Homesteading Classes for Self-Sufficiency

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The dream of a simpler, natural life speaks to a deep place in all of us.  Modern-day homesteading is both an embrace of the past and a revolutionary act for the future.  Urban and suburban life can feel shallow and disconnected. Learning to live with the land in our homesteading classes brings meaning, purpose and empowerment.

Grow your interconnected, land-based life with our homesteading classes

stack of firewood for self sufficiency

In-person Classes

Black woman using a palm sander to sand the bookshelf she made in a basic carpentry class

Women's Basic Carpentry

This class is intended to get ladies up-to-speed on basic building skills, working with wood, and using hand tools as well as power tools. Focus is placed on ... creating a safe, comfortable, relaxed and fun learning environment in which students with beginning to intermediate skill levels can thrive. Trans welcome.

Choose a 2024 session:

  • Apr 4-7 (filled),
  • Apr 25-28 (filled),
  • May 2-5 (filled),
  • May 8-12 (filled),
  • Jun 6-9 (filled),
  • Jun 27-30 (filled),
  • Jul 4-7 (filled),
  • Jul 24-28 (filled) or
  • Aug 8-11 (filled)
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team of people building a tiny house

Tiny House Building Workshop

Gain the skills you need to build your own tiny house from local, natural, or conventional materials. Tour beautifully crafted tiny houses and natural buildings, ... learn about each stage of building from expert lectures, experience hands-on learning as we build a tiny house from scratch, plus get lifetime access to extensive online video library

Choose a 2024 session:

  • May 24 to Jun 1 (filled),
  • Jun 14-22 (filled) or
  • Aug 16-24 (filled)
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processing wildcrafted greens for medicine making

Foraging and Medicinal Herbs Course

Identify and wild forage medicinal plants in the Appalachian mountains. Learn to make medicine and cultivate herbs in your garden. Make ... and take home herbal salves, tinctures, flower essences, decoctions, cough syrups, herbal liqueurs, oxymels and vinegars.

  • May 30 to Jun 2 (filled)
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rewilding woman making a whisk broom

Women’s Rewilding Retreat

Gather with other women for a long weekend of connection, learning, and rewilding. Basketry, medicine making, cheese and soap ... making, wild foods cookery, friction fire, and more In the mountains near Asheville, NC.

  • Jun 6-9 (filled)
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Permaculture Design Certificate Course

Permaculture Design Certificate Course

This permaculture class empowers students to become effective ecological designers and planners. You will ... come out of this class with deep knowledge about creating forest gardens, ecology, permaculture principles, plant species and variety choices, holistic forestry, and more.

  • Jun 16-29
  • Monthly or one time payment options available
  • Secure checkout
  • Flexible refund policy
  • Sliding scale pricing based on income
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A male student practicing making cuts in boards on a mitre saw at an all genders basic carpentry class at Wild Abundance

All Genders Basic Carpentry

Get deep satisfaction from learning carpentry In a culture that’s zooming toward virtual reality and digitizing the day-to-day, not everyone grows up learning ... how to use tools and work with their hands. Our woodworking class for beginners and folks who have used tools, but don’t feel totally comfortable with them is here to change that. No matter your lifestyle, you surely interact with physical objects like shelves, chairs, tables. Learning carpentry can be rewarding and satisfying whether you want to build for yourself, feel confident fixing things around the house, or interacting with folks you hire in a confident way

  • Sep 26-29, 2024
  • Monthly or one time payment options available
  • Secure checkout
  • Flexible refund policy
  • Sliding scale pricing based on income
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closeup of building instructor using chisel

Timber Framing Class

Learn how to lay out, measure, cut, fit, assemble, and raise a 16' by 20' timber-framed building through demos and hands-on practice. This class is appropriate ... whether you are an experienced carpenter, backyard deck builder, or excited beginner who just has a knack for craft.

  • Sep 1-7
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Online Classes

closeup of shovel digging into garden

Online Gardening School

Are you ready to grow some serious food? This online video course will give you the skills and tools you need to be able to grow a garden for yourself,... from the ground up. Lifetime access, live mentorship.

*What is Standby?
  • Monthly or one time payment options available
  • Full refund up to two weeks after purchasing course
  • Secure checkout
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10 Spring Wild Foods That You Can Find Almost Anywhere

10 Spring Wild Foods That You Can Find Almost Anywhere

Do you want to be able to feed yourself from the wild? Discover delicacies growing right outside your door. Your guide through this course is seasoned ... Wild Abundance instructor Luke Cannon. He’s been foraging wild foods for over two decades! More than a botanist, Luke is a long-time pursuer and teacher of the magic and medicine of plants.

woman teaching brain tanning

Online Hide Tanning Class

Learn from expert brain-tanners the process of transforming deer hide into soft, supple, beautiful buckskin, suitable for fabulously comfortable clothing and accessories. Leave the class with your very own finished hide tanned in the traditional and completely natural way.


Take a step closer to your dream of a self-sufficient homestead

Only a few generations ago, most people grew up in roughly the same place as their great-grandparents. Back then, children learned from older family members how to contribute skillfully to the homestead. But nowadays, things are a bit different. Few of us were raised with extended family around.  It’s common for children to focus on book learning at school; they may never wield a shovel, hoe or hammer as part of their education.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t, as adults, renew our relationships with self sufficiency. Our homesteading classes grew out of a love for practical skills and the desire to make learning these skills accessible in a culture that has virtually abandoned them. We are here to welcome you back to your roots and to build a sustainable future together.

You may wonder what sorts of skills you need to live your dream of a self-sufficient homestead?  Our instructors have been experimenting with this vision for decades.  You can learn a lot from their experience in our homesteading classes.  As a result you’ll be able to get started with your own project on solid footing.  

self sufficient homestead

Our classes combine traditional Earth-based living with the modern language of permaculture design

self sufficient livingWe believe that permaculture design and principles are incredibly useful tools when it comes to homesteading.  Our traditional, 12-day Permaculture Design Course teaches them through lots of hands-on learning, site visits and a theoretical foundation.  In our experience living with the land, permaculture and earthskills enrich one another. This is why we also offer an intensive Permaculture Design Certificate Immersion with more than 100 additional hours of instruction, focused on Earth-based skills and rewilding.

Wild and cultivated plants are the stars of our homesteading classes

perennial berries at permaculture schoolGetting to know the plants around you is important for every homesteader.  We are out-of-the-closet plant nerds. Botanical education works its way into all of our homesteading classes.   

If the green world is what draws you most, we also offer an wildcrafting class where you’ll learn all about wildcrafting and making medicines from healing plants.  Both of our permaculture courses go deep into both wild and cultivated plant allies, too.  Our gardening apprenticeship takes things a step further.  Of all our homesteading classes, it provides the most hands-on experience with plants in the fields, woods, and garden.  

Self sufficient living depends on diverse abilities, including practical and natural building skills

homesteading coursesEveryone needs carpentry and building skills.  Whether you hope to build your own home, renovate one, or just do your own maintenance and repairs, learning carpentry is important.  One of our homesteading classes is a tiny house workshop that covers so much more than the basics.  It’s 8 full days long and weaves in natural and sustainable materials, along with design and traditional building skills.  The course is just one aspect of our tiny house apprenticeship, which includes room and board, plus individualized guidance in building, permaculture and just about everything we do here.    

For female-bodied people who may not feel comfortable with hand and power tools yet, our women’s carpentry course will get you up to speed.  We offer two levels: basic and advanced.  The difference is that we dive into structural building in the advanced class.

Homesteading workshops help us reclaim the practical skills that have sustained our ancestors for generations

homesteading workshopHomesteading is all about being resourceful.  That means learning how to use what you have at hand.  When your homestead includes raising livestock and/or hunting, the knowledge of how to use the whole animal is crucial.  That’s why we teach you how to tan a hide so that you can make the best quality leather right on your homestead.  You can see that our homesteading classes cover both the macro and the micro levels of sustainable living.  As a result, we provide you with the skills you need to make your dreams a reality.