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Josh Baker demonstrates a beautiful and functional approach to urban permaculture design at his home in Calgary, AB, incorporating many unique landscaping elements including a young food forest, [...]

With the help and expertise of our Edmonton PDC students and Big Sky Permaculture, we recently installed a series of wicking beds at Jasper [...]

For the last three years we have been working hard to convert our Calgary inner city home into a thriving permaculture project complete with a front yard food forest, water-harvesting features, [...]

When the Problem Becomes the Solution When Jill invited Rob to come on the podcast, she thought they would be talking about food forests and garden design. Little did she know they would be [...]

Building Your Permaculture Property offers a revolutionary method to overcome overwhelm. The authors, engineers and a farmer, lead you – the land steward – through a clear five-step [...]

This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]

This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]

Looking for an ideal pioneer species for your cold climate permaculture food forest? I highly recommend seabuckthorn, a plant that grows quickly, fixes nitrogen into the ground, and produces [...]

Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, our blog series that features personal stories from students speaking on how permaculture shaped their careers and their lives. This [...]

reGenerate Design offers urban design, permaculture, and placemaking services in the Calgary area at a range of scales; from urban yards and peri-urban acreages to community gardens, schools, and [...]

As I mentioned in part 1 of this blog series, a living larder can be defined as living floral or faunal food sources that humans can harvest when needed. There are three types of living larders: [...]

Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, our blog series that features personal stories from students speaking on how permaculture shaped their careers and their lives. This [...]

Last post, I spent some time dispelling the 3 main myths around permaculture consulting. (You can read it here). This time, we’ll delve into 4 reasons why a business in the regenerative field [...]

Here is Part 2 of my chat with Diego Footer from Creative Destruction and his Voices of Change podcast series, featuring “honest, hard conversations about farming, business, and life with [...]

Tim Wickstrom is a Verge grad who has started his own forge business to make permaculture and garden hand tools (Check out his Alumni Profile here). Here is the final piece of his three-part [...]

Tim Wickstrom is a Verge grad who has started his own forge business to make permaculture and garden hand tools (Check out his Alumni Profile here). Here is the second piece of his three-part [...]

Tim Wickstrom is a Verge grad who has started his own forge business to make permaculture and garden hand tools (Check out his Alumni Profile here). Here is the first piece of his three-part [...]

Verge Grad Profile: Josh Hellawell Founder, Synergy Permaculture Inc. and Synergy Urban Farms Graduated from Verge PDC in 2014 Expertise: Urban Farming, Composting Josh’s Story Agriculture is in [...]

Verge Grad Profile: Brent Smith & Nadine Brooks  Founders, Paper Street Permaculture Graduated from Verge in 2014 Brent & Nadine’s Expertise: Ecological analysis, drylands permaculture, [...]

Verge Grad Profile Adrian Buckley, Co-Founder, reGenerate Design, Ltd. Adrian’s Expertise: Design consulting, construction, and teaching services. Specializing in food forest design, schoolyard [...]

Check out the other posts in the Building Enduring Assets Series: Building Enduring Assets: An Introduction Building Enduring Assets: Debt Management An enduring asset is one that maintains or [...]

Members of The Agrihood Project, Verge grads Anaya Lea, Andrea Rocchio, and Rob McWilliam are part of a group of Calgarians seeking a more connected and rewarding rural life. Their dream: To [...]

Verge Grad Profile Rene Michalak, 2009 PDC Grad Principal, Phoenix Fire Consulting Project Lead, ReThink Red Deer Education Chair, American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association Expertise: [...]

Verge Grad Profile: Ted Bahr, Founder, Prairie Sage Permaculture Graduated from Calgary PDC in 2011 Ted’s Expertise:  Permaculture drafting and design, tour management and facilitation, wild [...]

Hey Everyone,  This summer, we won’t be around Calgary much. We have taken a contract position with the Groundswell Network Society, in Invermere, BC, to act as their Resident Permaculture [...]

Verge Grad Profile:  Jeremy Zoller, Owner, Sunshine Earth Works Graduated from 2013 PDC in Calgary Jeremy’s Expertise: Permaculture Design, Landscape Construction, Earth Repair Jeremy’s Story:  [...]

