Permaculture Design Course Graduates 12 in Benicia

Apr 21, 2021

By Allison Nagel, Program Manager

The 2021 Benicia PDC class participants, instructors and homeowners

Solano County’s first Permaculture Design Certificate course wrapped up on April 10, with 12 students presenting their capstone design projects and receiving their PDC certificates.

It was powerful to see how this group used what they had learned to shape plans for four very different projects: One on a gradual rewilding of an aging DMV site to create a city park space; one envisioning the transformation of bare soil and turf at a city park into a welcoming space for enjoyment and reflection; one creating a healing garden space at a veterans home; and one bringing regenerative farming practices to a homestead that could support the family that lives there and supply food for their restaurants.

It was also powerful to connect with a group of individuals that signed up for the PDC program for a variety of reasons, from professional advancement to personal goals, but who all brought their passion, knowledge and desire to shape a better world to the course and their projects.

2021 Benicia PDC Slideshow


2021 Benicia PDC

The program was offered in Benicia through a partnership between Sustainable Solano and Benicia Adult Education. The PDC, which is an internationally recognized certification program, has 72 hours of standard required curriculum, but instructors bring their own expertise and insight to each program. We were lucky to have Lydia Neilsen and Anne Freiwald of Vital Cycles lead the PDC class in Benicia, which had a hands-on component focused on putting permaculture principles to use in a suburban setting.

The PDC demonstration project sheet-mulched the grass on the front yard of a Benicia home, dug an in-ground swale to capture rainwater from the roof of the house, planted guilds of plants that work together and support one another for a healthy ecosystem in the front yard, and installed a laundry-to-landscape greywater system that will take the used wash water and run it into mulch basins on the side yard for the plants there.


Video courtesy of  PDC participant Sylvia Herrera

I had the unique opportunity to pursue my PDC along with the class, allowing me to reach a life goal I set back when I first started volunteering with Sustainable Solano and learning about permaculture. The program wasn’t without challenges. COVID-19 caused huge shifts in when we could offer the course, and then we had to make logistical adjustments to be able to offer the course safely under the state’s higher education guidelines. We were so fortunate that Anne and Lydia looked for creative ways to offer the class in a combination of online and in-person instruction; and that homeowners Chris and Megan, our newest Food Forest Keepers, generously made their backyard available for class instruction while the front and side yard were being transformed through the class’ hands-on projects. I appreciate the patience of my fellow students who pursued taking the course despite these challenges and worked to get the very most out of it. Along with the education that came from the program, I also feel we created a community among the class that comes from working so closely together.

The PDC course was offered as a part of our Workforce Development program, which has been a part of transforming three Benicia yards into food forest gardens that are edible, waterwise alternatives to lawns, while educating landscaping professionals, life-long learners and high school youth on permaculture principles and sustainable landscaping practices.

We are already starting to plan for our next PDC course! Interested? You can find details here in the coming months. And feel free to email me at allison@sustainablesolano.org to be added to the interest list.

Congratulations to our 2021 Permaculture Design Certificate recipients!

John Davenport*
Scott Dodson*
Jonathan Erwin
Clay Ford
Karen Lee Ford
Sylvia Herrera
Ron Kane
Jason Lingnau
Allison Nagel
Katie Rivera
Jaxon Shain
Susan Worden

*Learn more about these participants on our Sustainable Landscaping Professionals page

The Benicia PDC program and demonstration project were funded through student fees, Benicia Adult Education, the second amendment to the Valero/Good Neighbor Steering Committee Settlement Agreement, and the Solano County Water Agency.

Vital Cycles Brings Permaculture Instruction to Solano County

Nov 2, 2020

By Anne Freiwald & Lydia Neilsen, Vital Cycles

Vital Cycles is Anne Freiwald and Lydia Neilsen, permaculture educators based in Santa Cruz County. They bring together extensive backgrounds in community health and permaculture education and activism, and have taught classes to our local community through Sustainable Solano.

We are thrilled to be part of the diverse offerings Sustainable Solano provides the community! We have been consistently impressed and inspired by the commitment of Sustainable Solano and the larger community to regenerative practices and community resilience. Join us this January 2021 for Sustainable Solano’s first Permaculture Design Certificate Course (PDC), which we are kicking off with four free introductory classes so you can get to know us and get a taste of what permaculture is all about. See this link for more details.

Our first offering, Permaculture 101: Patterns and Principles, focused on three of our favorite patterns: the meander, dendritic branching and the keyhole bed design. Patterns provide tools for understanding the big picture as well as design ideas to integrate. Permaculture principles represent stories and ways of understanding that offer deeper perspective on how we interpret our landscapes and make design decisions. This shift in thinking is critical to our roles as members of and tenders within the ecosystems we inhabit. Missed this one? Check it out in the video above, or here.

