In 2025, Cincinnati Permaculture Institute was introduced to and began a friendly partnership with another local organization with a complementary mission to our own: Food Not Lawns, a mutual aid group with a permaculture foundation. Both organizations envision a more resilient future in which food consumers become food producers, and grow food (and other essential lifestyle staples) in a way that is beneficial for the Earth we all rely on. A better, more sustainable way of life that we believe is entirely possible and within our power to create.
The good news: there is a growing awareness of and demand for sustainable, edible landscaping & environmental design in and around Cincinnati, and between our two organizations (and other mutual partners), we have a potentially huge community of willing hands and hearts who could be planting food forests all over the city and surrounding counties.
The issue? We have a bottleneck.
Lots of sites to design for, lots of volunteers ready to implement and maintain, but for the time being, only a handful of trained permaculturists currently engaged in the work to get us from Idea to Execution. It’s preventing us from taking on more than a project or two at a time and building momentum.
That’s where you come in… we hope!
CPI has graduated more than 350 permaculture designers in the last 15+ years, and we just know that the skills to solve this bottleneck are out there, right in our backyard. Skills like:
Creating basemaps and using design software
Assessing the water, sun, slope, soil, and other key landscape features to inform design
Plant selection and companion/guild planting for a food forest or edible garden
Planning phases of implementation
Think small scale residential yard upgrade, not whole-site comprehensive design or large undeveloped sites, and you’ll have a sense of the scope of work.
What’s that…you don’t think you can do it? You’re not experienced enough? Not a pro? Out of practice?
Well, there’s no cure for Impostor Syndrome like proof, and projects like these are a great way to gain experience and put a few more designs under your belt until that “I can’t…” voice in your head is replaced with “I did!” Whether you’re a recent PDC graduate or it’s been a few seasons since your class design project, you’re qualified to do this!
Our teacher Felix Marisa has been laying the groundwork for collaboration between CPI and Food Not Lawns, using a “design jam” model for collaborative design that anyone can replicate, and would be available to help coach and facilitate any designers wanting to get involved.
If you are interested, please use the form below to contact Felix by email: