Aspiring Permaculture Entrepreneur

Hello Im Bruce. I've been inspired, which is new for me and finished a PDC course at Midwest Permaculture in Nebraska, which is where I live and they gave me a piece of paper saying that I can do permaculture stuff, so Im gonna. So Im in that transition phase. I'll keep my job for rest of year, replace it with easier job so Im not exhausted when doing permaculture stuff, save cash, after work I attend permaculture school, which is me doing projects at my bosses land, my grandmas residence, my apartment, plus I study related info. My lifes pursuit is exhausting. I work outside and actually my adult working life, accidentally, is very conducive to permaculture related stuff. Which is cool cuz I thought most of it sucked. See permaculture makes things better. Ha, I work full time or more and attend full time school at the university of nature, anyways...


So could someone tell me or point me to a resource that covers the legal side as far as if a single dude with a truck and a dream wanted to get hired to say install a rain catchment, or convert Granmas yard into a permaculture oasis, what's the legal side. Tax codes, insurance. For instance, hypothetically grandmas is paying me minimum wage and covering needed material expense when I work on projects at her house. Thats right Im grandmas gardener and technically social security is funding permaculture. Probably the only way I'll get any social security, bazing. Grandma is doing this because she supports permaculture and grown ass men shouldn't work for free. Hypothetically it's just a cash job but if I was doing it "for real" what would I need to do to suffice the bureaucracy gods i.e. cover my ass?

I guess I could give permaculture classes and teach by doing? But then what do PDC teachers tell the IRS?

So I met this cool couple http://urbanedenkc.blogspot.com/ at the PDC course and they are square foot gardeners and they do yard maintenance stuff to all the while suggesting to clients permaculture ideas. So I plan on getting certified in things that will allow me to learn, practice, and teach permaculture. Like PDC which I have, square foot gardening, master gardener...other stuff I havent found out about yet.

Thank you for your time.
Bruce

welcome, Bruce, wishing you the best. I don't do anything along the lines of making money with permaculture, so I can't be of much help there but there are those on here that can be. I'm glad to see more and more people becoming involved with reaching out with permaculture.

Thanks for the wishes. Yeah theres a little pocket of permaculture in Nebraska which I haven't tapped yet and really didn't even know about but I'm slowly networking.

I have wondered many of the same things since I took my PDC a few years ago. My goal is to teach Permaculture full time but I'm not sure how to get there. We are talking about trying our hand at a micro nursery next year. I'm also thinking of putting together an Intro to Permaculture class, just so I can start to get my feet wet and see what kind of interest there is. Permaculture is not well known here although there is some interest. In the meantime we are continuing to work on our own Permaculture projects and listening to all of Paul's podcasts.

I went to a 2 day training w/ Midwest Permaculture in Omaha (am planning to do the certificate this next summer), but at that training there were several people who said that they were interested, but just didn't feel ready to implement permaculture into their own yards. I think landscaping and design services are probably a great way to start, but I also think that maybe partnering with the master gardeners class from UNL extension services, or teaching a non-credit class at Metro might get you more exposure to the general permies.

I live in Omaha, and although don't have any certificate I have tried to implement some ideas into my own yard, like a rain garden, guilds, rain barrels, hugelkulture bed, polycultures for annuals etc. I would love to tag along and see what you do so I can get some new ideas and a better working knowledge of permaculture.

You dont need to do any paperwork. You are simple a self-employed landscaper.
When you do your taxes state that and they will tax the money twice. You might end up owning money though.

The government would really perfer if you pay your taxes ever 3 months though.
Seeing as how you dont own anything if someone sues you they cant really get any money from you.
You could however incorporate and if someone sues due to the work that you have done they can only get to the money/assets that the company has.
The gov will still tax you twice, and you can still claim the same amount of business related expense(phone, gas, internet, PC, etc), so no taxes on that.
It would also be nice if you where bonded and insured so that if something happens the insurance company would pay the bill.

It would probably benefit you to take a course or do some research on owning and operating a small business. In many towns, there are organizations run by volunteers to help entrepreneurs get a business started.

Julie