Sustainable Living Course 2025

Course Modules

Earth Building

- Get dirty, be inspired, build your own, locally resourced -

In this module you will learn about the health impacts of our modern building methods, why building with natural materials benefits all living systems, and what you can do to bring natural materials back into your home.

By getting your hands and feet in the clay you will learn different earth-building techniques and their properties, and be inspired by the creative possibilities of this material. You will go on field trips to meet the owners of earth-built homes and ecologically integrated properties here in Golden Bay, deepening your inspiration and knowledge in earth-building.

Tutor: Rita Scholten

Earth Building

Dates: 5 days: Mon 24 - 28 Feb 2025

Price: $570

Registrations close: 17th February

Organic Growing and Health Care

- Be resilient, grow your own, invest in health -

Learn how to create a vegetable garden and orchard from scratch, following organic principles and utilising local resources as much as possible. In addition, you will gain skills and know-how to produce an abundance of fruit and vegetables throughout the seasons. This programme includes land preparation, managing soil fertility, composting, plant selection and propagation, creating a seasonal action plan, building growing structures, plant care, and saving seed for food resilience, combined with sustainable eating and preparing DIY personal and household care products.

Tutor: Sol Morgan

This course includes these modules that can be taken individually:

Organic Vegetable Growing (runs 3-14th March, $1,150)

Organic Orchard Design and Care (runs 16, 17, 18th of March, $345)
DIY Natural Home and Body Care (runs 20th March)

Organic Growing and Health Care

Dates: 18 days: Mon 3 - Fri 21 March, 2025

Price: $1,720

Registrations close: 24th February

One Day Modules and Field Trips

Price: $115 each day module

All About Soil

Tues 4th March 2025 with Sol Morgan

Learn how soil functions, with biological and chemical processes. Guest tutor. How to best feed the soil and evaluate whats needed. Field trip to local dairy farm following sustainable practices to check out what they have done to enhance their soil. Learn a practical soil assessment process. Complete day looking at soil indicators especially weeds, and what they tell us about the soil.

Homesteading Kitchen Skills

Wed 19 March 2025 with Kerryn Easterbrook

Learn to ferment your own kraut, bake gluten free bread, making apple cider vinegar, and forage for your own pesto.

Create Your Own Household and Care Solutions

Thurs 20 March 2025 with Rita Scholten

Use your own herbs and with other basic ingredients make your daily care products from toothpaste, healing balms to hair tonics.
From citrus, weeds and other basic ingredients make laundry liquid to cleaners and room sprays.

Course Tutors

Sol Morgan

Organic Food Growing

Avid organic gardener, seed saver, educator and community activist. Sol is passionate about inspiring people to grow healthy food and treat the environment as a living organism, with care and respect. For the past 25 years he’s been involved with community gardens and community education around living more sustainably. He runs his own business GroWise Consultancy helping people develop healthy ecosystems especially edible landscapes.

Robina McCurdy

Permaculture

Robina McCurdy is the founder of the Institute of Earthcare Education Aotearoa, co-founder of Tui Land Trust & Community in Golden Bay, NZ and pioneer of the S.E.E.D. programme in South Africa and Brazil. She has been engaged in community development, organic growing, permaculture design/tutoring and educational resources production, on a global scale for the past 35 years – for households, neighbourhoods, schools, farms, ecovillages and entire bioregions.

Kerryn Easterbrook

Sustainable Eating

Kerryn is passionate about locally sourced, seasonal, organic, great tasting vegetarian food & has created a catering business around these values. She currently caters for several courses & enjoys inspiring people to create nutritious food. Kerryn also produces & manages her own olive oil soap business, Clean Earth Soap.

Rita Scholten

Natural Building
Personal Sustainability

By building a strawbale house I found out how toxic conventional building materials can be.

To be able to build firstly from local sustainable resources, secondly breathable creative warm buildings is such an empowering experience. When I teach I feel alive to share and inspire others.

Closed for this years intake but available next time around in 2026

Permaculture Design Certificate

Coming again in 2026.

-Don’t just DO permaculture, BE permaculture!-

This internationally certified residential Permaculture design course, focuses on design as a process. Learn how to transform degraded landscapes into thriving resilient habitats, discover your place within the natural world, and experience community in action.

This course covers the standard two-week international Permaculture Design Certificate curriculum through Earthcare Education Aotearoa, leading into an additional four days of ‘inner permaculture’ exploration through Deep Ecology and the Work that Reconnects. It also includes hands-on skill-building activities, mini-design exercises, and visits to inspirational properties who are demonstrating Permaculture in practice.

This course is in residence at two locations:

Tui Treefield,
Golden Bay Sustainable Living Centre

Tutors: Robina McCurdy, Charles Bradley, Inna Alex & Sol Morgan

Permaculture Design Certificate

Dates: 18 days: TBC

Registrations have now closed, coming again in 2026.

Price: $2,250 (includes food)