Join us for one or all of these inspiring events!
Spring 2025 Permaculture Design Certification Course Registration ~ Deposit towards Tuition!
Secure your seat at the upcoming Spring Weekend Series Permaculture Design Certification Course : April - June (Three Weekends Total)
At The Permaculture Place, The Mill in Shelburne Falls, MA
Thursday January 16th: Cover Crops for Healthy Farm & Garden Soil w/ David Fisher!
Learn from David Fisher of Natural Roots Farm!
Thursday January 16th, 6pm at The Permaculture Place, at The Mill, downtown Shelburne Falls
David Fisher has been practicing cover cropping and crop rotations on his horse drawn farm in Conway MA for decades. Join us for this special opportunity to hear highlights of David's practices, and to ask our questions about the best cover crops for our gardens and fields.
Thursday January 30th, 7pm, Movie Night: Inhabit, A Permaculture Perspective
See this award winning film!
If you are wondering what Permaculture Design is all about (or if you are already inspired by this field of study and practice), this is the best introductory film that we have found! Plus it was made by one of my course graduates after he completed his course with us at Sowing Solutions Permaculture Design & Education!
More about this film:
Inhabit is a feature length documentary introducing permaculture: a design method that offers an ecological lens for solving issues related to agriculture, economics, governance, and on. The film presents a vast array of projects, concepts, and people, and it translates the diversity of permaculture into something that can be understood by an equally diverse audience. For those familiar, it will be a call to action and a glimpse into what's possible - what kind of projects and solutions are already underway. For those unfamiliar, it will be an introduction to a new way of being and a new way of relating to the Earth. For everyone, it will be a reminder that humans are capable of being planetary healing forces.
Saturday Feb. 1st: Winter Tree Identification Workshop with Walker Korby! 1:00-4:00
Winter Tree Identification Afternoon Workshop, 1:00-4:00
Saturday February 1st with Walker Korby
Ever wonder how to identify trees without their leaves in winter???? Well.. join us and learn how! Gather new skills from Walker Korby, a naturalist, tracker, illustrator, firefighter, and expert arborist!
Sunday February 9th, 1-2:30pm: Herbs for Heart & Spirit Support
A heart warming event centered on self care with Hannah Jacobson-Hardy
of Sweet Birch Herbals!
Make an herbal syrup to take home!
In this class Hannah will discuss herbs that focus on the emotional and physiological heart. She will cover warming, blood moving herbs for circulation, as well as calming the nervous system. Then, we will make a heart opening syrup with several of the herbs covered in class for each person to take home a bottle.
One week before Valentine's Day, join us for a heart warming event centered on self care, grief, love and compassion.
This class is open to anyone, no prior experience necessary.
Saturday March 15th: Structural Tree Pruning Workshop! 1:00-4:00
Learn from Walker Korby, expert arborist, tracker, & naturalist, all about pruning trees for tree health, harvest, and safety.
1:00-4:00
Suggested as a $35 Workshop or you can simply contact us to request a sliding scale amount :)
Permaculture Design Certification Course:
SPRING PROGRAM starts April 4th
Offsite Tour: Visit a Straw Bale House
Tour the home of a family of 5 in Shelburne Falls, where they constructed their natural home out of straw bales, and heat their home with a masonry stove.
Offsite Tour: Visit a Permaculture Homestead and Demonstration Forest Garden
Tour a home landscape created by Jono Neiger of Regenerative Design Group and witness efficient energy systems, fruit production, water catchment, nutrient cycling systems.
Farming for Biodiversity
Designing Pollination Systems to Sustain Native Wildlife
A Presentation by Evan Abramson, Pollination Systems Designer at Landscape Interactions
Local Textiles, Bringing Regenerative, Non-Toxic, and Ethical Textile Production Back to New England
Nur Tiven, founding member of Western Mass Fibershed, tells the story of producing the first local and sustainable wool apparel fabric to come out of Massachusetts in decades, and discusses the need for and inspiring possibilities of rebuilding regional fiber systems and textile economies.
Mushroom Cultivation Demystified! Low Tech and No Waste Methods of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Fungi
Various strategies to bring valuable mushrooms close to home. We will learn the mushroom life cycle, how they are produced, and how you can grow these delicious treats without waste or a big investment.
Teaming Up with Soil Life, Intro to Soil Biology & Chemistry (in relation to the plants we want to grow!)
Kaat Vander Straeten is a certified permaculture designer and a graduate of Elaine Ingham's Life in the Soil classes. Learn all about the soil food web, bacterial versus fungal soils, how to cook up some good compost and compost tea, what earthworms like to eat, and the real definition of a weed.
Movie Night! A Viewing of: ‘Inhabit, A Permaculture Perspective’ See the best film about the permaculture movement,
created by our very own permaculture design course graduate!
Introduction to Healing with the Five Elements Join us for a guided movement meditation and an informative talk with Tom Matherly of Fox Tracks Healing.
Introduction to Plant Spirit Medicine Join us for a talk with Clare Pearson of Wilder Brook Botanicals, healer and educator, who will guide us in a meditation and share about the healing power of plants. “Plants have Spirit. And Spirit is the strongest medicine.” ~Eliot Cowan
Mushroom Cultivation in Permaculture Systems with The Mushroom Forager!
Learn to create a landscape that produces a bounty of gourmet mushrooms while nourishing soil fertility and boosting vegetable yields.
An Introduction to Orcharding and Grafting Fruit Trees with a Biodynamic Practitioner Alan Surprenant of Brook Farm Orchard