategy your site needs, the planting window you are aiming for, and the climate you find yourself in.

Also, in addition to yearly plans detailing how to establish food forests and annual gardens, there are also yearly plans explaining how to maintain them so that you can ramp up production year after year. 

These maintenance yearly plans allow you to identify maintenance tasks and monitor your growing systems so that you’re always on top of everything and in due time.

…because if you can’t properly maintain what you started the passion turns into drudgery and ultimately becomes a burden… Plus, you know, the garden just dies. 😅 

Which yearly plan is the right one for you? 

The exact roadmap you should follow depends on your context, so that’s why we created a matchmaking quiz that will recommend the correct yearly plan for your context.

You’ll use the quiz whenever you are uncertain about what to do next in your food forest or permaculture garden establishment and maintenance. 

And by answering the quiz questions by referencing your situation, you’ll get your personalized roadmap for the year, with exact steps you should take.

How each yearly plan is structured:

First, in the Intro section, you’ll get an overview of the yearly plan and required steps so that you understand what it’s used for and why.

Following this, there’ll be a ‘reality check’ section to ensure that this is the right plan for you. Based on your context, your personalized yearly plan might look different from the one I’m showing you here (there are 15 plans in total), so the reality check will ensure you are not implementing the wrong plan.

Underneath, there’ll be a when/timing section explaining the proposed timing of the tasks and ideal dates to execute the tasks according to your climate. 

We’ll also break down the execution of the tasks according to the big picture overview I gave you in the last module to always have that 10,000-foot view of the situation. 

I’ll also explain what to do if you miss out on the ideal timing or if, for some reason, you aren’t starting at the outset of the year, and I’ll show you how to reference the permaculture calendar for your specific climate.

Then you get to the exact step-by-step plan you should follow in year 1 of your food forest establishment. In this particular scenario, we are talking about a food forest with swales and planting everything in the fall. So this plan consists of nine steps executed in this specific order. 

Each task from the plan has a summary of what you’ll need to do and what your objective is. It will also have the ideal timing and how much time approximately it might take you to execute it. 

And then, once you are ready to start executing, there’ll be links to the implementation guides that will take you to the step-by-step instructions of HOW to do it.

If you are unclear about any of the steps or have questions, there will be a comment section below the yearly plan where you can leave your comments.

Finally, we prepared a checklist for you that you can download by clicking this link. This will open a spreadsheet with summaries of what to do and when so that you can keep note of your to-do’s and progress.

MODULE #3: IMPLEMENTATION GUIDES

— EXECUTE PERMACULTURE PROJECTS CORRECTLY (EVEN IF YOU HAVE LITTLE TO NO FARMING OR GARDENING EXPERIENCE) —

“I need implementation instructions that are as simple as possible, and can get me from zero to functioning farm without fancy equipment costing thousands of dollars”

One of the challenges of Permaculture is that it straddles so many different disciplines, from biology, ecology, landscape design, agriculture, geology, to hydrology and others…and consequently there are extremely numerous & diverse skills required to launch a permaculture farm or homestead.

Nobody has time to learn everything they would like, or find interesting, or even find important, as that takes significant googling hours, studying permaculture literature and then trialing it in practice.

So when you start a new permaculture project, you often feel out of your depth and overwhelmed with everything the project entails.

The solution to this is to get a recipe for how to do something right, do it, and learn through that experience. This helps you avoid all the googling, studying, and eventually reinventing the wheel. You just study the task at hand instead of trying to learn everything just in case you need it one day.

In this module, you’ll get these recipes – aka: Implementation Guides. Think of these as step-by-step instructions for a specific task. They outline the exact practical things you’ll need to do with your hands and give you clear instructions for it so you can implement permaculture projects correctly even if you lack farming experience. 

You can print out these guides as paper documents or access them on your tablet or smartphone and use them as your reference, on- and offsite, both prior to starting and when doing the actual work.

Guides for which tasks exactly?