Join us for a beautiful and info-packed video tour of our permaculture homestead! This is a 3-part series where we explain and explore our: – thriving food forest complete with fruit trees, [...]

Verge Grad Profile: Karla Cox Graduated from the Verge PDC in 2011 (Nelson, BC) Lives in Cochrane, AB Karla’s Expertise: Water management Educational workshops Composting Vermiculture Vertical [...]

I want to take the time today to address a question many ask: How do we eat beyond organic for less than the costs of eating conventional? First off, let’s define what “beyond organic” means. [...]

Nestled in southeast Calgary is one of the city’s original thriving permaculture projects – our home! And now we are offering an exclusive opportunity to learn all about it…online in our new [...]

For the past 5 years I have been consulting in permaculture, which is the design and integration of: renewable energy systems low energy buildings food system design – both annual and [...]

For the last couple of years, I have recognized that transitioning our culture from one that looks at the planet as an endless mine and ecological destruction as a just another externality to one [...]

Hi Rob, I have been studying permaculture for several years now, but once we get past the basics of gardening we seem to run into the same wall again and again. That wall for us is a balance of [...]

This spring, Verge converged with Big Sky Permaculture and 7 apprentices (most of them past students) at the Invermere Community Greenhouse site, to do a design blitz. We had three days to [...]

Below I have put together a video about a tool that every designer should be familiar with. It is called a solar pathfinder. I use this tool in almost every consultancy that I do and it not only [...]

Last weekend both Jordan and I had an amazing opportunity to be part of Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture’s Design Team, participating in an applied Design Practicum at the Groundswell [...]

Part 7: Sara Haney and Chrissy Begus   Sara Haney and Chrissy Begus are piecing together the puzzle of sustainability through their education company Puzzle Permaculture, which currently [...]

Verge’s Grads in Action Series: Part 4 – Juli & Jeff Gillies Juli and Jeff Gillies are demonstrating a wide array of permaculture homesteading techniques on their 5 acre parcel [...]

Over the past few years, our goal has been to slowly retrofit our 25 year old house into a little urban permaculture homestead. Most recently, we brought in Simple Solar to install a solar hot [...]

This blog was contributed by current PDC student, Vanessa Hanel. Weekend #1: Getting Started & Compost Piles After waiting for what seems like forever, attending various courses and talks, [...]

Joshua McWilliam is a past student and is currently working on a novel called “Mr Permaculture”. This article is an excerpt from his book.  “Move them a stack at a time, then you [...]

If you’ve been following permaculture in Calgary, then you’ve probably been hearing about Permablitz – the transformation of lawns into productive, abundant landscapes. You may be [...]

Well we had an absolute blast teaching the Calgary part time PDC this year and it is hard to believe that it is over! During the course we designed the Mustard Seed rooftop garden, surveyed and [...]

Fun of summer camp meets four year course on healing degraded landscapes... this is the Gull Lake Permaculture Design Course, and here are photos from our 2010 course.

This is part two of a four part series about two Canadian permaculture enthusiasts and their three month journey exploring, visiting and learning about the what’s going on in the [...]

What is the difference between soil and dirt? Soil is alive. Dirt is dead. A single teaspoon of soil can contain billions of microscopic bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes. A handful of the [...]

This is part one of a four part series about Rob & Michelle’s three month journey exploring, visiting and learning about the what’s going on in the permaculture scene in [...]

 History has shown time and time again that civilizations have risen and fallen based on the quantity and health of their topsoil. Since food is the basis of civilization and topsoil is the basis [...]

In August 2008, my wife Michelle and I returned to Calgary, Canada, after spending one year travelling abroad in search of sustainability solutions. With backgrounds in mechanical engineering, [...]

Another food forest installation in Calgary – yipee! The group of students from our Springtime Introduction to Permaculture class taught through Clean Calgary got together one beautiful [...]

Graham Bell lives and works in the Scottish Borders with his wife wife Nancy where he raised two children, Ruby and Sandy. Over the last 30+ years he has built a legendary forest garden that [...]