courses
PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE (PDC)
Learn permaculture design and create thriving landscapes, households and communities. 100+ hours of learning and hands-on design experience.
Get your Permaculture Design certification at CERES
Learn from a team of expert mentors to live a comfortable, abundant life within the limits of our planet.
Taking enrolments now for Feb 2025.
What will you find in a PDC at CERES?
Inspiring Learning Environment
Attend class at CERES famous permaculture park in Brunswick.
Exciting Excursions
Visit diverse permaculture sites in Melbourne and regional Victoria on immersive weekend trips.
practical design toolkit
A trusty toolkit and process that you can use to work with nature (rather than against it) in any context.
hands-on experience
Hands-on permaculture design experience, working with a real-life client.
Grow your own food
Get growing and eating, no matter how small your space is.
Healthier homes
Design energy-efficient and disaster resilient homes that are a pleasure to live in.
Cultivate Community
Explore strategies to build bonds and cohesion in your local community.
Find your people
Meet a whole bunch of new pals who share your values.
Please note: A PDC is not intended to be a gardening course.
For those keen to get more dirt under their nails, we recommend the Complete Urban Farmer course or our range of gardening workshops & courses.
You’ll be mentored by
Joel Meadows is an educator, designer, builder, illustrator, sculptor, grower and musician. Joel runs The Green Hand Institute offering permaculture education and developing technologies that make living sustainably more achievable: think rocket stoves, innovative beehives, human-powered transport, biochar makers and more. He has illustrated two books: David Holmgren’s ‘Principles’ and ‘The Rocket Powered Oven’ with Tim Barker.
Joel lives with his family on the fringe of Castlemaine in their owner designed and built passive solar straw bale home(which we are lucky enough to visit in the course). You can hear him speak below on Reskillience, a great podcast from CERES alumni Catie Payne.
Kat Lavers is a small space food gardening specialist with a background in permaculture design, teaching and facilitation. She has a breadth of training experience working with residents and local government as well as refugee communities, aid agency staff and even Mongolian nomadic herders.
Her award-winning house and garden, ‘The Plummery’, is a 1/14th acre urban permaculture system that produces almost all the vegies, herbs, fruit and eggs consumed, recycling all organic waste on site and harvesting the majority of power and water used by the household.
When she’s not teaching permaculture and organic gardening, Kat designs community gardens and urban agriculture projects with local councils and communities.
Beck Lowe is an experienced educator and designer with over 15 years of experience working in inner city, suburban and rural areas. She is particularly interested in household resilience and community building.
Becke worked in partnership with David Holmgren on the book RetroSuburbia – an exploration of how suburban life has changed over time, and a positive vision of where it may go(with a specific look at Melbourne).
Adam Grubb is the co-founder with late great Dan Palmer of the Permablitz volunteer backyard makeover network and the business Very Edible Gardens, where he continues to design and build permaculture inspired gardens.
He’s a Triple R alumni as host of Greening the Apocalypse and is the co-author with Annie Raser-Rowland of The Weed Forager’s Handbook and The Art of Frugal Hedonism and the kids’ book Let’s Eat Weeds.
How It'll work
A CERES PDC packs in 100+ hours of learning and design experience.
program design
We opt for an extended format spread over many weeks to give all that new knowledge time to sink in. Spread across approx 4 months, you’ll have midweek and weekend sessions at CERES in Brunswick East plus visits to inspiring permaculture sites in urban and rural Victoria.
x12 Wednesday Nights (6:30 – 9:30pm)
We’ll meet at CERES permaculture park for classroom-based learning.
x9 Sat Sessions (9:30am – 4:30pm)
See you at CERES for design exercises that puts what you’re learning into action.
X2 Weekend Field Trips (Saturday & Sunday)
We’ll get out there and see permaculture systems in different contexts:
- Naarm Weekend: We’ll explore permaculture sites local to CERES and the inner-city. See people adapt to the particular design challenges of an urban setting and be inspired to think big in small spaces. Site visits include Joe’s Market Garden, rental properties and Kat Lavers famous perma patch – The Plummery.
- Castlemaine Weekend: We’ll head out to Central Victoria and see how permaculture looks in a rural setting. Site visits include permaculture homes, villages, cooperatives and businesses including Joel’s passive solar, rainwater harvesting, loo composting, chook/bee/garden oasis. At night we cook pizza on the rocket stove and enjoy music and stories around the camp fire.
This course is for you if
- You want to feel more connected to yourself, community and the natural world.
- You want to design more productive spaces, whether in a tiny urban plot or a rural homestead.
- You’re questioning if the modern ethos of consumerism and endless growth works for you. Perhaps you want to live more simply and slowly.
- You’d like to know how you can make real change in the world.
- If you're still reading, it's probably for you...
course pricing
Concession
For those holding a valid concession card-
Payment plans avaiable (see FAQs)
ceres member
For those with an up-to-date CERES Membership-
Payment plans available (See FAQs)
Frequently asked questions
CERES is an example of permaculture design on an incredible scale. 40 years ago the 10-acre site was a rubbish tip amongst factories with nothing but rusty cars in the soil. Today it is home to urban farms, a biodiverse wetland, social enterprises practicing permaculture principles and so much more. David Holmgren, the cofounder of permaculture, was one of its earliest designers.
It is unique for a permaculture demonstration site in that no one person or group ‘owns’ CERES; it continues to be community-run and not-for-profit to this day.
You can only be certified once you have:
- Attended 90% of the course (see next Q for more information on catching up on missed sessions).
- Completes essential core subjects like Permaculture Ethics & Principles, and all design subjects.
- Completed your group design project & all design exercises.
The PDC Facilitators will use discretion to make the final decision.
We know life happens. If you need to catch up on critical sessions, you are welcome to enquire about sitting-in on future classes to catch up, please note conditions apply.
Yes, selected CERES Courses have a payment plan option allowing you to pay over time, please see our Terms and Conditions for Payment Plans HERE. Contact adultlearning@ceres.org.au to organise your place on a payment plan.
Refunds are available up to a week prior to the start of the PDC, but a 10% administration fee will be retained. See the full refund policy here
People are drawn to do a PDC for many reasons, and how they apply their learnings are just as varied. CERES Alumni have gone on to become permaculture designers, educators, farmers, or continued in their current line of work but imbued permaculture into it. You can read some alumni stories below.
Alumni Success Stories
People are drawn to do a PDC for many reasons, and how they apply their learnings are just as varied. See how CERES grads apply permaculture in their own lives since graduating.
We’re collecting stories for this now! If you’re an alum doing something awesome – get in touch.