This edition of the PIC comes with 29 implementation guides covering all the tasks necessary to establish your gardens and food forests:

• General garden care
• Harvesting
• Planting
• Sow Green Manure Crops
• Plan the garden 
• Garden prep 
• Garden design
• Sheet mulching
• Build Terraces
• Drainage Earthworks
  

In addition to that you’ll get access to Implementation Guides Library with ALL the implementation guides that I have created thus far, which expand implementation advice beyond the primary focus of this edition of the PIC.

How the implementation guides are structured:

The guides have introductory information explaining what the task is all about, giving you a better understanding about the task at hand.

They give you a checklist of what you’ll need for the task, the list of equipment/tools, and materials. And if applicable give you a direct link where to source things from the list.

I’ve also included, where I had some data, an estimated time required to perform the task so you have some sort of an idea about the time commitment.

Then you get the step-by-step how-to, no fluff, just straight-up practical instructions on what exactly to do with your hand and tools.  

This is condensed information sourced from multiple books, websites, podcasts, personal experience all boiled down to the most important bits of information.

Some guides will also have additional spreadsheets to help you with the planning and logistics of the tasks so in some cases there will be more to the guide than you see on the page. These spreadsheets are easily integrated with your yearly plan and calendar, so that you can build a farm management dashboard where you have everything you manage in one spot.

I’ve also included additional resources such as videos, relevant books, articles, PDF’s you can dig into to further your knowledge about the task at hand.

No fancy equipment necessary!

Now, the best thing about these guides is that they show you the easiest way to do a task. 

Although I do outline how to do things in different ways based on the tools/equipment you might have, you don’t need any fancy equipment to implement what I’m teaching you here. I’ll always include the simplest way on how to implement something.

And if you at any time have any questions or need help with any of the steps or the implementation of the whole task, there is a discussion forum under each of these guides where you can leave your comment for me.

MODULE #4: YOUR MONTH-BY-MONTH PERMACULTURE CALENDAR

— ALWAYS BE PREPARED IN ADVANCE AND NEVER MISS OUT ON THE IMPORTANT PLANTING/MANAGEMENT/MAINTENANCE/ESTABLISHMENT TIMES OF THE YEAR—

“I need a calendar of events and reminders for what needs to happen to help with all the confusion that is constantly in my head…”

Compared to normal people we permaculture farmers tend to think differently about changing seasons.

Where ordinary people see yellow fallen leaves on the ground simply as a sign of fall coming, we on the other hand are reminded of a narrow window when certain farming tasks ought to be done.

The mind starts buzzing with thousands of thoughts, ideas, and to-do’s about getting plants, sowing seeds, planting, harvesting, improving the soil for the next season, preparing for winter… 

With so many competing things to do it’s far too easy to lose track of what you should be doing, when, and how. The chaos slowly creeps in and it starts to be a complete mess in the head.

Now imagine a different scenario…

You still have your thousands of thoughts, ideas, and to-do’s… BUT now you have a pre-planned schedule, a calendar that tells you when each of your farming tasks should be performed. 

No matter how many competing tasks you might have, they are anchored to specific weeks and months and you don’t get overwhelmed and miss nature’s deadlines. 

You simply follow the calendar for your climate zone and you know what to expect, when to start preparing, and what to focus your attention on and at what time. 

This month-by-month permaculture calendar forms the backbone of the programme. It comes in the form of an online and offline spreadsheet and printable PDF document where each of the important yearly permaculture tasks is mapped to the corresponding month.

Image above: Temperate climate calendar

There are seven permaculture implementation calendars in total covering temperate zone climates (oceanic, continental, mediterranean, subtropical, and boreal) of both hemispheres.

• Temperate: NH? – check.
• Temperate: SH? – check.
• Subtropical: NH? – check. 
• Subtropical: SH? – check. 
• Mediterranean: NH? – check. 
• Mediterranean: SH? – check. 
• Boreal? – check. 

So if you live in Australia, South Africa, South America, or anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere we got you covered. The calendars will be reversed for your part of the world.

