124. Permaculture Projects, Off-Grid Living and Community Teams

In episode 124 of The Permaculture Vine Podcast, host Cormac Harkin was joined by Lindsay Brandon of Permaculture Canada and Neal Hegarty from Lake Atitlán in Guatemala.

The conversation covered Lindsay’s current design projects and planned move into a school bus, approaches to managing human waste, Neal’s greywater work around Lake Atitlán, the selection of plants for riparian areas, and their experiences of building teams around permaculture projects.

Who’s at the Table

Lindsay Brandon joined from Calgary, where she had been based for 19 years. Through Permaculture Canada, she was working on projects with a First Nations community on Vancouver Island, an agricultural and guest accommodation property outside Calgary, and a women’s wellness retreat centre and residence in Oaxaca. She was also preparing to move into a school bus in British Columbia.

Neal Hegarty joined from Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. He was working from his farm and collaborating with local people, farmers, nonprofit organisations and the municipality of San Pedro on greywater, planting and land regeneration projects. He was also running a training community connecting landowners with developing designers and teachers.

Current Permaculture Canada Projects

Lindsay described a First Nations project on Vancouver Island that began in May. The work involved meeting members of the community, discussing their vision for the future and exploring how permaculture could be incorporated into their communities. It also included conversations about ancestral knowledge and connections between elders and younger people.

Outside Calgary, she was working on a small agricultural property that also operates as a luxury bed-and-breakfast rental with horses. The property includes an adobe house, and Lindsay was preparing to collect drone footage for the base maps she would use in the design.

Her third main project was a women’s wellness retreat centre and residence on a site of just under five acres near Salchi and Zipolite in Oaxaca. She was collaborating with Scott Howard of Earth in Hand, who was expected to build earthen homes as part of the project. They had recently completed a site visit together.

Preparing to Live in a School Bus

Lindsay was preparing to leave Calgary and move into a converted school bus in the mountains of British Columbia. Although the bus had already been adapted for accommodation, she planned to remove bunk beds and create an office, music table and library area. A damaged bed frame also needed to be replaced because of concerns about water damage and air quality.

The planned off-grid setup included solar panels, a Blue Eddy power unit with an additional battery, a solar-powered cooler and a propane on-demand water heater. The aim was to have enough stored power for approximately three days, depending on available sunlight.

The bus was not running, despite attempts to identify a possible fuel-pump problem. Its tyres were also too worn for a journey through the Rocky Mountains. The immediate plan was therefore to transport it on a flatbed, while retaining the longer-term aim of getting it running so that it could be moved around the property.

Lindsay was also considering whether to move the collection of fruit and support plants currently growing in her Calgary garden. The collection included cherries, haskaps, currants, gooseberries, grapes, hops and buffalo berry, with around 53 berry bushes planted in a small area.

Toilets and Human-Waste Composting

The school bus did not have a toilet system. Lindsay discussed beginning with either a simple bucket toilet and a three-stage composting arrangement or a pit toilet.

She described the three-stage approach as filling one composting area, leaving it to rest and moving on to the next. This would allow the material to remain in place over a number of years before being used as compost.

Cormac described several systems he had encountered. One directed solid waste into a large container containing composting worms, while urine was separated and passed through a reed bed. Another used replaceable wheelie bins beneath a raised toilet, with sawdust added after use. Full bins could then be moved aside and left to process while another bin was placed beneath the toilet.

Lindsay had seen a wheelie-bin arrangement used at a gathering in Panama. She recalled that the toilets were continuously maintained, the bins were changed regularly and the system produced little smell. For her own site, she expected to use sawdust and said that protecting the surrounding watershed would be a primary consideration.

Greywater Work at Lake Atitlán

Neal described a kitchen greywater project that had been operating successfully before the work expanded into a larger collaboration with the municipality of San Pedro.

The municipality had asked him to examine a beachfront area intended to become an eco-park. The site had large streams of dirty greywater entering a narrow section of beach. An existing proposal involved placing the water in a pipe and carrying it farther into the lake.

Neal asked the municipality to consider alternatives. Working with Jeremy and others, he helped develop a riparian planting design intended to intercept and use the water before it entered the lake. Municipal representatives visited existing projects, including work completed through Water for Life, before deciding to support the approach.

Public posts about the work brought offers of assistance. This led to the development of a volunteer programme in which visitors could help with local projects and learn while participating.

The work included municipal projects, food forests created with Indigenous neighbours, and interception and irrigation systems on farms with greywater streams passing through them.

