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  • From: Jay Woods <woodsjay@cox.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Permaculture in the Longer Term
  • Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 05:06:14 -0500

It crossed my mind that the way I am organizing is to use zones crossed
with the wedge approach and this is efficient for only a few years and
unstable beyond 100 years.

I have 1 acre around the house with a size of 400 feet N-S and 100 feet
E-W with the house at the center. The acre has been split into 4 square
blocks with the plantings zoned by height (with increasing height to the
N as usual) in each block. The lots were grasslands with the usual
fence-row trees of urban lots (of which there were 10 lots in the
beginning). The blocks were over-planted to use the space between
what will be the taller plantings until the taller stuff grows up. The
usual rule of thumb is that the taller plantings live longer than the
short stuff and that the tallest will reach 100 years and 100 feet high.
The block organization was used because of the order of acquisition of
the lots.

Because of zoning, the gardens near the house requires extensive
handling such as digging and amendment with compost with all the
trips between house and compost piles and gardens that this
organization of gardens implies. I get tired of carrying the same stuff
around three times: produce to the house, wet garbage to the compose
bins, compose to the gardens, digging it in.

Because of the wedge approach, the blocks will reach climax and cause
difficulty with many plantings that have sunlight requirements different
from the shade that the wedge approach implies. Many of the fruits do
not thrive in the shade of mature trees of the same cultivar. They
require a forest edge.

Because of the subsistence economy of the acre, the house needs
considerable expansion as the feeds become available for more complex
work shops and products (such as preserved food, clothing, pottery,
foundry, still room, home construction materials, and furniture). The
same house that is organized on a spherical basis for heat control
becomes a nuisance to expand and still control noise and provide clean
access to the work areas.

All the above problems occur because the plantings and house are
planned on a static basis. Instead for the plantings consider a dynamic
100 year plan where each year each East-West strip of mature and
shaded plantings is removed or die and the over planted immature
plantings have the room to grow and expand for another year. This
implies an East-West strip of garden at the 1 (101) year mark. The
waste of all but the garden strip are composed in place, the garden
waste and wet garbage from the house are buried at the 2 year mark.
As for the house, make it linear on a North-South basis. The living area
is moved over the years for the kitchen to coincide with the 1 year
mark. This movement is slow enough to match a five year renovation
plan for each of the work areas.



  • [permaculture] Permaculture in the Longer Term, Jay Woods, 06/19/2010

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