Join us at Keela Yoga Farm in March, 2018 or October 2018 for our month-long Food forest courses in Portugal.

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Learn everything you need to know about starting your very own food forest and off grid farm while experiencing community living on a new permaculture project. Enjoy daily yoga and meditation practice amongst the beautiful Portuguese countryside!

Click here for photos from our last course

Your teacher Laurence has attended a ‘Permaculture Design Course’ (PDC) in Thailand, a master designer course, ‘Food Forestry’ course with Doug Crouch in Portugal, and has dedicated the last 3 years to immersing himself within permaculture principles. He is now enjoying putting these skills into practice everyday on his newly opened project in central Portugal.

Laurence runs the course to give you hands on experience, nothing is set up ready for you, you have to create the mulch, prepare the land, do the soil tests. The course is set up so you learn how to build a food forest, plan how to build it and then plant it. You will be doing all the work, this is not a demonstration but a real life experience of what it would be like if you had to do it for yourself.

Course Outline

• Enjoy a tour of our new food forest and the farm
• Design and help to expand a new food forest
• Learn how to draw to scale drawings for design and planning
• Learn about the food soil web, how to make organic fertilizers and cultivate microbiology for the soil
• Discover how to properly research trees and their companions
• Learn how to design guilds and a food forest
• Plant trees and guilds in the food forest
• Propagate perennials to plant into next year’s food forests
• Create beds for annuals in between the trees for planting to maximise the space in the food forests
• Learn how to design, select and buy irrigations systems
• Plan and perform earthworks for water catchment by selecting locations for swales and a small lake with the help of a digger
• Learn how to graft trees
• Learn how to make compost piles, organic fertilizers and how to breed fungi and bacteria for the soil (teas)
• Opportunity to learn some natural building techniques
• Attend weekly workshops on fermentations, permaculture principles and other farming related topics
• Plant trees as part of our reforestation program outside of the new food forest
• Learn about foraging for wild greens and weeds for edibles and medicinal plants
• Opportunity to learn carpentry skills for making items for the food forest such as cold frames and trellises
• 1 weekly trip to either the local market, local community events and local sites
• 1/2 day per week helping on a farm in the local community that needs it
• 1.5 days of to relax and study

What else is included:

• Three healthy meals daily with lots of produce from our own land
• Daily yoga, meditation and pranayama classes with on site yoga teachers
• Have time to relax in nature
• Opportunity to explore the local area by foot or by mountain bikeDaily yoga classes on the yoga deck

Dates

1st – 31st March 2018

1st – 31st October 2018

Accommodation and Course Costs

Course cost: EUR 500 per person

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Accommodation cost:

Bring your own tent or campervan for free.

EUR 100 – Large walk in tent with proper mattress and bedding (based on two shared two separate pods)

EUR 200 – Small basic caravan with a double mattress and bedding. (1 bed – max two people)

EUR 300 – Medium caravan with a double mattress and bedding. (1 bed and sofa with table or 2 beds – max four people)

EUR 400 – Largest caravan with nice bed, table and chairs inside and outside, electricity with a double mattress and bedding – max two people.

Click here for photos from our last course

To apply for this course please fill in the application form