Looking at the calendar you’ll know months in advance what to prepare for, when to start planning, when exactly a specific task should be done, the deadlines and windows you shouldn’t miss, which tasks are recurring, and much more. All of the tasks are categorized, labeled with colors, and will be hyperlinked to the corresponding set of instructions/protocols/guides.

You can also make your personalised copy of the calendar, and then add/remove/move tasks as you wish…

How does the calendar integrate with the yearly plan and implementation guides?

First, I give you a simplified calendar that maps out the best months to do each project from your yearly plan for your climate zone.

Each of the tasks on this “Jumpstart Calendar” is interlinked with appropriate implementation guides. So once you click on any of the tasks, it takes you to the webpage with the step-by-step instructions.

This calendar feature enables you to do things on your farm much faster and work simply and effectively without being overwhelmed by information.

Second, I also give you an “advanced” permaculture implementation calendar, which has more than 120 tasks mapped out across the whole year.

This functions as a “forever calendar” you will always come back to. 

“Great, I finished Project X from the Yearly Plan early and I have two weeks free before Project Y starts. What should I do next? What other tasks are optimal for this time of the year?”

Third, you can also make your personalised copy of the calendar, and then add/remove/move tasks as you wish. This master sheet could therefore act as a central platform for planning your projects, noting down your observations and monitoring your farm.

Note that you can use the calendar on your computer, smartphone or tablet and access it from anywhere, whenever you need it. Whether you’re in your office and you want to do some monthly planning, you’re on the site digging holes and you need instructions on planting, or you’re in the forest and need to know how to collect mycorrhizal mushroom spores, you’ll never feel lost and unsure of your next stage again!

BONUS: Permaculture Farmer’s Vault

— AN EVER-GROWING DATABASE OF USEFUL FARM SETUP RESOURCES AND CONTRACTORS —

This is the PIP logistics center. In here, you’ll find numerous resources to help you with the logistics of executing your projects, from farm setup working documents, worksheets that expand calendar functionality, lists of contacts and suppliers, various other databases…

I just finished creating a networking database of people who’ve opted into a private directory to find and be found by others. Here you can browse the directory and perhaps discover a like-minded permaculturist who is in your neighborhood, town, city, or region.

As I keep improving the programme, I’ll be adding new features and unique bonuses here!

HOW TO USE THIS SYSTEM

The learning flow of this program is to first go through the big picture overview lesson first, then the yearly plan lesson, then implementation guides and finally a yearly calendar. (Click below to watch a 2-min. demo on how to use the system)

When you join the course you’re not just getting access to the course materials, you’re getting personal support from me and from my growing Permaculture Conversion community.

If you ever feel stuck at any point and need some help, you can email me or post your question in the private group and we’ll get you the answers you need.

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 before you make that big decision.

YEAR-LONG “START IMPLEMENTING” GUARANTEE

Maybe you’re on the fence, because you find that oftentimes you spend more time accumulating reference materials than you do actually reading through all of the information.

Or let’s say you’ve been a good student and actually consumed all the information you’ve bought:

You completed a PDC a few years back, an online course with Geoff Lawton, and read a lot of books on Permaculture and food forests, and in the end received so much information that you had no idea how to implement all of it. Ended up with spaghetti brain. 

At this point you have a good understanding of the principles of permaculture, but get hung up on which ones to do first and when. It is overwhelming to get started. There are so many options . . . it can be stultifying. Then you do nothing and another year passes.

Risk: What if you buy this programme but it becomes just another theoretical layer, and gets you no closer to a functioning permaculture property?

Guarantee: With this product, you will stop READING about permaculture and instead start IMPLEMENTING permaculture – or your money back. 

Put us to the test! Try Permaculture Implementation Programme for 1 year, risk-free. If it doesn’t deliver on this promise, refund it before the 366th day and we’ll give you a full refund.

