Our Permaculture Design
Now that spring is coming into full swing with the grass finally turning green and the daffodils in flower, I thought it would be fun to go over what I've been doing all winter!
Besides practicing the piano and guitar, taking courses in Permaculture, Gardening, Herbal Medicine and Composting and reading a ton, I was able to finish our Permaculture Design for the homestead. Well, it will never really be finished as it will always be changing and evolving since nature is never stagnant. And what's great on paper may not always work out in practice, but it's enough to get things in motion as well as show us the big picture.
One of the most important permaculture principles when designing your land is to observe. Ideally at least a year before you do anything that's going to be permanent. (That's the great thing about taking a PDC. You see the world so differently. You notice which way the wind is coming from and the angle of the sun in different seasons, animal tracks and sounds, things that are normally taken for granted.) A good way of organizing all of this is to use the scale of permanence, which is a way to analyze a site by breaking it down into different elements from hardest to change to easiest. So I created a base map and using information I found online and observing the land in person through the seasons and changes in weather, documented the scale of permanence factors one by one.
Base Map
A base map is a drawing made for a defined purpose portraying a piece of ground and its critical site features at an appropriate scale with an acceptable level of accuracy. You can draw your own or get your base map from Google Maps and Google Earth. Luckily Vermont has an Agency of Natural Resource website that has a lot of good information such as contours, soil type, geology etc. Then I just used Photoshop to make my layers. There are other programs that make things look prettier but I didn't want to spend time learning how to use them.
Climate and Land Shape
We live in Milton, Vermont, our usda zone is 4b/5a and our elevation is about 650ft. The 12.5 acre property is on the middle of a mountain on a northwest facing slope and it gets 39 inches of rain that is pretty evenly distributed. We are surrounded by forest and an organic maple farm that is 2000 acres. I am only showing the 4 open acres of land on the map, but the remaining 8.5 acres is wooded and we will use that for firewood, mushroom production and eventually build small hiking/biking trails. I’ve included in my base map contour lines, access and permanent structures such as the house, sheds and septic tank.
Water
The next step was to observe how water flows on our land.
There is no stream or river running through our site so we get our water from a well. It's 420ft deep and pumps 200gpm. The roof of our house, breezeway, and garage equal about 3400 sq ft, so we could potentially get some catchment for water storage. When it rains, our access road gets eroded pretty bad after awhile. We will split the maintenance between our 2 other neighbors to get it regraded a couple of times per year. Ideally you would find a property with access on contour to minimize erosion but no property will be perfect so you will have to compromise. In the spring, there are a couple of places where water pools up. There's a spot next to the garage that is wet and leads to a ditch that drains away from the house down to the bottom of the hill from where our fruit trees are located. The meadow also gets wet during the spring.
For more water resilience we plan on installing the Simple Pump we bought the end of last year (a manual pump where you can still use your piping in case the electricity goes out), IBC totes or rain barrels for storage, and a pond below the orchard. If the pond is possible, we won't be able to afford to put it in for a couple of years but I can dream until then.
Wind
The site does tend to get pretty windy at times so that's a good opportunity for a turbine in the future. There are 4 big windmills at the top of the mountain. The winds come from all directions, so far we've had SE, W and NW all in this month! A good website to track wind directions is www.windytv.com.
Our 4 year old orchard is exposed on the west side and maybe a little on the south so we plan on installing a windbreak to block the west winds. Unfortunately, the previous owners had cut down 30 windbreak trees that helped block the wind from the house. They left the few pines and spruces because they got tired.
Sun
It's a good idea to take pictures every season to see where the shade is so you know what to plant where. You could also use www.suncalc.com to find where the sun is anytime of the year. Here is the sun path on the Summer Solstice:
And the Winter Solstice:
Slope
The NW slope of our land is about 12%. You can calculate it by using Google Earth, add a path, right click it and then select Elevation profile. Steep slopes like 30% should always be kept in forest to prevent erosion.
Microclimates and Current Use Areas
We currently have a garden that's all the way on the other side of the property. It also has blackberries and blueberries. We plan to install raised beds in front of the house and do most of the gardening there.
The meadow is next to the garden. We would like to keep it a meadow for now for the pollinators and will only brush hog part of it every 3 years or so to keep it from becoming a forest.
The orchard is where we would like most of our food. I'm planning on turning it into a Martin Crawford type of forest garden. Since the orchard is already in rows and each tree is spaced 20ft apart from each other on all sides, it would probably be easier to keep it as just an orchard but my husband and I really love the aesthetics of a forest garden. We like the idea of outdoor rooms and spaces, so we would like to have multiple pergolas and arbors and places to relax. There are 4 year old apples, pears, peaches and plums. The apples and pears are producing barely, but nothing from the plums and peaches yet. The peaches are in bad shape with peach borer and I'm not sure they are fit for this zone. Most of the tags have blown off and I have no idea what the cultivars of the trees are so I'm not sure how big they will get. All I know is the previous owner got them from Home Depot. There are also three mature apple trees as well as one wild apple that should produce nicely after being pruned.
