Tropical Permaculture — Online Course
Learn tropical vegetable gardening, food forests, and regenerative land design.
Tested for 15 years on our homestead in Costa Rica.
Featured in
We started with degraded land → We built a living system.
When we arrived in 2008, this land was an abandoned cattle pasture — compacted clay soil, no fertility, no shade.
We planted.
We learned.
We redesigned.
Today, that same land produces:
A complete diet from our land (calories, protein, fats, staples)
Year-round vegetables, roots, fruits, grains, and perennial staples
Energy, rainwater, compost, biochar, and living soil fertility
A working model that has trained 1,000+ students from 40+ countries
This course is the exact blueprint we built — without years of trial and error.
What’s possible
Feed two+ people year-round on 2,000 m² (½ acre)
Grow $10,000+ of organic food per year
Maintain gardens + food forest in ~4 hours/week
Scale from backyard → homestead → retreat → eco-village
Design smarter. Work less.
How It Works
PLAN → DESIGN → BUILD → PLANT → EAT
PLAN
Use our Diet + Crop Charts to decide which foods you’ll grow (calories, protein, fats, staple crops).
DESIGN
Map your land, place gardens and food forest layers, integrate rainwater & energy systems.
BUILD
Create closed-loop systems using what’s on-site — compost, mulch, biochar, rainwater, solar.
PLANT
Grow tropical staples (roots, beans, grains, fats) + quick-harvest greens and vegetables.
EAT
Turn harvest into meals and pantry staples with 50+ farm-to-table Wellness Kitchen recipes.
We teach through:
Videos filmed in our gardens
Templates, charts, and step-by-step tools
Real systems — not theory
You won’t be left guessing. You’ll know exactly what to do next.
Inside the Course
A step-by-step system for designing a regenerative homestead in the tropics — from diet design to food forest, staple crops, and wellness kitchen.
Design a Complete, Nutrient-Rich Diet
Learn to design a balanced diet using easy-to-grow perennial staples that thrive in the tropics.
Decide which parts of your diet you’ll grow (based on space and lifestyle)
Maximize small areas with nutrient-dense vegetables, roots, herbs, and spices
Select crops based on climate, nutrition, yield, and effort.
Example Garden & Crop Charts (2,000m² Template)
Plan your tropical vegetable garden and food forest for 2,000m² (½ acre) — or adapt to any space.
Understand how much area you need for your goals
Use Crop Area Charts to plan space for calories, protein & fats
Use Nutrient Charts to calculate yields & nutritional coverage
Scale down for small gardens, or expand for retreats/restaurants
Based on real diet and yield data from our homestead.
Permaculture Design — Build Your Tropical Homestead
Map your land using permaculture design principles
Place gardens, ponds, and water systems efficiently
Create closed nutrient cycles and reduce waste
Build a long-term master plan
Tropical Food Forest — Abundance with Minimal Effort
Design a food forest that becomes more productive every year
Use support species to build soil and fertility
Choose resilient, high-yield tropical species
Reduce labor by letting nature do the work
Tropical Vegetable Garden & Staples (Grains, Tubers, Beans & More)
Grow grains, beans, cassava, sweet potatoes, greens & vegetables
Improve soil with compost, mulch, biochar, and support species
Raise chickens for eggs and bees for honey
Plan harvests so your pantry stays full year-round
Homestead Infrastructure — Energy, Water & Waste Systems
Domestic solar & solar hot water
Rainwater capture, filter, and storage
Wastewater recycling and kitchen waste composting
Solar dehydrators, oil presses, grain mills
Master 60+ Essential Tropical Crops
Best varieties for yield & resilience
How to propagate, plant, prune, fertilize & manage pests
How to harvest, store & prepare each crop
Wellness Kitchen — Cooking, Preserving & Nutrition
Cook with tropical ingredients
Make flours, oils, vinegars, teas, spices, sauces
Preserve harvests for year-round food security
Use our Nutrition Chart + Sample Week Menu
Join the Course — Start Designing
Sustainability is built — not imagined.
Meet Your Instructors
Ana Gaspar A. — Lawyer, Community organizer & Co-Founder of Finca Tierra
Human rights lawyer and environmental advocate.
