a Fairview Gardens Homesteading Class
DATE: SAT-SUN, October 25-26th, 9am-5pm
INSTRUCTOR: Paul Swenson
FEE: $135 by Oct. 1, $155 after Oct. 1
LOCATION: Please note, this workshop will take place at a private residence in Santa Barbara, not at Fairview Gardens’ farm site in Goleta
or Call the Fairview Gardens, Mon-Fri, 9-5, 805-967-7369
Do you love real wood-fired pizza? What could be better than having your friends over for a pizza party around an oven you built yourself at very little cost with earthen materials?
Join us for an intensive, two-day, hands-on, wood-fired cob oven building workshop where you will dive right into building an oven! You will learn how to make cob – an versatile earthen building material comprised of clay, sand, and straw. You will learn how to sculpt and plaster the oven itself. We will go over the steps of building the foundation, considerations for siting, design, and accessing materials.
We will explore the ins and outs of baking in a cob oven. Cob baking ovens provide a great way to bake and cook a wide variety of foods using the residual heat of the fire held within the earthen walls of the oven. Pizza, bread, a pot of beans, casserole, cookies, granola – so much can be done.
You will come away from this weekend with the basic skills to step out into your own cob oven building journey. Before you know it, you’ll be rallying your friends and family to do the cob dance with you, with many pizza parties and assorted baked goodies to come, all out of your own cob oven!
Paul Swenson is a founding team member with Quail Springs Permaculture where he helped develop the site, community and its offerings for over eight years. He discovered the beauty, function, and joy of natural building in 2005 while building the foundation and wall system of a cob house at Quail Springs, with the guidance of Betty Seaman of Spirit Pine Sanctuary. He has intensively studied straw bale construction, earthen ovens, earthen floors, and earthen plasters. He has been building and baking with earthen materials ever since. Paul’s teaching style is empowering and puts people at ease, with an emphasis on self-discovery, enjoyment, creating community. Watch out, his enthusiasm for wood-fired baking is catching! To share your interest in commissioning a cob oven build, hosting a cob oven workshop at your home, or general interest in earthen building, please contact
paul@quailsprings.org