Riparian Plants and Public Criticism

Some public criticism focused on the use of a plant that was not endemic to the Lake Atitlán area. Neal said the plant was believed to have been brought there by the Aztecs and had been planted for several decades through programmes involving an Indigenous-led nonprofit and a government organisation.

He described the plant as growing in shallow water along the shoreline, providing habitat and performing well near places where contaminated water entered the lake. The volunteer group participated in planting days organised by the local organisations rather than selecting and introducing the plant independently.

The criticism expanded into broader claims about non-native plants, colonisation and gentrification. Neal responded publicly to some of the comments and acknowledged that his sarcastic responses increased the engagement around the dispute.

Cormac and Neal also discussed the difference between removing established non-native plantings at once and changing them gradually. Neal referred to Brendan Guinan’s approach of thinning pine and cypress plantations over time, using the timber for construction and introducing cattle as more light became available.

Travel, Design Work and Permaculture as a Lifestyle

Lindsay was considering several forthcoming trips. She had been invited to speak at a conference in Thailand, although the cost and timing still needed to be assessed. She planned to travel to Brazil to study capoeira and was due to speak about permaculture and lifestyle at the Eclipse Festival in Iceland.

She explained that frequent travel was one reason for leaving her rented home. Maintaining a house in Calgary no longer suited the amount of time she spent away, while the school bus offered lower overheads and a base that could accommodate her design work, podcasting, instruments and art supplies.

Neal contrasted this with his current decision to remain at Lake Atitlán while his children were young. Staying in one place had allowed several of his projects, working relationships and training activities to begin operating together.

Filming Soñado at Lake Atitlán

Neal also spoke about appearing in a short film called Soñado. The filmmaker had previously attended a permaculture course at Neal’s farm and later wrote a film set there, with Neal playing a version of himself.

The production was filmed on the farm and at other projects around Lake Atitlán. Several years later, it was accepted into a series of film festivals, including the Dances With Films festival in Los Angeles. Neal travelled to Los Angeles for the screening, where he saw the completed film and reconnected with the cast.

Connecting Landowners, Designers and Volunteers

Neal’s training community had recently attracted more landowners alongside people learning to become designers and teachers. This created opportunities to connect properties requiring design, teaching or implementation work with developing practitioners.

Some longer-term participants had also begun mentoring newer members through their first designs. The programme used Concepts for drawing and design work and Loom for recording screens, sharing material and reviewing projects.

Participants in the training programme sometimes stayed at Neal’s farm for two or three months, while volunteers generally stayed for one or two weeks. The trainees worked with the volunteers as projects were implemented.

Neal described a wider organisational model involving a physical location, a designer, a teacher, an event manager and a project-management team. In his current working relationship with Jeremy, Neal focused on design, content, storytelling and attracting suitable clients, while Jeremy managed implementation, budgets and workers.

Different Approaches to Building Teams

Cormac described previous attempts to bring teams together that became stalled by disagreements about how decisions should be made. His preference was for clearly assigned areas of responsibility, allowing each person to manage their own part of the work.

Neal said team-building required leadership, marketing, storytelling and the creation of value for the people involved. He also emphasised autonomous teams working towards a shared objective and allocating decisions according to people’s abilities.

Lindsay said the Permaculture Canada team had developed around people who already wanted to participate. Her initial aim had been to find regenerative practitioners across Canada and connect people who were working separately. Rather than actively recruiting or converting people, she worked with those who approached her because they were interested in the project.

Cormac’s Urban Property Projects

Cormac described the sequence of projects underway at his own property. He was using the shed as a temporary podcast space while preparing to install electricity and internet. Once the garage roof was replaced, the podcast studio and workshop could move into the garage, allowing the shed to become a cinema room for the children.

He was also preparing to document work on his small urban plot, including the front-yard food forest and a greenhouse build. The focus was on what could be completed by a busy parent with limited time.

Cormac was currently concentrating on consultations rather than full designs. His approach began with observing what was already present on an urban property, then considering small starting points such as a salad bed, building soil and processing household waste. He was also planning a workshop for repairs and other waste-reduction work connected to his engineering background.

Closing

This episode covered Lindsay’s current Permaculture Canada projects and preparations for living off-grid in a school bus, practical options for managing human waste, and Neal’s expanding greywater and riparian work around Lake Atitlán.

The conversation also included the response to non-endemic plants used along the lakeshore, Neal’s appearance in Soñado, the relationship between landowners, designers and volunteers, different approaches to organising teams, and Cormac’s plans for his own urban property and consultation work.

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