Summer Permaculture Design Course

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 2025: Previously, we had been offering our summer PDC in partnership with Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. As of November 2025, Antioch’s Faculty Assembly voted to approve a new structure and different approach to programming on ecological farming. This means that they will not be in a position to offer a permaculture design course in collaboration with CPI in 2026.

CPI is looking into alternative possibilities for being able to continue hosting a summer session of our PDC. Please stayed tuned to our newsletter for further announcements and developments. If you are interested in collaborating with us to make a Summer 2026 course happen, please send a message to info@cincinnatipermacultureinstitute.org. We have kept the course information listed below to help us find a new home for it.

Cincinnati Permaculture Institute takes its signature Permaculture Design Course on the road for our most condensed format yet, great for people eager to get started right away. CPI Lead Teachers team up with our site hosts and guest speakers to cover the essentials of permaculture:

  • History, ethics, & principles

  • Methods of design and implementation

  • Pattern understanding: Interpretation and application

  • Climate and microclimates

  • Water: Harvesting, conservation, and earthworks

  • Trees and their energy transactions

  • Soils: Classification, food web, and restoration

  • Plant selection, natural pest management, creating habitats, and growing annual/perennial food gardens

  • Ethically integrating animals — rabbits, chickens, goats, sheep, cows & more

  • Managing bees in your ecosystem

  • Renewable energy, using biological resources, natural building, and appropriate technology

  • Food preservation, fermentation, nutrition, and food/herbs as medicine

  • Invisible Structures: Personal, social, governance, and economic permaculture; intentional communities and local resiliency

Students will also spend time together working as a team on a design project on site at Antioch Farm.

COURSE FORMAT

Full 72-hour training on campus over three weekends

  • Fridays: 4 hr online lecture/discussion sessions (4:00PM – 8:00PM)

  • Saturdays & Sundays: 8 hr on-site lecture, discussions and work-learn interactivity on farm (9:00AM – 6:00PM)

  • Plus 12 hours of supplemental reading and videos to be completed outside of class time