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Help planning my permaculture garden

16 years ago

Hi all,

I want to do convert my yard into a permaculture garden (for lack of better terms)

Parts are already *traditional* gardens (bulb and perennials, and a traditional vegetable row garden. The existing gardens take up about 1/6 the space I want to use this year, using permaculture techniques.

I plan to grow a significant variety of herbs in herb spirals, several fruiting plants...strawberries, grapes, elderberries, raspberries, and perhaps a few fruit trees. In addition, I want to use companion planting techniques in growing a much broader selection of vegetables, as well as a number of wildflowers and native types of flowers.

I'm thinking spirals for the herbs...perhaps 3? and 2 spirals for strawberries, with 2 varieties...one in each spiral.

I was also thinking planting corn, squash, cucumbers, beans and peas using a 3 Sisters circle technique, with 20 or so circles.

Unfortunately, there is only snow to be seen for the most part, but here is my back yard, and the main area I'd like to convert to permaculture.

Here is a link that might be useful: back yard photos

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Comments (2)

Belgianpup
16 years ago
Start at front and back doors, and work your way outward.

One of them is likely to be warmer than the other (S or W), so put your herbs there. Most herbs are of Mediterranean origin, warm and dry. Lettuces and other salad ingredients can take some shade, so put them close to the other door. A little further out, put your vegetables. The closer your garden is to the house, the more attention it will get. Your berries don't need quite so much attention, so they can go further out. Your fruit trees need even less attention, so you could put them just beyond your berries.

Borrow Bill Mollison's permaculture books from the library (if they don't have them, ask if you can get them through an interlibrary loan). They have a lot of drawings that you can adapt. (Just remember that his north is your south.)

Bill Mollison's books:
Introduction to Permaculture
Permaculture
Permaculture Two
Permaculture: A Designer's Manual

Also there is Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway and John Todd, which is aimed at us temperate climate gardeners.

Sue
zengeos
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for the suggestions Sue.

I will probably place an herb spiral in front. I have foundation plantings and a flagstone style walkway in front and will likely place the spiral outside this existing area of plantings.

The back yard gardens will mostly be 25-30 feet behind the house as it's the North side of the house. I have an existing patio as well as an existing deck going out about 16 feet from the house, so my perm efforts will be further out. I've ordered and winter sown a large variety of herbs, many medicinal, as well as a large variety of vegetables, which I will be trying to grow in guilds with one another.

Right now I am leaning toward placing fruit trees further out, perhaps along the margins, with fruiting shrubs actually more along the perimeter of the garden in back, also, where the existing plantings of conifers are now...along the same line the existing arbor is placed.

Still, I am trying to stay away from the more linear/traditional row farming methods and look.

Mark-
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I think you can grow just about anything then, it's just a matter of a few things. Water retention, (or if you can water often enough) full sun, and nitrogen. For the nitrogen, apply and spread out a high Nitrogen based slow released granular fertilizer before you plant, and you should be good for the year. Or whatever high N based fertilizer you can get your hands on, nothing water soluble though, it's too much work trying to feed. The only crop I can think of that wont do the greatest in a foot of sandy soil is potatoes. Other then that, pretty much everything can be managed, a lot of it comes down to Nitrogen and keeping things watered, with sandy soil you tend to get a lot of drainage, which is good, but also a pain in the butt for moisture retention. You said it was a swamp area, so I'm assuming somehow it's retaining moisture? You said lettuce and root veg didn't grow well, If you tell me a bit more about the process, It would tell me alot about your soil and what's going on. How tall of tops are we talking about for your beets and carrots? and when did you plant the lettuce, and was it transplanted? When you grew the root veg, did you supplement with fertilizer, if so what was the NPK on it, and was it water soluble type? Did you feed often? Also, did you apply this same fertilizing techniques to your lettuce? Just a tip for next time, when you add soil or amend it with something, don't till the sand and mix it with what your amending, unless of course you only have 6 inches of topsoil to begin with. It's better to have a foot of soil, then 2 feet of soil that's heavily mixed with sand. 1 foot of soil that doesn't contain sand can really make a difference.
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