The Permaculture Workshop

Why permaculture, here?

Karuna Dham sits on 25 acres of forested hillside at 1800 metres — streams, springs, old terraces, beautiful deep soil and a climate that grows almost anything you throw at it. Over twenty-five years we've planted thousands of trees, built a coffee plantation, laid out organic vegetable gardens and food forests, set up water-catchment and greywater systems, and watched the land slowly heal itself.

It's an extraordinary place to learn permaculture — because the design is already here, in every terrace and swale and tree line. You don't just study it on paper. You walk it, dig it, plant in it, and taste the results at lunch.

What you'll learn

Over four days you'll move between classroom sessions and hands-on work on the land. By the end of the workshop, you will:

• Understand the twelve permaculture design principles and how to apply them to a real site.
• Read a piece of land for water, wind, sun, slope and soil — and design around what's already there.
• Learn practical soil-building: composting, mulching, green manures, biofertilisers, cow-dung systems.
• Walk through a working food forest — seven layers, succession, guilds, chop-and-drop.
• Help build or plant something real: a swale, a new bed, a tree guild, a mulch pile.
• Leave with a site plan for your own land, or the one you hope to find.

Who it's for

• Anyone with a piece of land — a garden, a farm, a rooftop — who wants to grow food with less work and more abundance.
• Farmers and market gardeners looking to move away from chemical inputs and towards closed-loop systems.
• Homesteaders, off-grid builders and intentional communities designing from scratch.
• Students of agroecology, ecology, rural development wanting hands in real soil.
• Anyone who wants a week away from the city to learn something useful, eat beautifully, and sleep to forest sounds.

Format

A four-day, hands-on workshop. Mornings are theory and design work. Afternoons are out on the land — planting, mulching, digging, observing. Evenings are shared meals, slow conversations, and questions around the fire. Group sizes are kept small so every participant gets hands-on time and real design feedback.

The workshop runs periodically — typically in the drier months. Dates go out on request.

Who leads it

The workshop is led by Karuna's long-time land and garden team, with decades of combined experience running permaculture workshops here and on other farms across South India. Pragmatic, practical, rooted in what has actually worked on this land — including the mistakes.

Accommodation & meals

Stay in one of our cottages (see rates) for the workshop. Three vegetarian meals a day at Govinda's are included — most of what you eat comes from the gardens you'll be working in. Seeds, seedlings and basic tools are provided.

What to bring

• Clothes you don't mind getting muddy.
• Sturdy shoes or boots for walking the land.
• Gardening gloves (we have some spares).
• A notebook and pen. You'll want to sketch and write.
• The usual Karuna essentials — torch, jumper, waterproof layer, reusable water bottle.

Register your interest