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Rooted in relationship

Designed for resilience

We are Mother Tree Permaculture

We are a women-led experiential educational space that aims to root permaculture design in principles of justice. Predominately housed in Western North Carolina, we teach resilient ecological design from a place of relationship and remembering, while honoring the land.

Mother Tree is a co-creation of Laura Ruby, Bevelyn Afor Ukah, Beatrice Nathan.

Permaculture Design Course

The Permaculture Design Course is a five weekend in-person experience designed to lead students through a guided permaculture design process. It is a comprehensive class and weekends are not sold seperatly.

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Fall 2026 Course DATES

September 12th & 13th

September 26th &27th

October 10th &11th 

October 24th & 25th

November 7th & 8th

LOCATION

Ruby Ranch

36 Kel County Rd, Candler, NC 28715

A 20 acre permaculture horse ranch nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains.

 
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Meet Your Instructors

Laura Ruby

Permaculture Educator and Professional, Owner of Ruby Ranch

Laura brings over two decades of permaculture expertise, combining her passion for plants, education, and community. She is the founder of Ruby Ranch, 20 acre educational permaculture farm and Paddock Paradise horse ranch.

  • Masters in Sustainable Business Administration, Green Mountain College, 2008

  • Certified in permaculture since 2001 (Crystal Waters Ecovillage, Australia)

  • Co-founder of Wild Abundance permaculture course (2014)

  • Founder of Ruby Ranch (2022) and Ruby Rose Landscaping

  • Extensive experience in K-5 outdoor education and school garden design

  • Background in renewable energy, green building, and organic agriculture

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Bevelyn Afor Ukah

Community Engagement & Equity Consultant

Bevelyn is a consultant, facilitator, and artist dedicated to exploring how humans connect across cultures. She brings a unique focus on deep ecology and equity, creating accessible permaculture spaces for BIPOC communities and fostering environmental justice.

  • Founding consultant of AFI Oak Consulting and The Manifest Farm

  • Over a decade organizing food systems practitioners

  • Permaculture certified and co-developing permaculture course for BIPOC participants

  • Master's in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management

  • Bachelor's in International Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology

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Beatrice Nathan

Founder of Grow & Harvest Gardening education, design and consulting

Beatrice is passionate about helping new gardeners transform their spaces into productive urban food forests. She creates sustainable systems through diligent observation and hands-on learning, making gardening dreams a reality for her students.

  • Master's in Sustainability Studies, Lenoir Rhyne University (2023)

  • Permaculture certified through Wild Abundance (2022)

  • Creator of thriving urban food forest oases

  • Specialist in sustainable food systems for families

  • Dedicated mentor for beginning gardeners

  • Collapse-aware writer and creator

Guest Instructors

  • A young person with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a beige and gray cap, purple hoodie, and yellow graphic T-shirt, bending forward outdoors among plants and trees, holding a small object, with a surprised or engaged facial expression. In the background, a woman with braided hair, wearing a denim jacket over a blue shirt, stands with her hand near her face. There are wooden structures, plants, and outdoor items visible in the setting.

    G White

    G (she/they) is a treeworker, gardener, bodyworker, childcare provider, and theater performer.

    They received her permaculture design certificate in Ithaca NY, 2007. Their fascination with the cascade of positive vibes that come from trees / perennial agriculture has led them to be a devoted hobbyist fruit & nut grower.

    She gets joy by taking simple action everyone has access to- promoting regenerative agriculture. She believe we must not only sustain what we have, but we must improve our ecosystems…not just because it will sustain us physically, but spiritually.

    They have been grafting and maintaining trees in community parks, in her garden, and throughout Asheville for 12 years. She is excited to share what she knows about how to select, train, prune, and graft a tree through its lifetime.

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    Hector Lopez

    Hawk Nest Healing Gardens

    Hector Lopez has worked in several community projects focused on strengthening the social fabric through the care and regeneration of local ecosystems that allow people to achieve food autonomy for their health.

    Through the planting of organic vegetables with a focus on permaculture, he has traveled part of the continent (Mexico, Ecuador, U.S.) sharing his knowledge with children at rural schools, community leaders, women in prison young people from the city and stay-at-home moms in order to empower all those who want to build a better world.

    He shares his cultural legacy through millenary spiritual practices that he inherited from his ancestors. He is also passionate about renewable energy and music. Today he works in the triangle area in North Carolina accompanying social movements in search of social justice for the good of humanity.

  • Jennifer Verprauskus

    Jennifer Verprauskus

    BareRoot Designs

    Jennifer Verprauskus is a North Carolina Licensed Landscape Architect and a Permaculture Design Certificate Holder. She studied Landscape Architecture at the University of Massachusetts & Cal Poly.

    Since graduating, she has traveled the world to help people grow trees and their own food. She is the founder of both UpBeet Landscapes and BareRoot Designs, PLLC.

    Jennifer actively practices Permaculture through Landscape Architecture all over the States and currently teaches Permaculture classes at the North Carolina Arboretum.

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    George Brabant

    Phat Ninja Foodforest

    Permaculture was explained to me as using nature as a guideline. The edge of the forest turns full and green every year with no help from man. It happens from a symbiotic relationship between plants, animals, and fungi.

    I started running with this philosophy and turned our Asheville property into a Permaculture Foodforest. I bought chickens and ducks, removed all grass, and installed swales, ponds, mushrooms, and fruit trees. A year in, I sought help from more experienced minds and took a permaculture design course and became a certified instructor.

    Now we are giving classes, tours, and having other local permaculture and gardening instructors do tours of our farm as well. This is Phat Ninja Foodforest.

