What makes this course great?

• based at an active permaculture property with 28 years active development
• produce a landscape and retrofit plan for a property and building known to you
• visit a big range of permaculture sites from intensive urban to rural homesteading, and low budget to well funded projects
• all teaching hours are in person, on-site, and include group discussion, demonstrations and hands on activities
• all sessions take place in living, working permaculture settings
• outdoor learning space at Murrnong keeps us alert, happy and connected to ecological rhythms and cycles
• every 3rd weekend format allows for bite-sized chunks of learning
• time to reflect, digest and catch up at home between course weekends
• tutoring by multiple respected permaculture teachers and site hosts gives diverse perspectives, including a weekend with permaculture co-originator David Holmgren
• lead teacher and convenor David Arnold has over 30 years experience thinking, doing and teaching permaculture
• complete the course with a Permaculture Design Course certificate, your retrofit and landscape plans, and lifelong friends

I loved the content – it made sense to me and my focus in life…one of the best learning experiences I’ve ever had

Nicky

Tutors

The Murrnong Permaculture Design Course (PDC) is a 14 day course taking place every third weekend from February to June each year. This extended format gives you time to take what you’ve learnt each session, thoroughly digest it, and grow together as a learning community through these seasons.

Course days run from 9am to 4.30pm (you are invited to come for a cuppa beforehand at 8.45).

What does the course cover?

• analysis and design skills for our built, biological and behavioural environments
• an understanding of our domestic and human ecology within the global context
• using the permaculture principles as thinking tools for an era of change
• how our bioregional landscapes function
• permaculture as a combination of people and place, as diverse in expression as the people and the places
• practical strategies for re-localising our resource and support base
• how houses can be designed or modified to be energy efficient and comfortable
• how home gardens and farms can become productive, healthy and attractive spaces
• understanding of appropriate technology for a safe and sustaining future
• using permaculture ethics of earth care, people care, and fair share to create a world that we want

Location

The PDC is based at Murrnong, and includes day trips to many other active permaculture properties in the region. Through these visits we engage with varied home gardens, house or building retrofits, and farm enterprises.

Murrnong is easily accessible by road or train, just at the end of the Violet Town main street (click to view in maps), which is a 1 km walk from the train station. We encourage carpooling to access other sites.

Camping

We welcome course participants to camp overnight for each PDC weekend, to reduce travel and enrich the PDC experience. Camping is at no cost for course participants. See photos and camping details at Camping at Murrnong.

Food

On teaching days at Murrnong we all contribute to a shared lunch. These shared meals become a highlight and an inspiration for what we have each been able to produce at home, or source locally. When visiting other properties we usually take our own lunch.

Produce grown and made at Murrnong Farm is available to purchase.

My life is certainly enriched from  the experience. For a few days after our graduation weekend I felt an inner peace and calmness  that I have never experienced before

Donna

If you’d like to arrange staged payment, or pay directly with a bank transfer, get in touch.

If you wish to apply for a scholarship, please write to us. In your application please describe what you have already done and are doing to live in a self-reliant low consumption way, and how you have begun to educate yourself about permaculture. Please outline your reasons for applying for a scholarship, and your circumstances.

If you are First Nations and wish to apply for a scholarship, you are warmly invited to do so.

Frequently asked questions

Why is most of the PDC conducted in outdoor open-air spaces?

We find that people are more alert, and happier, when in open-air spaces.

We strive to get amongst all kinds of permaculture projects and sites as we go, so the learning experience can be auditory, visual, and kinaesthetic.

Why does the course take place over multiple weekends?

We find this works best for our participants, and for us.

Each course weekend is a ‘bite-sized chunk’ of information and experience. The time between teaching weekends allows space to digest and reflect before the next one.  

What facilities are available at Murrnong for camping?

We have unpowered grassed campsites and a compost loo available for self-contained campers.

Is any of the course done online?

No. We feel that kinaesthetic learning on-site, at the various sites, through the whole body and all our senses, amongst the projects and the physical examples, is more powerful and more inclusive for all of us than learning across a screen. 

Can children be at the farm during the PDC?

This is highly variable and dependent on the children’s age, nature, and attention needs. If you are considering this please contact us to discuss further.

If something changes for me can I get a refund?

Refunds are available up to 14 days before the course begins, less a $300 promotion and administration fee.

What have participants said?

I am honestly more excited about my future now, & that of those around me, than I have ever been because of it

Krystelle

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…the patterns/details distinction has helped me in everything from planning teaching units, to parenting, to diet, to holidays, to sewing garments. Staying at “pattern” thinking for longer, and not getting lost in details, means I am making more sensible, informed and cohesive decisions.

Michelle

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It was great to be given the opportunity to explore the wide range of designs, gardens and projects that different people had going. Each was so varied and I was learning something new every time

Anunaki

Even though I already had broad natural resource management knowledge, undertaking the PDC has led me to the start of the path of a deeper level of thinking … a pivotal life moment for me.

Charlie

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Great venue and I’m so pleased that I was able to participate in a PDC that was virtually all outdoors and not in a classroom setting. Also the chance to meet like-minded people and to share information, advice, plant cuttings and seeds, plus the yummy lunches created by innovative cooks with fresh, home grown produce

Robyn

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Exciting, challenging, empowering, an absolute journey that reassures, encourages and educates

Jade