The bedrock of the land is quartzite and we have Peru fine sandy loam for soil. The soil test from the lab shows that the pH is 5.5. We are told that to raise the pH we would have to lime the area, but since that harms the soil food web, I'm going to try Dr. Elaine Ingham's compost method first and see how that goes. We also plan to mulch around the trees with compost, cardboard and wood chips.
Vegetation
We are surrounded by a maple farm so we know sugar maples do well, as well as basswood. We have one chestnut and I've sent a sample to the American Chestnut Society, I am not sure if it has blight or not. We have a wild apple tree as well as autumn olives and wild grapes. We also have pines and spruce in the middle of the property. Along with the fruit trees we already have, I would like to plant another chestnut, paw paw, mulberry, hazelnut, black walnut, seaberry, elderberry, gooseberry, black locust, etc. As well as an herb garden of echinacea, lavender, chamomile and whatever else grows in this climate.
Views and Soundscapes
We like all of our views except for our neighbors right across from us. No offense to them because our neighbors are thankfully very cool, but we like the enclosed private feeling. We would like to plant a privacy screen all along the access road. We initially wanted to plant a seaberry hedge, but since we want privacy all year round I was thinking to plant an evergreen hedge.
Our sunset view from the mature apple trees
We hear coyotes, owls, frogs, crickets and birds most of the time. We also hear the train a couple times a day and every now and then the windmills. They don't bother us too much since we've moved from NJ.
Animal paths
We have many animals on our site. We have seen wild turkeys, rabbits, deer, frogs, mice and birds. We hear coyotes and owls frequently. The deer have been eating the fruit trees and our main concern is protecting them. We are conflicted about the kind of fencing to get. I would like to keep it as natural as possible so would prefer living hedges. Ideally would like to create a black locust or willow hedge around the entire property. Besides that being a ton of work, we also need something for the fruit trees now and we are torn between a man made 8ft fence or individually protecting each tree until they get above deer browse. But if we're planting a forest garden with multiple layers, the whole thing will need to be protected from rabbits and moles as well.
Design
And finally, the design! After taking all of this information into account I can then strategically place our elements in areas where they make sense. Another permaculture concept is Zones, where things you visit everyday are kept close to the house like kitchen gardens and things that are visited only once a year or so are kept further from the house like a timber/coppice stand.
As you can see, there are a million things that are planned. But it's a 10-20 year plan to accommodate for time, energy and the most limiting, our budget.
So our estimated breakdown by year will be:
2017
Evergreen privacy screen - DONE!
Switch pellet stove to wood stove
Drainage ditch for road?
Plant shrubs & trees - Chestnuts, Black Walnuts, Elderberry, Autumn Olives, Lilacs, Roses, Hardy kiwi
Rain catchment system using IBC totes
Protect blueberries from birds - DONE!
Harvest & preserve fruits & vegetables - DONE!
Forage for food & medicine - DONE!
Raised beds
Compost bins
Dog composting area
Pathway to front door
Nursery
Paint interior
Fix cracked foundation - DONE!
Fix basement leak
2018
Chickens for eggs
Mushroom logs
Arbor & Wisteria
Chop firewood
Medicinal Herb Garden
Start trail building
Tap maples for maple syrup
Prune fruit trees & berry bushes
Mulch fruit trees & berry bushes
Compost tea sprays for orchard 3x
Mulch 2 rows of orchard to prepare for cover crop next year
Plant perennial layer of forest garden
Vegetable garden
Harvest & preserve fruits & vegetables
Forage for food & medicine
Living fence
Nursery
2019
Pond & rock path
Root cellar
Plant weeping willow & mulberry trees
Trail building
Chop firewood
Tap maples for maple syrup
Prune fruit trees & berry bushes
Mulch fruit trees & berry bushes
Compost tea sprays for orchard 3x
Mulch 2 rows of orchard to prepare for cover crop next year
Plant perennial layer of forest garden
Vegetable garden
Chickens for eggs
Mushroom logs
Harvest & preserve fruits & vegetables
Forage for food & medicine
Living fence
Nursery
2020
Flagstone patio
Deck?
Build pergola
Beekeeping?
