A 12 Day Permaculture Design Course

(internationally recognised)

18th – 29th of October at Wild Olive Guest Farm Stilbaai

with Hazel Mugford and Avice Hindmarch

This is promising to be the experience of a life time – a 12 day course on Hazels wonderful and inspiring Wild Olive Farm !

Course topics will include:

• Ethic of Sustainability
• Principles of Permaculture
• Pattern & Design for moderation of climate fertility cycles
• Water Harvesting
• Year round food security
• Optimal animal participation
• Chickens, earthworms, cows
• Wildlife corridors
• Woodlots
• Alternate energy
• Eco building designs
• Community economics

This Course is fun, artistic and rich in social interaction and participation.

For more info and to book please contact Christine on:

christine@natural-living.co.za or Tel: 044-850 16 00

Participants will receive a Permaculture Design Course Certificate. They will be certified as Permaculture Design Trainees. This certification allows students to practice as Permaculture Designers and to develop a body of work in order to be fully certified after 2 years of work in the field demonstrating proficiency and practice.

About the facilitators:

Hazel from Wild Olive Guest Farm in Stilbaai

transformed a former sheep farm into an organic olive farm with a thriving organic vegetable garden following Permaculture principles.

These are her “before”and “after”pictures of her garden.

Hazel is a permaculture farmer and trained horticulturist. She holds a Permaculture Design Certificate and is a “Train the trainer” graduate (Wales).

She has designed a course using the permaculture principles, which are suitable for anyone looking to equip themselves with the tools to live sustainably no matter where you live.

She is an experienced teacher and has facilitated various courses over the last 5 years. She specializes in health giving food gardens and the hospitality industry. Her energy and zest for life is legendary and her food is as rich and abundant as her gardens.

Avice Hindmarch attended an inaugural PDC held in Joburg brought by Bill Mollison. She has worked these Permaculture design principles in community development, broadscale farming as well as her own “Wildrocke Farm” in Midrand, a 4 ha small holding that included dairy cows, horses, bees, poultry, fruit and vegetable garden and constructed wetlands to regenerate water. Today she is a member of the Bio-dynamic Association of SA and will introduce elements of this complimentary insight to the participants. She uses an artistic approach to explore scientific understanding.

Permaculture is both a lifestyle ethic as well as a design system which utilizes a systems thinking approach to create sustainable human habitats by analyzing and duplicating nature’s patterns (ecology).

The word ‘permaculture’, coined by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren during the 1970s, is a  contraction of permanent agriculture as well as permanent culture.

Permaculture is also about careful and contemplative observation of nature and natural systems, and of recognizing universal patterns and principles, then learning to apply these ‘ecological truisms’ to one’s own circumstances in all realms of human activity.

Pictures say more than a thousand words:

I bet that everybody who visited Hazels Wild Olive farm wants to come back and then for longer!

The tangible peace and connection with the earth and daily cycles is highly nurturing and satisfying. It awakens our deep human desires of wanting to live just like that: getting up with the birds greeting the new day enthusiastically,  tending to the surrounding family of plants and animals, eating hearty wholesome home-grown and -prepared meals, enjoying time with family, friends and neighbours and watching your space become more beautiful every day. This is a highly full-filled and useful life, which can go on for ever and ever.
We just have to re-learn how to achieve a satisfactory way of life for ourselves and that’s what you can learn from Hazel when you book into one of her delicious Permaculture Courses.
What is Permaculture?
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimics the relationships found in natural ecologies. The word permaculture is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture.

Mother Earth is a great teacher, she has it all figured out, if we just watch and listen and learn.
Permaculture is not so much about words, but about being and doing the right things to your environment – nurturing all that surrounds you. That might come natural to some, but has to be learned again by many people.
Centuries of living against nature instead of with her, has left its scars in human consciousness.
What Hazel has achieved on her farm in just 4 short year is remarkable. She has created abundant gardens with most fertile and perfectly balanced soil where there was only barren over-grazed stony ground. Everything on Hazels farm is delicious: the lush vegetables in her garden, the rich  aromatic soil, the scrumptious food, the happy animals…and Hazel herself, having achieved a state of being where abundance comes naturally in all areas of her life. She is somebody who can teach others from her own experience. She can tell you the short cuts to creating your own piece of paradise. It is not hard and anybody can start anywhere, anytime with what he got.

It takes proper planning and taking the right effective actions.
I went to Hazels course last month together with 2 other families and our children. We all had a ball and were spoilt beyond measure!
There is no better way to change the future for the better than teaching your children the right skills for sustainable living.