Grow a Sustainable Diet: Planning and Growing to Feed Ourselves and the Earth Read Online Free PDF Page B

for flowers and herbs, in addition to the vegetable beds. The redesign had three 100 ft 2 beds for vegetables that rotated together and three 50 ft 2 vegetable beds that rotated, along with a couple of smaller spots for vegetables and a coldframe. Along the north side is the chicken pen fence. When I divided the chicken pen into different areas, one for composting, I decided to make a gate from the garden into the compost area of the pen. For easier access, I needed a new path. This new design gave me an opportunity to put in some keyhole beds ( Figure 2.5 ). It had seven 50 ft 2 beds in rotation, including one for compost. I added apples to cordon in the southeast corner. As they grew they were trained along horizontal supports to form a fence.

    Figure 2.6. Garden Map 2013
    A few years later I needed space for the solar dryers I’d built so we wouldn’t have to move them to mow. In addition, although the keyhole beds were okay, the 4′ wide beds were easier for me to manage. This called for another redesign. I’ve now made a space for the solar dryers in this garden and converted the two keyholes beside the path to the chicken composting area to 4′ wide beds. The keyhole bed on the otherside of the garden is also gone. I no longer devote a bed for compost in this garden. With access to the chicken composting area right at hand, that’s where the compost materials go. The 3′ × 6′ coldframe needed to be rebuilt. The new one is 4′ × 8′. Bed #1 is smaller now and out of the rotation. Strawberries are planned for that spot. That upper right corner is still evolving — food forest style. A grape vine is going in, for sure, and some other perennials.
    Only you can decide what size to make your garden beds. A uniform area in each bed, no matter what shape, makes it easier to plan rotations and to anticipate seed needs and yields, which I’ll talk about in coming chapters.
    Permaculture Plan
    Now, I want you to draw another map. This time make it a map of your whole property. Your house, driveway, and outbuildings will be in it. You will be in it. You will be considering all of it when you grow your sustainable diet. I call this map your permaculture plan. You will remember that in Chapter 1 I defined permaculture as a design system whereby all the energies within a system are used to maximum efficiency. On this map you can identify niches for certain things that are just the right size and microclimate, even if they aren’t in your main garden area. A protected area for a fig tree or a spot for herbs by the back door are examples of this. You can also use this map to help identify places to store equipment and crops. The Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture is a good resource to consult when making a map such as this.
    We usually look out at our property from our houses. In order to really look at your property with new eyes, go to different corners of the property and look from there. Take plenty of pictures. Go over to your neighbor’s house and look from there. Your home and gardens will definitely look different from their yard. You might also discover that the junk you put behind your shed so you wouldn’t see it is in full view of the neighbors when they sit on their deck. When you are cleaning out your gutters, take a camera up that ladder with you and take pictures of your property from above. We have a sandbox that we maintain for youngvisitors and it has a roof over top for children to climb up to. Atop that sandbox is my favorite place to photograph my garden at various times of the growing season.
    Observe your property at different times of the year. If you live in an area that gets snow, take pictures as the snow melts. Where does it melt first? That’s your warm spot. Where does it linger after everywhere else looks like spring is coming? That is not the place to plant your early spring crops. As the sun gets higher in the sky, trees and buildings will cast shorter shadows. I have my solar