permaculture

[Richard Archer <permaculture@juggernaut.com.au>]

At 4:38 PM -0500 28/1/07, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:

>Could someone define the Permaculture zones as described in current PC
>literature and
>taught in PDC's?


Here's the section about zones from the handout of the recent
Mollison/Lawton PDC. The Designer's Manual is still the main
reference for zone


ZONES

It is useful to consider the site as a series of zones which
can be concentric rings or a single pathway through the system
starting with the home centre and working out.

The placement of elements in each zone depends on importance,
priorities and number of visits needed for each element. e.g.
the chicken house is visited every day so it needs to be close
(but not necessarily next to the house). A herb spiral would
be next to the kitchen.

Zone 1:
Home centre
Herbs
Vegetable garden
Most buildings
Very intensive
Starts at back door

Zone 2:
Intensive cultivation of main crop
Heavily mulched orchard
Well maintained
Mainly grafted and selected species
Dense planting
Use of stacking and storey system design
Some animals: chickens, ducks, pigeons
Multi-purpose walks: collect eggs, milk, distribute scraps
Cut animal forage

Zone 3:
Connects to Zones 1 and 2 for easy access
May add goats, sheep, geese, bees, dairy cows
Plant hardy trees and native species
Ungrafted for later selection and grafting
Animal forage
Self-forage systems: poultry forest, etc
Spot mulching, rough mulching
Trees protected with cages and strip fencing
Nut tree forests

Zone 4:
Long term development
Timber for building
Timber for firewood
Mixed forestry systems
Watering minimal
Feeding minimal
Some introduced animals: cattle, deer, pigs

Zone 5:
Uncultivated wilderness
Regrowth area
Timber
Hunting



Also from my hand-scrawled notes:

- Establish zones such that often-used elements are closer to
  the centre of activity.

- Inner zones are the place to put elements with high value but
  which require significant levels of maintenance.

- Inner zones (1 and 2) are intensively monitored and maintained,
  and elements placed there should require frequent visits and
  maintenance.

- If an element thrives in the inner zones or does not require
  intensive maintenance, consider moving it to an outer zone
  where it should continue to do well without daily monitoring.

- Inner zones can be used to experiment with elements which may
  be useful but whose hardiness is suspect. Once proven they
  can be established in the appropriate outer zone.