Midsummer Farm Permaculture Design Certification Course

• Soil/Tilth Building - Manure management, cover cropping, green manuring, soil layers and elements (fungal, bacterial, etc.), composting, biodynamic preps, compost & herbal teas, tilling/no-till methods,  sub-soiling, root structures and systems, vermiculture, 80% rule…
• Designing and Planning the Large Hardscape - Positioning, micro-climates, berms, keyline planning, house placement, roads and driveways, landscaping with outdoor  ‘rooms,’ equipment, outbuildings, windbreaks, riparian buffers, filtering borders…
• Building – Natural building, straw-bales, passive solar heating, greenhouses, cooling and efficient heating methods, sun positioning…
• Designing the Intimate Hardscape - Creating and designing for structures like raised beds, retaining walls, root cellars, sheet mulching and hugelkultur, animal structures (barns, coops, etc.), fencing, low tunnels and cold frames, outdoor kitchens, bread ovens, pathways, work stations, leisure, dooryard gardens…
• Choosing What to Grow/Produce – The importance of growing for calories (fat, protein, sugar), growing for nutrient density, perspective on annual crops, berries and small fruits, ‘alternative’ fruits, perennial vegetables, ‘permaculture’ plants, shade and part-shade gardening…
• Types of Production Structures - Edible landscaping, xeric gardening, multi-layer gardening (forest farming, intercropping, greenhouse growing, vertical spaces, aqua-culture, riparian production, etc.)…
• Sustainable Growing Practices – Organic growing, intercropping, mulching, rotation, companion planting, variety choosing (heirlooms, open-pollinated, hybrids, etc.), timing, seed starting (direct seeding and indoor sowing), weed and insect management, disease management, seed saving, creating simple and quick reports for tracking garden production, nitrogen-fixing species, fertility and fertilizers, amendments and soil testing, compost teas…
• 4-Season Gardening – Season extension, greenhouses types and options, high tunnels, cold frames and low tunnels, shade houses, varieties for alternative season planting, daylight hours and gardening…
• Beyond Sustainable or Regenerative Practices –Biodynamics, encouraging and supporting native plants, forest farming, nitrogen-fixing plants and trees, holistic management, bio-intensive agriculture, ally-cropping, edges and borders, riparian buffers, carbon farming or carbon sequestering…
• Domestic Fruiting Trees – Orcharding practices, prepping location for fruiting trees, planting and maintained domestic fruiting trees (fertilizing, companion planting, pruning, disease-management, etc.), biodynamic tree paste…
• Forest Farming / Agro-Forestry (Farming in a way that mimics natural forests to create the same level of stability) – Layers (stacking) of the forest garden, succession, native, food-producing trees, nitrogen-fixing trees, medicinal endangered native herbs, mushroom growing for food/health and environmental support, carbon-retention, trees for heating energy, coppicing, adding ancients (moss, ferns), ephemerals…
• Animals – Farm animal husbandry, smart manure management, silvo-pasturing, large animals, rabbits, fiber animals, dairy, meat, vedic agriculture (no animal input), pressure-genetics vs, heritage breeds, humane animal business...
• Poultry - Chickens for eggs and meat, waterfowl, weeder geese, tick control, growing fat and protein, poultry structures (garden enclosures, chicken-tractors, classic coops, and pasture-ranging), alternative meat and egg poultry, poultry as a business…
• Intro to Holistic Management - Land restoration, business organization, household scheduling, time management…
• Community Building – Intentional Communities, networking groups, eco-villages, commons, sharing of resources, group will also work as a cohesive permaculture community – opportunities for sharing of resources (such as group buying of tree seedlings, etc.)…
• Harvesting - Timing and scheduling, food storage, drying and tincturing herbs, canning, fermenting foods (sauerkraut-making), harvesting resources (carbon, water, etc.), curing crops such as winter squash, garlic, onions…
• Timing – biodynamic calendar,  rhythms of nature, a new look at the seasons, daylight hours throughout the year on the 41st parallel…
• Urban and Suburban Permaculture – Rooftop gardening, small productive intensive plots, quail, micro-greens…
• Water - Keyline planning, capturing and storing water in the landscape, earthworks, dowsing, irrigation systems - drip vs. overhead, mulching, timing, water flow forms and water movement, riparian work, pond and swale construction, pond and stream management, rainwater catchment, heat sink usages, rain gardens, increasing organic matter in the landscape, amphibian preservation…
• Herbalism - Growing medicine as well as food, herb growing as a business, endangered natives, tender perennial herbs worth growing, herbs as companion plants…
• Addressing the Wild Elements – Observation and patterns, make use of the abundant edges, foraging and wild foods, identification and uses, using weeds in your landscape, wild birds and animals, rodents, predators…
• Insects – Raising honey bees, supporting native pollinator populations, Managing 'bad' bugs, supporting 'good' bugs, insectaries (annual and perennial), the needs of beneficial insects, breeding ladybugs and lacewings, butterfly and hummingbird gardening, moon garden designs, dragonflies, mosquito control…
• Plant Nursery – Steps and tools for setting up a nursery for plants on any scale (the sharing of plant divisions, seeds, etc. is an essential element for anyone wanting to practice sustainable and restorative agriculture.) Shade houses, greenhouses, seed-starting set-ups, propagation of seeds, cuttings, divisions, grafting, etc…
• Business Building – Business or enterprise plan development, certifications (Organic Certification Process, Biodynamic (Demeter) Certification, Animal Welfare Approved,  Certified Naturally Grown, etc. ), grants, business structures, applying permaculture principles to money, triple bottom line accounting, B-Corps and LLC and non-profit structures, producing money and food, micro-farming movement, design and consultation work, business plan, insurance, keeping track and record⁠-⁠keeping…

As we move through the season, you will clearly recognize how elegantly the Permaculture Design Principles come into play with all of these things.