  • A man with glasses and a blue shirt standing next to a leafy tree, smiling at the camera.

    Greg Peterson

    The Urban Farm

    "What if there was a garden and fruit tree in every yard?" This is a question that Greg ponders every day. For over 32 years he created of one of Phoenix's first environmental showcase homes for urban farming. The 1/4-acre yard featured a primarily edible landscape with over 80 fruit trees, rainwater and greywater harvesting, solar applications, and extensive use of reclaimed and recycled building materials. What we now call an Old Growth Food Forest.

    He is the co-founder of Great American Seed Up an educational organization designed to energize local seeds. He is also the founder of UrbanFarm.org and the host of The Urban Farm Podcast that has over 900 episodes and over 5 million listens. The podcast is designed to help fulfill Greg's passion of spreading the word about growing your own food and sharing new and seasoned gardeners epic stories.

Course Curriculum

13 comprehensive modules covering all aspects of permaculture design

Permaculture Ethics & Principles

Master the foundational ethics of Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share, along with the 12 design principles that guide all permaculture work.

Repairing damaged landscapes

Hurricane Helene has left our landscape scarred but thoughtful design can create healing.

Disaster preparedness and mutual aid

When your community is prepared everyone is less vulnerable to the impacts of unexpected emergencies.

Soil health

Soil is the basis of all life, in this class we learn to become stewards of our soil.

Water management

Water can create abundance or destructure. With a deep understanding of how water moves and accumulates, we can work together to create thriving lives and landscapes.

Forest systems

The forest is our teacher. We go to nature to observe and learn how to work together with other species.

Social and interpersonal permaculture

Explore how permaculture principles apply to building inclusive communities, addressing social injustices, and creating equitable systems that benefit all members.

Native, perennial & edible plants

Learn to work with useful plants to bring beauty, food, and habitat to your landscape.

Growing food year-round

With a little knowledge and creativity, we can grow fresh food year-round in any climate

Food preservation

Learning to preserve our food builds our skills and resilience.

Animal systems

Animals are an essential part of all thriving ecosystems. Learn how they can be a healthy part of our food systems and landscapes.

Contours, swales, earthworks

Explore how shaping the earth can create lush, diverse landscapes.

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Learn by Doing

Hands-on Learning

Practice real-world skills including composting, propagation, design mapping, and building garden structures.

  • Soil building and composting

  • Plant propagation and planting

  • Measuring and laying out at basemap

  • Building garden structures

  • Food harvesting

  • Food preservation

  • Building a swale

  • Basket weaving

  • Time with the horses, understanding large farm animals (optional)

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Race and Equity in the Food System

  • Legacy of land theft, sharecropping, and systemic exclusion of Black farmers

  • Indigenous food systems and displacement in the Southern Appalachian region

  • Historical and contemporary barriers to land ownership for BIPOC communities

  • Food sovereignty movements and community-led solutions

  • Building equitable and just food systems rooted in repair and accountability

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Field Days & Site Visits

Visit established permaculture sites in the Asheville area to see designs in action and learn from experienced practitioners.

  • Healthy food growing practices

  • Micro businesses and entrepreneurs

  • A robust and nutrient dense composting worm operation

  • Visit with community leaders at a community garden in downtown Asheville

  • Integrated and robust suburban and urban permaculture systems

  • So many ways to compost!

  • Urban food forests

  • Mushroom growing systems

  • Community building

  • And more!

Permaculture Design Project

Part of the permaculture certification program includes the completion of a design project.

Students will have the opportunity to complete an individual or small group design project. Participants can choose to design a property of their choice or be assigned a local project. Through this project, students can apply the permaculture knowledge they gain from class to a real-life scenario and receive feedback from instructors and peers.

This project allows students the opportunity to work with real design clients. Instructors will guide you through this process using various design tools such as needs and yields assessments, bubble diagrams, and zone and sector overlays. Students will present preliminary designs part way through the course to get feedback from instructors, peers, and clients. This feedback will allow them to revisit their designs before the final design presentation.

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Payment Options

We believe in this offering and the value it will bring to our students and broader community. We are also dedicated to making this knowledge available to as many people as possible, regardless of financial situation. Because of this, we are offering sliding scale fees for enrollment in this permaculture design certification program as well as an optional payment plan.

If you are able to pay the higher tier, please choose that one. But if you need to choose a lower tier because of your economic situation, please do so. If you are called to learn permaculture design and the lowest tier is outside of your budget, then email us about scholarship options at beatricenathan@gmail.com.

I'm ready to learn permaculture!
I'm ready to learn permaculture!

UPLIFT

Choose this if you are comfortably meeting all of your basic needs and have "expendable" income.

  • The Price: $1995

  • This reflects: The "True Cost" of the service plus a contribution that allows me to offer lower-cost spots to others.

  • Your Situation: You own your home or rent a high-end property; you have investments or retirement accounts; you travel for recreation; you can afford "wants" without stress

STANDARD

Choose this if you are meeting your basic needs but have limited expendable income.

  • The Price: $1595

  • This reflects: The "True Cost" of the service. It covers my time, materials, and business overhead.

  • Your Situation: You may live paycheck-to-paycheck or have some debt, but you can still afford basic necessities like housing, food, and transportation. You might have to budget carefully for "extras," but you aren't in financial crisis.

COMMUNITY

Choose this if you struggle to meet basic needs and paying the full price would be a significant hardship.

  • The Price: $1195

  • This reflects: An accessible rate supported by the community.

  • Your Situation: You struggle to pay rent or buy groceries; you are unemployed or underemployed; you have no access to savings or family wealth. Please note: If this tier is still a barrier, contact us for further options.

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