The Utopia Experiment: A radical crash course in self-sufficient living

It's June in the Highlands, just outside Inverness. The weather is only slightly short of disgusting, I've spent the last 12 hours on a night bus from London and I'm marching under the weight of a rucksack into a small farmstead that will be my home for the next month. The reason: to take part in an experiment in self-sufficient living that, if all goes to plan, will give me the tools to survive if civilisation as we know it suddenly collapses.

The Utopia Experiment, which started in April and will run until October next year, has been devised by Dylan Evans, 41, formerly a senior lecturer in robotics at the University of the West of England. Dylan believes oil shortages, global economic depression and climate change will soon combine to bring our current way of life to its knees. Some 200 volunteers, of whom I am now one, will take part in his experiment, on a some-in, some-out basis. The community lives in Mongolian-style yurts and washes either in the icy stream or in one-half of an old whisky barrel. Cooking is done on a wood-burning Rayburn. TV, fridges and freezers don't exist. Crops must be grown and animals looked after so that, eventually, Utopia becomes a self-sufficient bubble, freeof modern utilities.

Bizarrely, Dylan also thinks living like this will make us happier. We will be forced to live pastoral, localised lives, he reasons, where favours are the new currency and leisure time is as much a part of our days as work.

I'm not so sure. I arrive to a scene of scavenged bicycle parts and half-built buildings, a barn full of people whittling their own cutlery and a vast area of land given over to pigs, chickens and what must be 200 different types of vegetables.

For me, a 30-year-old journalist whose idea of hard labour is having to type slightly quicker to hit a deadline, it's a bit daunting. Confronted by dozens of enormous tree trunks waiting to be chopped for firewood, the prospect of having to cook for seven or eight people when I've never cooked for more than two before, and the fact that I'm a vegetarian in a protein-essential situation, all combine to make the skills I claim to possess – poetry writing and event documentation – suddenly seem woefully inadequate. I'm convinced I'm going to be the useless tag-along, the dead weight, the city boy with marshmallow hands.

One saving grace is that Utopia is not quite finished. There is still mains electricity, running water, gas and supermarket food. The real misery starts in September, by which time all food must come from the garden. Electricity will be withdrawn the next month, running water the month after.

Plus, my fears, of course, turn out to be groundless. I may not have known much about any of this at the beginning, but one of the main aspects of the experiment is to see how people learn and pass on the skills in self-sufficiency that those like me have forgotten. Some people will primarily be teachers, others students, and as long as I pull my weight I will be considered equal.

This has already been an issue on camp. One of the original volunteers has left behind a legacy of weirdness and laziness that all present are happy to expound on. "He was a chancer," says Tommy, a graffiti artist from Belfast. "He had these convenient ideas about The Great Spirit ordering him to avoid rectangles, which meant he couldn't work in the garden." It's an accusation I am keen to avoid. (The fact that four of my fingerprints appear to have been rubbed away and I can't look at a patch of dirt anymore without thinking it would be great for growing brassicas suggests I pulled my weight.)

I spend most of my time in the garden, mainly because I consider it the most urgent aspect of setting up a self-sufficient community. Others, though, have different priorities. Tommy is here to see how the artistic and cultural sides of the community develop, and gets straight down to painting a welcome sign. Graham, a 19-year-old architecture student, is keener to build things, and starts hammering together the compost bins. Carla is more experienced in communal living than any of us and moves between spinning wool, making cordial and salting the pork joints from one of our butchered pigs.

In fact there is evidence that, all through the project, new arrivals have been able and willing to slot into whatever gaps need filling, as well as discovering their own. Take Dougie, a 49-year-old from Aberdeen with wanderlust. Tommy and I quarrelled fiercely with him on two occasions after we thought he behaved rudely to visitors to Utopia. In those moments, I questioned whether someone so antagonistic was appropriate for the project. But during his week on site, Dougie collected armfuls of chanterelle mushrooms from nearby woods, picked winkles and mussels from the shoreline and introduced rabbit roadkill to the Utopian menu. Without him, Tommy and I, the only other volunteers, would have continued ignoring our surroundings as a potential source of food.

That kind of personal knowledge, I soon notice, passes quickly to other members of the community. Within a day I discover that dandelion roots and stinging nettles make nutritious side dishes when cooked correctly. A week passes and I am baking my own bread and making dinner for nine people. Two weeks in and I have built a bunkbed, made a chess set and put up a sturdy support for a clutch of runner beans. Indeed, it quickly becomes apparent that the major challenge at Utopia is not the learning, which is contagious: the more one does the more one feels liberated enough to continue doing.

No, the major challenge is to make sure volunteers continue applying the skills others bring even after they've left. Volunteers come only for between one and 12 weeks, so it would be easy for them to take their knowledge with them when they depart.

But hold on – surely that's where Dylan Evans' leadership and presence would be invaluable? Actually, he isn't here a lot, I am told. Evans, it transpires, has come and gone, physically and mentally, since the project began. He has also stopped providing funds for food and other necessities while Utopia becomes self-sufficient. He sold his house to finance the project and admits to spending irresponsibly at the start.

In fact, Dylan is the one thing that could dismantle the entire experiment. When the 17 tons of logs arrive, he can't talk for an hour for fear of how to cut them up. Later he admits that his anxieties ran deeper than just log-cutting. "The logs were symbolic of the enormity of what I'd taken on and I just froze. The volunteers understood at first, but..." He cuts out mid-sentence, overwhelmed by the reality. He also reveals that his concerns for society's future go no further than mass immigration and inflation. Not quite the apocalyptic vision on which Utopia is founded.

But, for now, Utopian life continues. Agric tends the crops. Tommy feeds the pigs and collects the eggs. Others arriving soon will oversee future projects, such as the construction of a hydro-power system in the stream and a root cellar for winter storage. It's unlikely that Dylan's mental hibernation will dramatically disrupt the day-to-day workings of the project, though it is frustrating for those on the ground. The fear is that he will pull the plug entirely, barely four months into an 18-month exercise.

I hope not. I have much yet to learn about the evil of cabbage root fly and the inner workings of a compost toilet. Ultimately, though, I suppose it will be Dylan Evans himself who learns the most from this project.

How you can live the good life too

* Search

All sorts of garden weeds, such as ground elder, sorrel, lamb's lettuce and yarrow, can be eaten in salads. Dandelion roots can be chopped up and fried, giant puffball mushrooms can be served up as steaks and stinging nettles can be made into a vitamin and protein-packed purée.

* Scavenge

Skips and rubbish dumps can provide all manner of useful things, including bicycle parts, planks of wood, boxes and garden tools.

* Gather

Old woods and fields are perfect breeding grounds for all sorts of edible fungi. Shorelines can be easily swept for winkles, mussels and cockles. Roadkill can be a cheap and easy alternative to expensive meat.

* Preserve

Drying meat involves nothing more than hanging it in a dry air space. Smoking it involves putting it into some smoke. Salting is more work, but worthwhile, and pickling helps see many foods through the winter.

* Build

Sheds, beds, tables and chairs are easy things to build yourself. If you've scavenged successfully you can save money and feel hugely satisfied with the end result.

* Grow

Many of us have forgotten that to grow vegetables, you just need to sow some seeds in a nice patch of soil. Then water occasionally. It's easy, fulfilling and you know where the veg has been and what's been done to it.

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