Introduction to permaculture and sustainable living
A fun and practical course!
Join us for a hands-on, inspiring week where you’ll discover how permaculture can guide you toward a more sustainable and joyful lifestyle. Together we’ll explore how to set up an ecological garden or balcony, see what a mature food forest looks like, learn to make compost and natural fertilizers, try out natural building techniques, care for your health with herbs, and create your own eco-friendly cleaning products.
This course is practical, sensory and fun. Everything you learn can be applied directly in your daily life. And the best part? It takes place at Bogata Šuma, a vibrant permaculture farm that is itself a living example of low-maintenance self-sufficiency and sustainable living.
Come learn, experience, and connect: will you join us?
Dates: Monday 20 - Friday 24 April '26
Venue: permaculture farm Bogata Šuma, Vojnic, Croatia
Teacher: Barbara Scheltus - van den Berg
€ 550,- bursary support
€ 475,- normal price
€ 400,- low waged, under 18 or over 70, or from former Yugoslavia
€ 100,- when you volunteer here afterwards for 3 weeks or more
The price includes all tuition, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and a camping spot or a bed in a (2-persons) room.
Bring a friend and get 25% off
(not for volunteering spots)
> Apply for a spot in this course
Experience and enjoy permaculture in practice on our homestead Bogata Šuma!
Together we can discover how permaculture can be a solution to many (world) problems.
What is permaculture? What are the ethics and how do you live with them? How do you use permaculture principles as decision making tools?
For us, permaculture is a very inspiring way to design our land and life in a sustainable way. Growing almost all of our food, staying healthy with home grown herbal remedies (teas, oils, tinctures) and natural building techniques is part of that.
We love to use permaculture principles to develop our land and our lives. We take care of the earth, of the people around us and we love to share our knowledge, skills and good food from the garden.
Hands-on learning about permaculture and sustainability
This week is an immersive program to learn about practical permaculture in real life. What is sustainability, what is permaculture, how did we design our land and our life with permaculture ethics and principles as decision making tools. How to setup an ecological garden for self sufficiency, how to take care of yourself with herbs. It gives you an overview of "all" aspects of living a sustainable and independent life in the countryside.
Subjects that we cover in this week:
- What is sustainable living,
- What is permaculture,
- Ethics, principles, patterns, how everything is connected
- Growing food for self sufficiency and setting up low maintenance food growing systems
- techniques like
mulching, composting and making natural fertilizers, seed saving, planting, pruning and propagating techniques,
- Natural building techniques: strawbale, cob, wood construction,
- Animals, their functions, food and care,
- Herbal health: finding, collecting, drying and storing herbs, making teas, making tinctures, kitchen herbs, herbal oil,
- Permaculture design, how to design for projects
Who is this week for?
This program is designed for people who want to know (and experience) more about permaculture, about living a happy life on the land and living with nature in a sustainable way.
It will be an fun course with games and activities as learning tools.
Permaculture teacher Barbara Scheltus
Barbara lives with her family on permaculture farm Bogata Šuma in Croatia. They live almost food-self sufficient, have hosted almost 300 volunteers over the last 10 years, she and Peter have setup a Country Life Academy and now they are growing a village.
Barbara has been working with permaculture ethics and principles for almost 20 years now. She designed for land and for life, teaches people how to bring permaculture into practice and how to design for personal and social issues.
Barbara works with Looby Macnamara ("People and Permaculture") and learned also from international teachers like Rosemary Morrow, Mark Shepard and Taco Blom.
>> More about Barbara Scheltus
The venue
Permaculture farm Bogata Šuma is situated on the top of a hill in the heart of Croatia, with forests all around. We have been on this land since 2005, after it was abandoned by the previous owners after the Yugoslavian war. We found a jungle with overgrown fruit and nut trees, and we turned it into a beautiful edible landscape where guests have been enjoying camping holidays ever since.
We will tell & show you all about the design of our terrain with permaculture principles and our plans for the future.
Monday 20 - Friday 24 April '26
Where: permaculture farm Bogata Šuma, Vojnic, Croatia
€ 550,- bursary support
€ 475,- normal price
€ 400,- low waged, under 18 or over 70, or from former Yugoslavia
€ 100,- when you volunteer here afterwards for 3 weeks or more
The price includes all tuition, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and a camping spot or a bed in a (2-persons) room.
Bring a friend and get 25% off
(not for voluneering spots)
More information: barbara@bogatasuma.com or call +385 (0)95 5555 677
Would you like to live a free, healthy & happy live in harmony with nature?
Would you like help on your path to get there?