Duration: Meets one Friday per month for 7 months.
Dates: Begins March 15, 2024. View all dates and schedule for the upcoming course here.
Cost: $1000 with a deposit of $250. There are only 15 spots available in each of the classes.
Instructor: Gabe Garms

The Course:

The only commonality found between every recorded human civilization collapse has been a decline in soil fertility. Present day agricultural methods are causing soils to collapse at an unprecedented rate and if we don’t start turning the trends soon, our own collapse is imminent. To reverse the trend, we need to adopt sustainable agricultural practices which regenerate soils, bring back wildlife and repair ecosystems. This is the focus of the permaculture immersion and practically all of it is hands-on.

In this 7 day. course, we’ll go deep into soil building, composting, water harvesting, garden bed design (including food forests), plant propagation, preservation through fermentation, mushroom cultivation, growing edible and medicinal plants/trees/shrubs and so much more. The class will take place on our 5 acre permaculture farm in Ferndale, WA and the majority of the time will be spent in our gardens, which include over 750 species of plants. We are growing perennial vegetables, medicinal plants and trees, fruit and nut trees and all types of fruiting shrubs in an attempt to become completely self sufficient when it comes to food and medicine.

The Permaculture Immersions is a program that gives gardeners of all skill levels the tools that they need to quickly get a healthy and productive garden up and going at a low cost. In addition to tools that we’ll give you, you’ll also go home with over $300 in plants and seeds from our permaculture nursery (www.7layersnursery.com) to get your garden started. We even let students choose which plants they want to take home, based on which ones they connect with in class.

In a nutshell, it’s exactly the class that the instructor wishes he was able to take when he first got into permaculture over a decade ago. We keep classes small and never exceed 15 students and our instructor is available for questions outside of class.

In this course, we’ll cover the following topics:

  • Plant propagation: hardwood and softwood cuttings, seed starting, grafting, layering and division.

  • Soil food web. Their role in cycling nutrients and providing immune support for the plants

  • Garden bed design for perennial and annual gardens

  • Food and medicinal forest design and maintenance (we’ll also cover wetland food and medicinal forests)

  • Multiple composting methods

  • Compost teas and how to apply

  • Plant nutritive cycle (understanding which nutrients plants need at certain stages of growth)

  • Low cost, natural soil amendments.

  • Testing biological diversity the in the soils that we’re building in class with a microscope

  • Mushroom cultivation (shiitake, king stropharia, oyster)

  • Collecting healthy indigenous micro-organisms from surrounding areas and applying in our gardens

  • Pruning and tree maintenance

  • Mulch crops

  • Setting up revenue streams to make your farm profitable

  • Trees, shrubs and other plants that do well in the PNW. Also ones that will do well with climate change

  • Fermentation: Both as a means of preservation and to maximize the nutrient uptake from our foods.

  • Biochar: how to use in soil building and how to make it. Students will go home with small stoves

  • Water harvesting and swales

To view all of the classes in detail, view the calendar here. If you’d like to join the class, please apply by clicking the button below and the instructor will get back to you within 48 hours.