Design Your Food Forest - 2 Session Course
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🌿DESIGN YOUR FOOD FOREST WORKSHOP
What if your garden or land could function like a forest?
Productive, diverse, resilient, and alive year-round.
Imagine fruit, vegetables, medicine, fibre, firewood, habitat, and abundance — all within one living system.
This is a hands-on, two-part workshop for anyone ready to move beyond single-use gardening and learn how to design food forests using ecological principles.
Whether you have a small backyard, lifestyle block, or larger piece of land, the principles you learn can be applied anywhere.
---
🌱 PART 1 / 31 October: READING THE LAND & FOOD FOREST DESIGN
6-hour workshop
We begin by learning how forests function and how we can design productive systems that follow natural patterns.
We’ll explore:
- Forest succession and ecosystem development
- Food forest structure and the different layers
- Reading the land: sun, water, slope, wind, and soil
- Site analysis for gardens, lifestyle blocks, and farms
- Exploring an established food forest on site
- A guided land walk to practise reading the landscape in real time
- Turning observations into a simple food forest design
You’ll leave with:
🌿 A clearer understanding of site analysis
🌿 A first food forest design concept
🌿 A practical framework for observing and analysing your own land
Learning is focused and hands-on, with guided exercises that keep observation active and embodied rather than purely theoretical.
---
🌿 INTEGRATION PHASE
1 week between workshops
This is where the learning deepens.
You return to your own land or garden and begin observing it with new awareness:
- Where does water flow?
- How does light and shade move throughout the day?
- What is already establishing itself?
- Where is natural succession occurring?
- What does the existing landscape tell you?
You then refine your design before returning for the practical day.
---
🌳 PART 2 / 7 November: PLANTING, SYSTEMS & MAINTENANCE
6-hour workshop
Now we bring the design into reality.
We’ll:
- Translate your designs into real food forest plantings
- Explore plant layering and guilds in practice
- Plant an existing area using food forest methods
- Learn pruning, chop-and-drop, and soil-building techniques
- Understand long-term maintenance and ecosystem care
- Work with support species and understand their roles within the system
You’ll leave with:
🌱 Hands-on experience creating food forest systems
🌱 Practical skills you can apply immediately
🌱 Confidence to maintain and evolve living systems over time
🌱 Propagation material from support species to take home and continue your planting
---
🌾 WHO THIS IS FOR
This workshop is for you if you want to:
- Design edible, resilient landscapes
- Understand how ecosystems actually function
- Move from theory into real implementation
- Create long-term abundance through ecological design
No prior experience needed — just curiosity and a willingness to observe, learn, and work with nature.
---
🌿 WHY THIS WORKSHOP IS DIFFERENT
Most gardening workshops focus on individual skills or what to plant.
This workshop teaches you how to read landscapes, design interconnected systems, and work with ecological succession over time.
You don’t just learn what to plant.
You learn how everything connects — and how to design for a living system that can evolve and become more abundant over time.
📍 Location: Hakea Retreat (near Raglan)
A living permaculture site with established food forests, gardens, and evolving ecosystems where you learn directly from the land.
💰 Investment
Early bird: $260
Full price: $300
(2-part workshop with integration phase)
Includes:
The full Design Your Food Forest Workshop
Theory and practical sessions to build your skills
Guided food forest walk
Your own food forest design workbook
Support species propagation material to take home
Q&A Session to support your journey
⚠️ Limited spaces available to keep the workshop intimate, hands-on, and connected.
🔐 Secure your spot by emailing to [email protected]
About the Facilitator — Merve
Merve is a permaculture practitioner and educator with a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) and teacher training, bringing together solid theoretical foundations and years of hands-on experience.
She has been actively involved in designing, planting, and maintaining food forests, gardens, and regenerative systems, working directly with land to build soil, diversity, and resilience over time. Merve’s approach is practical, accessible, and rooted in ecological principles—supporting people to understand not just what to plant, but why and how systems work together.
Through her workshops, Merve shares knowledge in a grounded, empowering way, supporting participants to confidently apply food forest principles in their own spaces.
About Hakea
Hakea is a land based community, permaculture farm and learning space in Aotearoa, focused on caring for the land, building soil, planting natives, and strengthening community values.
Over the years, Hakea has become a living demonstration site, with food forests, gardens, and evolving ecosystems that show what’s possible when permaculture principles are applied in real landscapes. It is a place of learning, experimentation, and connection—where people can observe, participate, and learn directly from the land.
Hosting this Food Forest Workshop at Hakea offers participants the chance to see systems at different stages, learn from an established site, and take part in hands-on planting within a working landscape.
What if your garden or land could function like a forest?
