Permaculture in Practice
2025 Workshops
SKILLS DAYS and WEEKEND INTENSIVE!
Salamander Springs Farm | Clear Creek, Berea, Kentucky
Permaculture Skills Days
Intensive day-long immersions. We send you home with confidence, knowledge and skills to help you put your dreams into practice. Handouts included.
JUNE 7, 2025 no longer accepting registrations
Integrate Cover Crops without Tillage
Learn continuous relay cropping inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka’s work. Provides early season skills further developed in the July Soils and September Permaculture in Practice workshops. Includes no-till methods of cover crop management in staple crops and vegetable beds, soil health, crop polycultures including cornfield milpa system Susana learned in Latin America.
JULY 19, 2025 no longer accepting registrations
Soil Health Principles & Practice
Create healthy mycorrhizal soils that build carbon, water and nutrients for nutrient-dense food--without outside inputs! Incorporate contour swales for water and nutrient capture, maintain permanent beds and fields that integrate cover crops without tillage. Utilize biochar, mulches, compost and humanure. Close the loop by cycling “wastes” locally.
AUGUST 16, 2025 see below--location change
Crop Seed Selection & Saving
Locally-adapted seeds are crucial for a resilient future. Salamander Springs Farm has focused on developing local landrace varieties of staple foods and native crops of this continent. Understand and work with pollination of different crop families. Learn to harvest, dry, process and store seed at a low-tech homestead-scale.
We are excited to partner on this workshop with Wonderful People Microfarm, a regenerative farm project in Goodlettsville, TN, providing agricultural education and technical training for people who don't historically receive it. They work with seasoned farmers to educate and train youth, women, BIPOC and underserved groups about regenerative agricultural practices.
Susana will offer a morning and afternoon session on seed selection. Scholarships provided by a grant from the USDA Natural Resource and Conservation Service.
Skills Days Details:
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Dates: JUNE 7, JULY 19 registration closed.
AUGUST 16: register here (at WPMF, Goodlettsville, TN)
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Location: Salamander Springs Farm, 20 minutes from Berea, Kentucky (map)
- Cost:
$210 Early Registration, 30 days in advance of each Skills Day.
$230 Regular Registration (less than 30 days in advance).
$600 registration discount for 3 SKILLS DAYS.
Work-trade & BIPOC scholarships available:
see below.
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Coming from a distance? Camping facilities are available before or after skills days with advance reservation. $20 includes tent site, cooking facilities, solar shower and compost toilet. Designate date(s) you wish to reserve at registration. Non-camping accommodations are also available nearby; inquire at registration.
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What's included: intensive hands-on learning, delicious locally-sourced lunch, workshop materials and handouts.
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP LEADER
Susana Lein, farmer and manager of Salamander Springs Farm, is a permaculture / regenerative agriculture teacher with 30+years of experience. Over the years, Lein has taught hundreds of permaculture, regenerative agriculture, appropriate technology and natural building workshops. She will be assisted by other entrepreneurs in sustainable living practices from our region.
Lein received her PDC at Crystal Waters Permaculture Village in Australia, worked more than 8 years with small farmers in Latin America, and since 1999 has built Salamander Springs Farm into a productive market and CSA farm which produces for customers a wide variety of fruit and vegetable crops, staple grains and dry beans, herbs and flowers, all without tillage or fertilizers.
To learn more about Susana and Salamander Springs Farm, see the ABOUT and FARM SYSTEMS pages.
See the IN THE PRESS page for links to articles, podcasts and films.
Permaculture In Practice Weekend Intensive!
SEPTEMBER 12-14, 2025
5 openings left!
For nearly 20 years, this inspirational weekend has provided a transformative experience cherished by participants. Immerse yourself in learning the practices needed to build and live on an off-grid, regenerative permaculture farm. Hands-on learning of no-till systems, staple crops, hugulkultur, soil building, swales & water management, seed saving, off-grid systems, natural building, and more. Includes gourmet meals from the farm, camping accommodations including a solar shower, wonderful spring water, educational workshop materials to take home. This fun and memorable weekend has filled quickly in the past so register early!
Weekend Intensive Details:
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Workshop Dates: September 12-14, 2025
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Location: Salamander Springs Farm, 20 minutes from Berea, Kentucky (map)
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Cost:
$420 Early Registration Discount (save $40 before August 15).
$450 Regular Registration (after August 15)
Work-trade & BIPOC scholarships available, see below. -
Workshop includes camping accommodations, workshop materials and delicious gourmet meals from the farm each day.
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Hands-on learning: off-grid farm living, no-till staple crop and vegetable production, hugulkultur, soil building, contour swales & water management, seed saving, natural building, appropriate and solar technologies, and more!
WORK-TRADE SCHOLARSHIPS
Partial and full work-trade scholarship are available for each workshop. Request application information when registering.
Additional scholarships are available for BIPOC applicants. A resilient and life-sustaining future requires the skills and talents of a diverse land-based community. A system that marginalizes some of us hurts us all.
Email us if you or someone you know in the BIPOC community might benefit from this opportunity. We are excited to be able to offer additional BIPOC scholarships for each workshop again this year because of a generous gift from colleagues John Rogers and Debbie Robinson in honor their friend, Sunshine Jim.
Develop Hands-On SKILLS for Locally-Sustained LIVING
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Create fertile, living soil, hugelkultur, no-till veggie and staple crops, contour swales & ponds.
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Manage and cycle water, solar energy and nutrients.
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Grow diverse food crops, staples grains, dry beans and cover crops without tillage.
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Experience a passive solar tiny house, building with clay & straw, local lumber and salvage, earthen floor, solar shower, humanure compost toilet, solar food dehydrator...
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Enjoy a diversity of farm-grown staple proteins, fresh produce, preserved, foraged and fermented foods.
These on-farm workshops are for anyone wanting to get firsthand experience with permaculture principles and methods on the ground, will include hands-on practicums and intensive education in principles, methods and materials, timing, hard lessons learned...not to be missed!
Food and Dining
We provide all meals during our workshop. Freshly prepared meals will consist of organic mostly vegetarian dishes featuring locally grown ingredients. We do our best to accommodate dietary restrictions and food allergies. (We’ll follow up after registration to make sure we have your dietary preferences on file.)