Trail building
Chop firewood
Tap maples for maple syrup
Prune fruit trees & berry bushes
Mulch fruit trees & berry bushes
Plant perennial layer of forest garden
Compost tea sprays for orchard 3x
Vegetable garden
Chickens for eggs
Mushroom logs
Harvest & preserve fruits & vegetables
Forage for food & medicine
Living fence
Nursery
2021
Greenhouse
Trail building
Chop firewood
Tap maples for maple syrup
Prune fruit trees & berry bushes
Mulch fruit trees & berry bushes
Plant perennial layer of forest garden
Compost tea sprays for orchard 3x
Vegetable garden
Chickens for eggs
Beekeeping
Mushroom logs
Harvest & preserve fruits & vegetables
Forage for food & medicine
Living fence
Nursery
Future
Solar panels
Wind turbine
Solar hot water
Renovate house - new roof, new green siding, vaulted ceiling, loft
Wood cookstove or masonry stove
Wood fired hot tub
Labyrinth
Treehouse
So there you have it. Our permaculture design plan. (If everything sounded like gibberish to you don't worry! It did to us as well not too long ago. See the Courses section at the bottom if you're interested in learning more). Now I know I'm probably overestimating everything we can do each year in terms of time, energy and money. Everything we would like costs a ridiculous amount of cash. Homesteading is not cheap. Plus if we are going to convince our friends and family of this lifestyle, we'd like it to be aesthetically pleasing as well. I would love to say we're crafty and resourceful and are going to be able to do everything ourselves, but we're not. And if we wait until we are, it won't get done. I know my limitations. So there will be things we'll either have to save like crazy for, like some of the unnecessary things such as a labyrinth and treehouse (my childhood dreams) or we'll just have to do without them. Not having kids, foregoing buying fancy cars and fashionable clothes, cutting way back on travel (excluding this year because we'll be getting it out of our system but then going forward only local adventures because you know, carbon footprint and all that), and possibly renting out some of the empty rooms are ways we can try to finance these crazy projects. The last one will be a challenge, since we're pretty private people and our home is our sanctuary. Our roommates are going to have to be into permaculture, introverted and get along with our crazy rescue pups for it to work. Only time will tell but who knows, we can completely change goals, directions, etc. as we learn more each year.
Courses I've taken or am currently taking:
Permaculture Apprentice Farm Design Course by William Horvath - If you can't afford the time or money for a full on 2 week PDC this is definitely the course to take. He breaks everything down step by step in layman's terms. Even after I had already taken 2 PDC's there was still so many things I didn't understand. Not because they weren't explained well mind you, but because the information was so massive and overwhelming that I couldn't absorb all of it at the time. William's course is organized in a way that makes it manageable and so you can apply it to your own land. Most of my information above was from this course.
Permaculture Gardening Course by Matt Powers - Another teacher who makes things easy enough for a child to understand and won't break the budget. I'm currently halfway through and have learned so much about the gardening aspect specifically. I haven't taken his online PDC but it looks awesome and his books Permaculture Student 1 and 2 are spectacular. Way better than reading Bill Mollison's Permaculture A Design Manual, which is the Permaculture Bible but is like a college science textbook.
Whole Systems Design PDC - A must if you're ready for hands on application. I admit we probably weren't as ready as I would have liked to be because it was so intensive, but nevertheless it was mind blowing and life changing. Nothing beats seeing paradise with your own two eyes. Three months later we moved to Vermont.
Geoff Lawton's Online PDC - Geoff was my introduction to this world. I didn't really understand a thing at the time but it showed me a world that was possible and gave me hope. Online doesn't compare to an in person course, but this walks through each chapter of Bill Mollison's Permaculture A Design Manual and gives you the DVDs so you can go back and refer to them. Now going through them, I understand a whole lot more.
Herbal Academy Intro & Intermediate Herbal Online Courses - A detailed intro into the world of Herbal Medicine! I'm currently on the Intermediate Course.
LearningHerbs Taste of Herbs Course - Great herbal course dividing herbal actions into taste. Bitter, sweet, salty, sour & pungent.
Wisdom of the Herbs School by Annie McCleary - Again, nothing beats hands on experience. I struggle to get the online and book knowledge to stick. This course helped solidify all of the information in my foggy brain. Plus it combines herbalism as well as foraging. We even learned how to make rope out of plants and start a fire using a bow drill! Learning real skills such as plant ID, homesteading, and making medicine has helped me feel more confident in my ability to be more self-reliant, physically, mentally and spiritually. Annie is one of the sweetest people I have ever met and she creates such a safe and welcoming environment. I looked forward to meeting with my group once a month and miss bonding with all of the ladies. I hope we have a reunion soon!
Other Resources
The Permaculture Student 1 & 2 by Matt Powers
Creating a Forest Garden by Martin Crawford
Edible Forest Gardens by David Jacke with Eric Toensmeier
Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway
The Resilient Farm and Homestead by Ben Falk
Permaculture Design A step by step guide by Aranya