Productive, diverse, resilient, and alive year-round.
Imagine fruit, vegetables, medicine, fibre, firewood, habitat, and abundance — all within one living system.
This is a hands-on, two-part workshop for anyone ready to move beyond single-use gardening and learn how to design food forests using ecological principles.
Whether you have a small backyard, lifestyle block, or larger piece of land, the principles you learn can be applied anywhere.
---
🌱 PART 1 / 31 October: READING THE LAND & FOOD FOREST DESIGN
6-hour workshop
We begin by learning how forests function and how we can design productive systems that follow natural patterns.
We’ll explore:
- Forest succession and ecosystem development
- Food forest structure and the different layers
- Reading the land: sun, water, slope, wind, and soil
- Site analysis for gardens, lifestyle blocks, and farms
- Exploring an established food forest on site
- A guided land walk to practise reading the landscape in real time
- Turning observations into a simple food forest design
You’ll leave with:
🌿 A clearer understanding of site analysis
🌿 A first food forest design concept
🌿 A practical framework for observing and analysing your own land
Learning is focused and hands-on, with guided exercises that keep observation active and embodied rather than purely theoretical.
---
🌿 INTEGRATION PHASE
1 week between workshops
This is where the learning deepens.
You return to your own land or garden and begin observing it with new awareness:
- Where does water flow?
- How does light and shade move throughout the day?
- What is already establishing itself?
- Where is natural succession occurring?
- What does the existing landscape tell you?
You then refine your design before returning for the practical day.
---
🌳 PART 2 / 7 November: PLANTING, SYSTEMS & MAINTENANCE
6-hour workshop
Now we bring the design into reality.
We’ll:
- Translate your designs into real food forest plantings
- Explore plant layering and guilds in practice
- Plant an existing area using food forest methods
- Learn pruning, chop-and-drop, and soil-building techniques
- Understand long-term maintenance and ecosystem care
- Work with support species and understand their roles within the system
You’ll leave with:
🌱 Hands-on experience creating food forest systems
🌱 Practical skills you can apply immediately
🌱 Confidence to maintain and evolve living systems over time
🌱 Propagation material from support species to take home and continue your planting
---
🌾 WHO THIS IS FOR
This workshop is for you if you want to:
- Design edible, resilient landscapes
- Understand how ecosystems actually function
- Move from theory into real implementation
- Create long-term abundance through ecological design
No prior experience needed — just curiosity and a willingness to observe, learn, and work with nature.
---
🌿 WHY THIS WORKSHOP IS DIFFERENT
Most gardening workshops focus on individual skills or what to plant.
This workshop teaches you how to read landscapes, design interconnected systems, and work with ecological succession over time.
You don’t just learn what to plant.
You learn how everything connects — and how to design for a living system that can evolve and become more abundant over time.
📍 Location: Hakea Retreat (near Raglan)
A living permaculture site with established food forests, gardens, and evolving ecosystems where you learn directly from the land.
💰 Investment
Early bird: $260
Full price: $300
(2-part workshop with integration phase)
Includes:
The full Design Your Food Forest Workshop
Theory and practical sessions to build your skills
Guided food forest walk
Your own food forest design workbook
Support species propagation material to take home
Q&A Session to support your journey
⚠️ Limited spaces available to keep the workshop intimate, hands-on, and connected.
🔐 Secure your spot by emailing to [email protected]
About the Facilitator — Merve
Merve is a permaculture practitioner and educator with a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) and teacher training, bringing together solid theoretical foundations and years of hands-on experience.
She has been actively involved in designing, planting, and maintaining food forests, gardens, and regenerative systems, working directly with land to build soil, diversity, and resilience over time. Merve’s approach is practical, accessible, and rooted in ecological principles—supporting people to understand not just what to plant, but why and how systems work together.
Through her workshops, Merve shares knowledge in a grounded, empowering way, supporting participants to confidently apply food forest principles in their own spaces.
About Hakea
Hakea is a land based community, permaculture farm and learning space in Aotearoa, focused on caring for the land, building soil, planting natives, and strengthening community values.
Over the years, Hakea has become a living demonstration site, with food forests, gardens, and evolving ecosystems that show what’s possible when permaculture principles are applied in real landscapes. It is a place of learning, experimentation, and connection—where people can observe, participate, and learn directly from the land.
Hosting this Food Forest Workshop at Hakea offers participants the chance to see systems at different stages, learn from an established site, and take part in hands-on planting within a working landscape.
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Where is it happening?
141 Phillips Road, Raglan, New Zealand, 141 Phillips Rd, Raglan 3894, New Zealand, Hamilton
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherHakea
