Storing Heat Underground in a Geo Solar System

As an engineer and permaculture designer living in a cold-climate, I am particularly fascinated with the interplay between thermodynamics and design and with capturing “waste” energy [...]

Using A Drone In Permaculture Design

Until recently, going to google maps, to get a birds eye view of a location was the default option for many Permaculture Practitioners and Consultants, but the main limitation was it could not be [...]

Urban Swales Part 2: Construction, Spillways & Catchbasins

This second video in the urban swales series looks at permaculture design with water as the primary consideration. Here I work on redirecting water passively from roofs and topsoil overflow areas [...]

Urban Swales Part 1: Weeping Tile & Mulched Pathways

Last year, we did a series of videos looking at the swale systems on our property and demonstration site. Part one looks at how we’ve combined the featuress of a Hügelkultur system, a [...]

Our Permaculture Homestead – Video Tour

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, [...]

The Eco-Transformation of Our Home – Video E-Course

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 [...]

Gains From Catching Rain In Drains: A Video Explanation Of The Rain Tank Project

In this video Rob showcases one of the major water harvesting feature – an underground rainwater cistern – on Rob and Michelle’s urban home property. This rain tank is unique because [...]

The Case for Earth Repair Businesses

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 [...]

Summer Greenhouse Update, Plus How We’d Design the Next One!

Our How we designed our Solar Greenhouse blog is one of the most read blogs on our website, so I thought it was time for an update! This post will cover the benefits of our greenhouse, the [...]

Mr. Permaculture

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 [...]

After the Permablitz…

First you make the decision to transform your lawn from resource-draining grass to productive and regenerative food system. Then you get a friendly permaculture designer to help you with the [...]

The Mustard Seed Garden: Progress Update

This article was written by Jessica Kavanaugh “Building community, growing hope, supporting change” is the mission of the Mustard Seed, a non-profit Calgary organization that works to help the [...]

How We Designed Our Solar Greenhouse

We live and garden on an urban lot in Calgary, Canada, located on the 51st parallel north and approximately 80 km east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies. This northern climate presents [...]

Rob’s DIY Vermipod

For some time now I’ve been anxious to get a worm composting system for our kitchen scraps to turn our “waste” into a valuable resource – soil! Inspired by some pretty neat worm systems [...]

Australian Permaculture Tour – Part II

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 [...]

Zaytuna Farm Yields

 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 [...]

Grass is sooo 80’s!

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 [...]