This Saturday, Nov. 7, from 11 am-12:30 pm we will be taking a deep exploration of Soil, Water, and Plants. As gardeners, we are working with these three all the time, but do we really understand the nature of their interactions? How can we honor and enhance their interconnections and synergy on a backyard scale? How do they regulate carbon in our atmosphere and what is their role in maintaining local and global climate? Join us for an integrated perspective and practical examples for working with soil, water and plants, so that we can all move towards dynamic stability through ecological co-creation. Register here.

Our following talks will be on the parallels between our natural and internal worlds, particularly the cycles of sleep and water, and community and the permaculture concept of guilds (plants that work together to support one another). The sleep and water talk will be Dec. 12 and the guilds and community talk on Jan. 9 (registration will open soon). We hope you’ll join us for all of these informative talks and dive deeper into the study of permaculture with the PDC this January in Benicia!

Permaculture Design Certificate Course Coming to Benicia

Sep 25, 2020

By Allison Nagel, Workforce Development Program Manager

Permaculture education is a key part of Sustainable Solano’s mission, and that means not only educating the public through our hands-on workshops and online talks, but also offering ways for professionals to grow their knowledge and understanding.

That’s why we’re excited to bring our first Permaculture Design Certificate course to Benicia starting in January. The course offers an internationally recognized certification, though its appeal is widespread – from landscapers interested in enriching their design skills to individuals who want to create change in their communities. At its core, permaculture recognizes the strength of working with nature to encourage natural processes that result in healthy soil and abundant ecosystems. Permaculture can be used to design a landscape, neighborhood, community, organization or society.

Sustainable Solano’s 2021 PDC develops a broad understanding of permaculture and design that uses whole systems thinking, which looks at how everything works together as a part of a larger whole. This can apply to the environment, our internal state of being and our organizations and social systems. In this course, participants learn a standard 72-hour permaculture curriculum toward certification. Participants will also gain hands-on experience in designing and transforming a local landscape using design principles and incorporating the use of captured rainwater and greywater systems.

We are excited to bring Lydia Neilsen and Anne Freiwald of Vital Cycles to Benicia as the course instructors. Lydia, a longtime partner with Sustainable Solano, is a PINA certified permaculture educator, landscape and habitat designer, specializing in water cycle restoration and passionate polyculture. Anne is a passionate personal health and permaculture educator focusing on growing food in small spaces, working for over 25 years with individuals and communities on personal ecology and community resilience. They have an action-based perspective that highlights skills, practices and resources necessary for growth, creativity and vitality in person and place.

Curious to learn more? Lydia and Anne will be offering two free online introductory talks that will cover the foundations of permaculture. They will discuss Permaculture 101: Patterns & Principles from 11 am-12:30 pm Oct. 3, and Soil, Water & Plants from 11 am-12:30 pm Nov. 7. These are a great way to learn more about permaculture and to meet these wonderful instructors. The Patterns & Principles class will cover working with nature to create resilience – the very heart of permaculture design. The Soil, Water & Plants class will explore how these vast and interconnected systems work together to restore and maintain balance in local and global climates.

2021 PDC instructors Lydia Neilsen and Anne Freiwald

For those inspired by the talks or already wanting a deeper dive into permaculture, the PDC will offer a rich, varied experience with a small group of peers involved in online classes, hands-on experience and cooperating on a final design project. The program runs from January through April with all classroom instruction online and four hands-on weekends spent outdoors at a site in Benicia. The program is $1,200, with a 10% discount for verified Benicia residents.

Because of safety precautions due to COVID-19, we are limiting enrollment in the 2021 PDC. This will allow us to maintain physical distancing requirements, and we will take other precautions, such as sterilizing tools between uses, during the outdoor instruction. We will continue to work with Solano Public Health and monitor state and CDC guidelines to make sure the program meets the latest requirements.

For those with PDCs who want to brush up on certain topics or those interested in learning more about permaculture before signing up for a full PDC, there will be four online Friday Focus classes that will be open for public registration on a sliding scale. These classes are included as part of the PDC instruction, but are also being open to the public. We will have more details and registration open for these closer to January.

The PDC program will be partially funded by the second amendment to the Valero/Good Neighbor Steering Committee Settlement Agreement, which supports our goals of public and professional education, and measurable improvements for the city of Benicia. The free introductory permaculture classes are funded by the Solano County Water Agency.

Free Online Introductory Classes

Oct. 3 (11 am-12:30 pm): Permaculture 101: Patterns & Principles (Register here!)

Nov. 7 (11 am-12:30 pm): Permaculture 101: Soil, Water & Plants (Register here!)

Permaculture Design Certificate Course

PDC begins Jan. 29. Learn more and register here!

Questions? Contact Program Manager Allison Nagel at allison@sustainablesolano.org