To be eligible for the Start Implementing Guarantee, you must have:

• 15 min | Completed the Yearly Plan Quiz (Module 3) which will guide you, based on your answers, to your personalised roadmap for the year, with the exact steps you should take; and
• 1 min | Printed that yearly plan and pinned it above your desk; and
• 15 min |Attempt at least one Quick Win Task from the monthly challenges we run in the group 

Make this the year you stop dreaming the dream and finally have something materialise from it!

Want to kickstart your farm and achieve food security… yesterday? 

Want to get an idea of how many years it would take to get the farm working (which right now is probably completely in the blue)? 

Want to know exactly WHAT to implement WHEN and HOW so you don’t waste your money and more importantly time on projects that won’t produce the yields you need? 

Then YOU are in the right place, and the Permaculture Implementation Program system is the answer to all your prayers… Read on…                             

With this system you will be able to:

• Prioritize and plan your farm year efficiently and realistically, so that the right things get done on time
• Know exactly WHAT to do (and HOW) when implementing your design and setting up your farm, so you never waste your limited time and actually have visible results to show for your efforts
• Identify WHEN is the best time do each permaculture project, so you can work with nature to speed up your development, rather than struggle against it

And you’ll avoid:

• Doing half-assed jobs just in the name of doing something
• Spreading yourself thin because you have too much on your plate
• Implementing things incorrectly, and having to ripping them out later
• Always being late and missing out on nature’s deadlines, having to wait for the next year, feeling defeated and ashamed that things are not going as fast as you would like…

Because now:

• You’ll be ready months in advance, reminded in due time and eagerly waiting to smash that project on the first try
• You’ll break the work down into manageable chunks and keep on task (instead of tackling several things at once and failing to complete any of them)   
• You’ll execute everything on time, speed up your farm’s development, and finally feel satisfied with the progress you’re making

And you’ll be able to do all this WITHOUT:

• Hundreds of unpaid interns
• Fancy farm equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars
• Ideal farming conditions (climate, soils, water, terrain..)

This system will work for you EVEN IF:

• You have limited farming/gardening experience
• You feel overwhelmed with everything you need to do
• You and your partner are both currently working full time jobs away from the farm and only really have weekends to spare at this stage

Make this the year you stop dreaming the dream, and finally have something materialise from it!

If you answer “YES” to any of these, then we should part ways here and now. This course is NOT for you if:

• You don’t have access to land (own or rent) where you could put the PIP system into practice. 
• You think you have the time and resources to do your research and make your own mistakes.
• You’re not willing to follow a methodical system.

But, if you’re ready to put your money where your mouth is, get dirty and make all your friends go green with envy…

And you eagerly await the day when you no longer need to buy food from the store – you dream of fully organically-grown everything and long term energy independence… 

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

You can join the programme for 5 installments of $95 (or pay $397 in full and save 20%)

If you break down the cost to a year, that’s $1.1 per day, and you get something that you’ll be using year, after year, after year. 

Now ask yourself these hard questions (because our lives only change when we face tough choices head on):

• Would you rather simplify your life and your farm projects… or be constantly stressed out because there is too much on your plate?
• Would you rather do the essential few “must-do” tasks and get your farm established this year… or try to do EVERYTHING and waste the next 5 years without seeing any visible progress?
• Would you rather implement relevant and timely permaculture techniques that are suitable to your climate… or miss natural deadlines, use the wrong techniques and waste thousands of dollars?  

Because that’s what it all boils down to: CHOICES.

If all this product does is to give you that clarity of work…

…or get you from an overwhelmed enthusiast to the proud owner of an established farm that is visibly making progress each month,

…or finally allow you to break free from the vicious cycle of planning the work but failing to implement the plan because you’re constantly taking on too much,

…then would you say that dollar a day is a small price to pay… It’s almost insignificant really.

If this is the life you wish to choose for yourself, then grab your seat in the Permaculture Implementation Programme!

Your dream permaculture farm is 2 clicks away. Buy the PIP system now, try it within the next 365 days, and see your property transform right in front of your eyes. OR I will give you your money back.