Permaculture Food Forests
At the Santa Cruz Permaculture Farm & Surrounding Region
Planning, Growing and Enjoying Year Round Abundance
Do you want to gain hands-on skills and build community around growing food? Interested in learning best practices for orchard establishment and management, food forestry, designing year round productive vegetable farms and gardens, and preserving the harvest? We are pleased to offer this advanced practicum grounded in sound horticultural practices, and spiced with the delicious seasonal fruits and vegetables our region has to offer.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Design and plant productive, resilient, and site/climate appropriate orchards.
- Engage in seasonal care of fruit trees and perennial vegetables, including summer and winter pruning, fertility management, and irrigation.
- Propagate fruit trees via grafting and budding.
- Identify dozens of unique varieties of new and heirloom fruits and vegetables, and assess which ones perform well in your climate.
- Preserve the harvest through a wide variety of canning, drying, pickling, and fermentation techniques.
- Create a customized vegetable crop plan for your home or farm so that you meet your production goals, whether they are to realistically produce your own food or have an economically viable farm.
- Identify organizations and events in your area so that you may plug into active learning communities, exchange free plants, and participate in annual fruit tastings.
Full Series: 6 Weekends over 9 Months
You may join the course at any time during the year and continue for the full six weekends. Register using the link for the upcoming session and indicate which session you'd like to join on our registration form.
Pricing
- Full Tuition: $1395
- Partner / Spouse Tuition: $1095 (When one partner registers for the full course, the second gets a discount)
- Early Bird Discount: $1295 (Register more than 30 days in advance)
- Super Early Bird Discount: $1195 (Register more than 60 days in advance)
- Teachers: $1195 (Special price for For K-12, College and University Teachers)
- Youth: $795 (Special price for ages 13-18)
January – September 2027
- Introduction to Food Forests: January 9-10, 2027Â
- Winter Pruning & Propagation: January 30-31, 2027
- Winter Grafting & Propagation: TBC, February 27-28, 2027
- Subtropicals & the Abundance of Spring: April 24-25, 2027
- Summer Pruning & Propagation: July 24-25, 2027
- Celebrating the Fall Harvest: September 25-26, 2027
Individual Sessions
If you don’t want to sign up for the full course but would like to sign up for an individual weekend, you’re welcome to do so! The tuition is $295 per weekend.
Session Descriptions
All sessions include a mix of lecture, hands-on activities, and tastings. Classes run from 10am-5pm on Saturday and 10am-3pm on Sunday.
Session 1
January: Introduction to Food Forests
We start in winter, when the bones of an orchard are visible and every mistake in a tree’s structure is right there in front of you. Saturday is Designing Food Forests Part 1 and a walk of our farm. Sunday we head to the UCSC Alan Chadwick Garden, one of the founding sites of California’s organic movement, and taste citrus while it’s at its best. Saturday afternoon you’ll also bring your own project to the group, whether that’s a dream of starting a farm, a backyard you want to rethink, or something you can’t quite name yet. We come back to those projects at every weekend for the rest of the year.
Session 2
February: Winter Pruning & Propagation
The weekend where you stop being nervous with the loppers. Saturday is hands on with apples and pears in the morning, stone fruit after lunch, until the cuts start making sense. Sunday we join the CRFG scion exchange, where collectors from across the region bring cuttings of varieties you cannot buy, and you go home with a bundle of them. We’ll cover bare root selection, rootstock, pollination and disease resistance so you know what to plant and why.
Session 3
February: Propagation
Grafting looks like a trick until you’ve done thirty of them. This weekend is bench time with a sharp knife: whip and tongue, budding, layering, divisions. We’ll also get into pest and disease management, propagation by seed, and how greenhouses fit a small operation. Bring the scion wood from January and turn it into trees.
Session 4
April: Subtropicals & the Abundance of Spring
Everything is moving. We’ll talk about subtropicals like citrus and avocado, walk the farm learning about propagation via cuttings, divisions, corms, bulbs, and tubers, and follow up on the winter pruning to train new growth. This is also the irrigation weekend, because the dry season is coming and how you set up water now determines what survives the summer.
Session 5
July: Summer Pruning & Propagation
Saturday we prune in the heat, which is a different craft from winter pruning, plus budding practice while the bark is slipping. Sunday is a real treat: Andy’s Orchard in Morgan Hill for a stone fruit tasting from one of the largest private collections on the West Coast, then Emma Prusch Park, the Heritage and Master Gardener orchards, the CRFG International Orchard, Village Harvest and Veggielution. A whole day of people growing food in the middle of a city.
Session 6
September: Celebrating the Fall Harvest
Saturday starts at Skyline Chestnuts, then back to the farm to walk the annual and perennial fields at their peak and talk through putting an orchard to bed for winter. Sunday is preserving: canning, drying, fermenting and pickling, with plenty to taste. Then the last round on everyone’s projects and a conversation about where each of you goes from here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, you can make up material you missed during the next session.
Cancellations up to two weeks before the course begins will be refunded, excluding a $150 processing fee. No refunds are given after that date.
Participants are welcome to defer their enrollment to the next session of the course.
Most classes are held on our 26-acre farm north of Davenport, CA, 20 minutes north of the Westside of Santa Cruz and 1 hour from San Jose or San Francisco. Participants are welcome to camp onsite for the weekend of the course and enjoy the gorgeous natural surroundings and beach access.
Some weekends will include regional field trips.
Course participants are very welcome to camp at the farm Friday and Saturday of the course weekends. Our facilities are rustic, but comfortable. Building community around the campfire is a wonderful bonus! The farm is a gorgeous place where you will feel immersed in nature and enjoy spectacular stars at night and walkable beach access. There are restaurants and markets nearby in Davenport and Costanoa.
Your Guides For This Course
John Valenzuela
