Advanced Education in Permaculture Design

The Verge Permaculture Academy gives you both the knowledge and the community of peers you need to support your lifelong journey of practicing permaculture.

Live, Online Masterclasses and Events

✓ Vast library of on-demand courses and content

Exclusive Online Community and Access to Experts

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What happens after the PDC?

A great PDC (Permaculture Design Course) opens up an inspiring world of possibilities for your future. It also makes you realize how much you have left to learn and how permaculture thrives in community and collaboration.

But after your initial PDC experience, there aren’t many structured programs for advanced education. You’re left wandering the internet for answers when your time would be better spent learning from experts and improving your skills.

Verge Permaculture Academy guides your next steps.

Find Your People

One of the most important aspects of the Academy is its community. Beyond our online classes, workshops, and resources, there’s an international community of peers ready to support you.

Rob and Michelle Avis showing Mitch Rawlyk and Madi Vietch how to overcome design challenges on their property with a contour map generated layout

Learn from the Experts

The Academy curates a regular series of online masterclasses with the world’s leading experts, and you gain access to coaching and work sessions with expert, practicing permaculturists.

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Find Your Path

Permaculture design is used in many contexts. The Academy provides the specialized knowledge and flexibility needed to customize your education for your goals. (Or decide what they are!)

Live Masterclasses

Dive into our series of comprehensive live courses, ranging from foundational workshops to specialized masterclasses. Learn from top-tier faculty as you refine your expertise in regenerative design and beyond.

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Live Online Q&A Sessions

Dive into biweekly live events featuring themed Q&A sessions, in-depth educational workshops with guest experts, case studies, and more. Engage in dynamic learning beyond our masterclasses.

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Community Design Clinics

Our coaches present practice design scenarios alongside live member challenges, enabling small groups to refine real-world solutions collaboratively.

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Downloadable

Audio Classes

For moments when you’re too busy for a live class, our library of podcast-style classes travel with you in the garden, in the car, or on a hike!

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The Verge Academy Vault

The Vault is your ultimate How-To resource. It’s a curated library of past masterclasses, podcasts, tools, templates, audiobooks, and more!

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The Verge Community

Free from the ads and algorithms of social media, our exclusive, proprietary online platform is where you’ll find friendship and support.

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Who will you meet in Verge Academy’s online community?

Verge’s interactive classes support a diverse community of permaculturists. For the last 15 years, we’ve supported more than 15,000 registrants from more than 30 different nations.

● Homesteaders and Family Farms transitioning to permaculture.

● Business Owners using permaculture in their products and services

● Aspiring Professionals pursuing a permaculture-related career

● Urban Homeowners and Renters trying to make a difference

● Community Leaders with a vision of serving others

● Passionate Learners trying to find their path forward!

Verge Permaculture Academy is endorsed by leading experts.

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If you want to schedule an event with them, or just attend one, I recommend them very, very highly.

TOBY HEMENWAY

Author of Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture

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I have watched Rob and Michelle build Verge Permaculture from the ground up and I am proud to say that Verge Permaculture is now one of North America’s premier permaculture design and education companies.

GEOFF LAWTON

Director of The Permaculture Institute

Joel Salatin

Rob & Michelle – I’m proud of your work and your vision. What a delight to see young people like you embrace and then lend your savvy talents to this movement.

JOEL SALATIN

Owner / Operator of Polyface Farms

Enroll in the Verge Academy Today!

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MONTHLY

MEMBERSHIP

$147/month

Value $335+/mth

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6 MONTH

MEMBERSHIP

$599/6 month

Value $3000+

If you haven’t taken a foundational Permaculture Design Course yet, we highly recommend it as your first step. The Verge PDC has packages which include access to the Academy. Learn More.

Our Guarantee…

When you enroll in a 6-month or annual subscription, you have 10 days to decide if the program is a good fit for you. If not, we’ll provide a full refund. (Read more in our FAQ) 

Permaculture doesn’t have to be a lonely journey.

rob and michelle avis with their dog

When we started our permaculture journey more than 15 years ago, we were truly overwhelmed and felt like we were on our own to sort things out. We spent years traveling the world in pursuit of leading permaculture certifications and mentors to guide us.

You probably don’t have years to spend on this, so we’ve curated the best minds in the field together into one community.

If you share our mission to restore the planet, you’re in the right place, and the answers you’re looking for are here in the Verge Permaculture Academy.

~ Rob and Michelle Avis, Co-Founders of Verge Permaculture

Find the permaculture community and support you’ve been looking for.

1) Enroll in the Academy

Choose from one of three packages above and follow the email prompt to complete your account setup.

2) Find Answers to Your Questions!

You’ll have immediate access to the community, the Verge Vault of resources, and signup forms for upcoming masterclasses.

