Seed, Soil, and Story

This summer, join us for a 5-week exploration of sustainable, regenerative, and just food systems. For this farm-based permaculture intensive, we’ll split our time between getting our hands in the soil on organic farms and classroom learning, studying the basics of permaculture and interrogating the cultural narratives that are bringing our planet to the brink. As you learn methods for feeding both the human and more-than-human worlds in the age of climate change, you’ll build the skills not just to imagine a more livable future, but to help create it.Together with a group of like-minded peers, you’ll live at the heart of a 135-acre organic farm, cultivating the food you eat, studying holistic design systems, and experiencing a slower, more human vision of progress and success. Each day, as you gain deeper knowledge and skills in permaculture design, we’ll put those skills to work, helping design and implement permaculture practices on our 1-acre experimental plot.

Life on the farm is simple and grounded, focused on the wellbeing of the land, yourself, and the small community around you. As you settle into the organic farming community of Paonia, this summer offers an experience of what a real alternative could look like. Here at Groundwork, we believe that the best way to push back against an unsustainable society is to create the kind of environment we want to live in.

Immersion Highlights

• Earn a 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate from veteran permaculture teachers Wind Clearwater and Pat Frazier, with a combined 40+ years of experience teaching permaculture. Guest teachers will frequent the classes as well.
• In our 2-week design component, see your permaculture design come to life as you help make it a reality on the farm.
• In weekly seminars, workshops, and discussions, explore the origins of modernity, the stories, and ways of thought that prevent modern societies from thinking and living in an ecologically sound way.
• Participate in all aspects of our 135-acre host farm, The Lamborn Farm: seed, soil, irrigation, orchards, and animal husbandry.
• Explore the big picture of organic food systems, learning about food processing and innovative local food economies at our local organic trading post.
• Help design and implement experimental permaculture projects, including soil building, hugelkultur (decomposing wood beds), and food forests.
• Go beyond the standard 9-10 day Permaculture Design Course to explore what it means to build sustainable and regenerative culture rooted in place.
• Live a slow-paced and communal life in a community of like-minded people.

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is a set of agricultural and ecological design principles based on whole-systems thinking. The term “permaculture” was coined in Australia in 1978, but the system takes inspiration from and shares a lot in common with traditional and indigenous ways of being active members of ecosystems. Today, common permaculture-influenced practices include mixed plantings instead of monocultures, no-till agriculture, earthen swales, mounds, and depressions to collect and direct rainfall, in-place layered composting systems, cover cropping, and complex food forests.

While you can read about permaculture, there’s no substitute for hands-on experience, seeing and touching projects that implement permaculture design principles in a unique way.

Read more about the permaculture design principles

The Permaculture Design Certificate

About 20 additional people from the region will join our cohort for formal permaculture design classes with Paonia’s local permaculture teachers Wind Clearwater and Pat Frazier. From these classes, Wind and Pat will issue your permaculture design certificate, a 72-hour certificate. The classes will be divided into 3 blocks: a foundation block for the first week of the program, followed by two 3-day blocks later in July. These classes are the academic backbone of the course, and they are an opportunity to connect with the broader community, visit local farms to see permaculture principles applied in a variety of ways.

Permaculture design certificates are an entry point into the world of permaculture. The certificate allows you to use the word “permaculture” in a business or professional practice, and shows successful completion of a permaculture design course. A permaculture design certificate is the pre-requisite to more advanced training in permaculture design, like the two-year diploma program offered through the Permaculture Institute. Holders of a permaculture design certificate join a growing community of tens of thousands of design-course graduates who share a common baseline of knowledge.

The design course covers roughly the same amount of material as two college courses, so the certificate is really an easily-identifiable way to show people in agricultural fields that you have a very solid foundation of understanding in permaculture principles.