Founder of the BioRegional Plan for Talamanca.
Teaches wellness kitchen, nutrition, and sustainable living.
Ian Macaulay — Artist, Permaculture Designer & Co-Founder of Finca Tierra
Designer and educator with 15 years of hands-on tropical permaculture experience.
Leads research, design, and implementation at Finca Tierra.
What Our Students Say
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“I took the Permaculture Design Course with Ana and Ian in 2018, and it completely changed my life. I ended up moving to Costa Rica because of it. Their online course is the most comprehensive guide out there… this course really has it all.”
— Elizabeth Couse
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“The on-site course was life-changing and the online course has been invaluable as I design and build my off-grid home and food forest. The community forum has been incredibly helpful. I highly recommend it.”
— Sky d’Almeida
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“What stood out to me were the amazing garden templates and how the course goes from planning to planting—even to cooking delicious meals. You can feel Ana & Ian’s incredible knowledge throughout.”
— Lea Imboden
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“Finca Tierra’s course stands out as a practical, hands-on manual for growing food in the tropics. It offers a replicable model that can strengthen your economy, local food systems, and resilience.”
— Irene Burgues
Who This Course Is For
✓ You live in the tropics and want a green home & self-sufficient lifestyle.
✓ You want to grow real food — calories, protein, fats & staples.
✓ You want a productive landscape — backyard, homestead, retreat, or eco-village.
✓ You have a specific diet or care about clean food & wellness.
Included with your enrollment
A map to sustainable abundance.
✓ 25+ hours of practical lessons, videos & design tools
✓ Garden & Food Forest design templates
✓ Crop Nutrient & Crop Area charts (customizable)
✓ Recipes & pantry-building guides
✓ Access to future updates
✓ Lifetime access — learn at your own pace
Start Designing Your Tropical Landscape
$999 USD — Lifetime Access
or $199 USD per month for 6 months
Start today. 7-day money-back guarantee.
FAQ
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Yes.
You’ll learn how to build rich soil fast using biochar, compost, mulch, and support species — without buying soil.Works on degraded, compacted cattle pasture (just like our land was).
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No.
The system scales from backyard → homestead → eco-village.You can grow a complete diet on 2,000 m² (½ acre) — and still apply the method on smaller spaces.
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Yes.
Designed specifically for humid, Wet/Dry (monsoon) and dry savanna tropical climates (Caribbean, Central America, SE Asia, Hawaii, Brazil, Africa).If you can grow bananas, cassava, or papaya — this course applies perfectly.
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A vegetable garden gives fast harvests (greens, herbs, veggies).
A food forest gives staples (roots, beans, fruits, fats).Both together = a complete diet.
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No experience needed.
You will plan, design, build, plant, and harvest using templates and step-by-step videos. -
Within the first 4–12 weeks you’ll be harvesting greens and vegetables.
Staple crops (cassava, plantain, beans, taro) start producing within a few months.Your food forest becomes more productive every year.
Grow your food. Regenerate your land.
Live from the tropics with confidence.
More FAQs
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Tropical permaculture is a design system that creates a self-sustaining food ecosystem in tropical climates using perennial crops, food forests, rainwater capture, and closed nutrient loops.
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A tropical food forest is a layered planting system — roots, shrubs, vines, tree crops — that produces food year-round while regenerating soil and reducing labor.
Instead of replanting every season, you plant once and harvest for years.
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Start by improving soil with compost, mulch, biochar, and support species.
Choose crops that thrive in humidity: greens, herbs, beans, cassava, taro, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, etc.Avoid temperate-method mistakes like bare soil and raised beds that dry out.
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High-yield tropical staples include:
Cassava
Plantain / banana (carbs)
Taro / malanga
Pigeon peas / beans (protein)
Coconuts / avocados (fats)
These are used to design a complete diet, not just salad greens.
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Yes.
With proper design you can grow calories, protein, fats, vegetables, and fruit on 2,000 m² (½ acre) — or even less with intensive design. -
Temperate permaculture focuses on seasons and winter storage.
Tropical permaculture focuses on high humidity, abundant rainfall, intense sunlight, and year-round growth. It focuses on continuous billing of fertility and consistent harvests.