This 6 month permaculture design course is designed to support you to integrate permaculture thinking and practice fully into your everyday life. Over 6 weekends we will enter deep into the world of permaculture and explore all of the different topics and processes that can help you on your way to changing your life based on the intelligence, patterns and principles found in the natural world.
Cultivating change - a 6 month Permaculture Design course
This 6 month permaculture design certificate is focused on cultivating change in your life and making it last, with deep support and encouragement throughout to be sure that permaculture thinking weaves itself fully into your everyday.
The course is structured around 6 face to face weekends here at Cynefin farm, where we will go through all of the content and curriculum of the accredited Permaculture Design certification, including the living landscape, soil health and the soil food web, food growing and plant propagation, plant identification and uses, trees and perennial food systems, natural building and retrofitting, food preservation and fermentation, social and community based permaculture and much more- all based on the curriculum set by the UK Permaculture Association. Each weekend we will also be guiding you through the different stages of a permaculture design process that will give you a solid grounding in using the permaculture ethics, principles and design tools, and between sessions you will have mini tasks to complete at home which will bring it to life for you in your own context as you work on your own individual design project.
We will be taking part in lots of practical activities across the site to integrate and apply the theoretical learning, and we will be making the most of this fantastic area by visiting different local sites to see some of the best examples of permaculture in action, and will be joined by some fantastic local specialist teachers. We will also be making the most of the rich natural environment of the fantastic national park coastline, ancient SSSi woodland and other local habitats.
Permaculture covers not only land-based design but personal, social and community design too. Although this course is firmly rooted in the land and we share our specialisations around land based living, it’s relevant to everyone no matter how or where you live, whether it’s rural or urban, with limited or abundant resources, and with or without access to land.
To support you with the mini tasks we’ll be meeting once a month on zoom for a masterclass on a range of topics, and include some time for Q and A and to hear about your design process so far. There will also be space for you all to have individualised design advice and guidance from Nim in-between sessions to help you with your specific projects.
This course has a much greater amount of support than your regular permaculture design courses, and builds upon our experience of teaching PDC’s to hundreds of students around the world and finding out what helps to ensure that our students go on to apply permaculture thinking to their lives and communities in the most successful way. And this year you’ll be the first students to access our brand new community space, where we’ll be sharing additional online content, interviews with guest speakers, permaculture resources and more.
This course is designed to be life changing, and accessible to those who cannot commit to an intensive course, or who would prefer a slower, steadier, supported immersion into the many topics and practices of permaculture.
And if that all wasn’t enough, you will receive a PDC certificate on completion of the course which is recognised and respected around the world.
What are you waiting for!
Course dates 2024
The course will run one weekend a month, from 9.30am -5.30pm on both Saturday and Sunday. Overnight camping is included in the course fee for anyone who would like to stay over, and participants are welcome to come and camp here at the farm from Friday until Monday. (We have really nice composting toilets and a warm shower).
Please note, there is a longer gap between sessions over July/August, this is unavoidable due to some other intensive courses running at the farm.
13/14 April
11/12 May
8/9th June
13/14th July
31st August/1st September
21/22nd September
Time commitment
We want you to get the most out of this course, and this will require a little time commitment between sessions… and as we are guiding you through a design project of your own you will need to set aside a little time each month to complete your tasks. This will vary depending on how deeply you would like to go into the process, but we would recommend putting aside about a half day per month.
Location and facilities
The course is to be held here at Cynefin farm, our 7-acre smallholding and permaculture education project in the North Pembrokeshire national park, beside the mountains and the sea in a wild and beautiful location. The site of an old long abandoned and re-wilded garden centre, we have been living here for the past 4 years and are slowly - and with deep observation and care - weaving ourselves into the landscape. Whilst still in the early stages there are a range of projects developing here to explore, including no dig gardens and the beginnings of a small diverse CSA growing project, an indoor and outdoor forest garden, and examples of a variety of regenerative agriculture techniques employed to repair and build the soil and grassland habitats. Due to being left to grow wild for so long and its location in a national park, Cynefin farm is blessed with a huge variety of biodiversity and is a haven for wildlife.
Lunches on the course are provided with local, fresh and organic food, supplied both from Cynefin farm and local producers. Breakfasts and evening meals need to be organised individually, and there will be access to a kitchen for those staying over. Tea and coffee are freely available throughout.
Accessible for families
As parents ourselves, we want to make this course as accessible to those with families as for individuals. With this in mind, participants are welcome to bring along their families if they are staying over for the weekend. The course itself is designed for adults and follows the same content of a standard PDC, so parents will need to bring along a second parent, friend or caregiver to spend time with the children whilst we are taking classes, and we can come together over lunch. Just to clarify - there won’t be any childcare provided, but children and caregivers are welcome to live alongside us and can camp here on the farm free of charge, just paying a contribution towards food costs.
For those joining us without children - just to let you know that there are also plenty of spaces to camp where you won't be woken by children. Previous solo course participants have expressed how much they’ve appreciated having a family atmosphere surrounding the course and how easily this has brought a deep sense of community to our time together.
The local area is perfect for families to explore whilst we are immersed in our learning, with a wide and long sandy beach just 10 minutes away, along with mountains to climb, forests to explore and lovely little towns to visit.
Your teachers
The lead teacher on this course will be Nim Robins - co-founder of Cynefin farm and permaculture educator and consultant. (You can read some more about Nim here).
Supporting the course will be Peter Lees - the other co-founder of Cynefin farm. (You can read more about Pete here).
Pete will be teaching the fermentation, preservation and natural building sessions on the course.
Guest teachers and site visits
Tao Wimbush
Tao Wimbush has lived off-grid for over 30 years. He is co-founder of the Lammas Ecovillage where he has lived with his family for 14 years, and transformed a bare sheep field into a mosaic of abundance and productivity. He is an expert in 'One Planet Development' and a Natural Builder extraordinaire. You can read more about Tao here.
Peni Ediker
Peni Ediker runs Swn y Coed - a One Planet Development smallholding in West Carmarthenshire. Her smallholding is a thriving and abundant example of what can be achieved by careful soil health practices and passionate permaculture food growing techniques. You can find Peni’s website here or watch a great YouTube video of her plot here.
Tony Wrench
Tony Wrench and his partner Faith have been passionate and active permaculturists for many years and have a great amount of wisdom to share. They live in a home built roundhouse in the woods not far from Cynefin farm, and visiting their home and land is a source of profound inspiration in living more lightly on the earth. You can read more about Tony and Faith here.
Course cost
Tier 1 / Concession - £495
Tier 2 / Standard price - £765
Tier 3 / Pay it forward/good wage - £985
If you would like to pay for the course fee in instalments you can do this by paying a £50 deposit now, and then we will contact you to organise a payment plan that can suit both sides.
We offer our courses on a sliding scale to try and make it as accessible as possible for everyone to be able to join us. The fee is self assessed, we encourage you to please choose the tier that is genuinely most fitting for your circumstances, as it truly adds value to your experience if you pay a fair price (and really does undervalue your experience if you undervalue the course cost). This infographic can be helpful to help you to decide the most appropriate tier for you.
We’re also offering 2 bursary places on the year’s PDC. These spots are saved for people who’s financial situation means that they would not be able to access the course even at the reduced concessionary rate, but for those who it would make the most difference to their lives and livelihoods moving forwards. We want to be sure that these spaces go to those who need and would value this the most, so if this could be you, please email Nim on our contact page and she will forward you on our application form.
We’ve extended the deadline for bursary applications to the 31st of March 2024, and we will let everyone know if they’ve been successful one week after this date.
What our students say about our PDC