3) Find Support from the Community

From planned events like Q&A’s and Design Clinics to conversations in the online portal, you’ll find answers, partners, and lifelong friends for the journey ahead!

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ALAIN D’AOUST

Verge Academy Director

Read Alain's Bio

Alain has spent the last decade working on local food projects, delivering school garden programs and developing community-based permaculture in the Seaway Valley of Eastern Ontario. He and his family have since settled on a new rural homestead where they have designed and built a simple home and are developing their 10-acre parcel using the Building Your Permaculture Property process.He is the facilitator and leads student experience in the Verge Academy for Advanced Permaculture Training.

Do you have more questions?

We’re happy to meet with you for a short consultation. We’d love to meet you, understand your goals in regards to permaculture, and help you figure out if the Academy is the right fit for you! Reach out to Alain@VergePermaculture.ca to schedule a call.

LOOKING FOR MORE DETAILS?

Scroll down for schedule, faculty, team, FAQ’s and more…

The Winter 2023-2024 Live Course Lineup

Build a comprehensive skill set for mutli-climate resilience with the Verge Academy’s core curriculum: A new series of Courses are offered annually.

Course details are subject to change. For up-to-date information, always visit the individual course pages.
Building Educational Gardens Program

February 2024

Passive Solar Greenhouse Design Masterclass with Rob Avis

March 2024

Advanced Permaculture Design Course

May 2024

Essential Rainwater Harvesting with Michelle Avis & Peter Coombes

Summer 2024

Food Forests Masterclass Course with Carmen Lamoureux

Fall 2024

Featured Bi-Weekly Live Events

You have questions. We have answers.

Are you thinking about renting farmland to raise your herd? Wondering about the intricacies on agroforestry on your property? Debating whether to use hugel berms, swales, or a combination of both to control run-off? Curious about the safe practices for compost management?

These are just a few of the questions that might come up in our biweekly, themed Q&A sessions! We bring in experts from across a variety of disciplines to answer our students’ pressing questions on how to develop resilience and abundance in their lives and on their property.

As an Academy Member you help determine the themes we offer.

Live Workshops & Q&A Sessions with Global Experts:

Syntropic Agroforestry with Klaus Lotz

Composting with Chickens with Sean Dembrosky

Coppice Agroforestry with Mark Krawczyk

Compost Science for Gardeners with Robert Pavlis

Grey Water Systems with Dr. Peter Coombes

Rainwater Harvesting with Michelle Avis

Community Design Clinics

Facilitated, collaborative, permaculture ‘think tanks’

Library of On Demand Courses

Be the FIRST to access these by clicking on the course that interests you and signing up to be notified when it goes On-Demand for Academy Members.

rainwater storage tanks on the side of a building while featuring michelle avis and dr. peter coombes
advance home orcharding with stefan sobkowiak
perennial plant propagation on-demand course presented by Sean Dembrosky
Garden Design Strategies for Year-Round Nutrition On-Demand Course
renewable home energy solutions presented by dan chiras
resilient homes and homesteads on-demand course

Listen & Watch Offline on Mobile!

In the garden, while driving to the local orchard, or as you find yourself enjoying a quiet moment on your compost toilet…Exclusive content for Academy members ONLY

No need to commit to watching all of this awesome content on your screen. With the mobile podcast app, you can easily stream or download hours of content and take the Verge Vault anywhere!

Exclusive original audio and video content in podcast format

Bill Mollisons PDC lectures

Exclusive podcast recordings
All summit recordings

Passive Solar Greenhouse Summit

Permaculture Design Conference

Keystone Conversations

Verge Vault Resources

When you’re up against a knotty question or need to know how to do XYZ, it’s easy to type a question into Google or Youtube and come up with rafts of information from hundreds of sources….problem is, how do you vet them? How, as we like to say, do you separate signal from noise?

So we’ve pulled hours of our best-loved, classic resources from the Verge Archives to create the Verge Vault – a curated library of easy-to-search content covering a wide spectrum of topics!

Over 100 hours of quality educational content including:

Case Studies

Design Templates

Tools

Interviews & Articles

Live Event Recordings

Tutorials

Pssst… Want to hear Bill Mollison teach permaculture? Watch or listen to a remastered version of a full PDC design course taught by the master himself.  Join the Academy and see for yourself what our permaculture treasure hunters dig up next!

Online Community

Imagine: An online Community with no ads, bots, spam, or distractions!

Connect with like-minded folks in our private online community. Academy Members, gain access the private Insiders’ group with direct access to Verge faculty and fellow Insiders.

Forget Facebook, this is where the magic happens!

Have Questions?

Want to connect on-on-one with someone from our Team? Send Customer Care an email with any questions you have and/or request a time to connect.

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