Slow down and really see your land

When I first found permaculture I was so excited and wanted to get started right away. But there are a lot of reading and understanding to be done before the hands on work starts. I suspect thats why permaculture hasn´t spread to the general public - it takes a bit of effort.

I always lived closed to nature being raised in Tornevalley - hunting, farming and foraging (mushrooms, berries etc). But I didnt realize how much I too was a product of todays society. When I was learning about permaculture it didnt take long before I came across the advice:

" Take a year and just study your land"

I just groaned internally. Thats forever long! I wanted to get started right away ! But, we had just moved in to the house, it was august and we were just renting - so all the ideas I had for what needed to be done had to wait. And now a year has almost passed. End of june is when we saw this place the first time. Thats not far off now.

The first pieces of the puzzle

One of the first things I came across was Yeomans keyline scale of permanence. If you ever heard of keyline design most people think about water and water management but really its just a way of looking at energy capture and distribution. I will talk more about that later. For now, lets have a look at the scale of permanence.

So, at the top you have climate - the climate you have, you have, you cant do much to change or influence that. Land shape, same thing there - you can do some things but the land has a certain elevation etc. Water - it comes down as rain or snow, you cant control how much or when (but you can control where it goes with swales etc ). So, the further down the scale you come the easier and less effort it takes to change.

So, I wanted to know - what do I got to work with? I know this property is in climate zone 4a (it used to be 3a but that changed). The land shape - what does it look like?

Just by using google satelite (the picture of the property is old so I photoshoped it a bit to look more accurate) and the terrain map version ( I took a screenshot of both and used Photoshop to merge them together) I got a crude topographic map. The thick white lines in the picture is from the terrain map. Then I added the smaller white lines, they are not super accurate since its just from my observation of what the land around the house looks like. But, the land slants downward from the house. Where the lines are closer together the slant is steeper. With this picture I can see how water moves on the property. Because water moves downhill, always 90 degrees to contour, with a topographic map you can figure out where the water is going.

If this was our property I would have added swales so that the water wouldnt run off the property as fast. The swales collects the water and gives it time to soak in to the soil rather than to run off . But its not ours so we wont put any money or energy into changing the land but I can still work with this information. I know where the water runs off - what plants cant stand being water clogged - what plants benefits from a lot of water ?

I made this picture next and after have spent almost a year now really looking at the land - where does the sun come up, how does it travel on the land (what plants require full sun, which ones likes the shade), where does the water run off (what plants require alot of moist, which ones want dryer soil), where are the protected spots that can serve as a micro climate (you can plant things that has a higher hardiness zone than your overall climte in those) and so on - I have a plan for what to do next. The land will tell you how to best piece everything together and where to plant what.

What this year has taught me

Nature is our best teacher. We just have to slow down enough to take in what she has to teach us. All the clues are there if you just take the time to learn and really see it.
I was surprised how out of touch I was. Because I didnt have much choice, I couldnt jump in to action I was forced to observe. I took pictures and and made both mental notes and actual notes about things I saw. It opened up my understanding in a whole new way. If we want to live sustainable its better to work with nature and mimic what nature is already doing. Food forests that build soil is one of the best examples, you create it as a functioning ecosystem that within a couple of years will be selfsustaining. It wont need you.

Our plans of how to transform this traditional lawn and non-edible plant garden into something entierly different (without driving our landlords bonkers) will be the next part of this article. But having the knowledge and understanding I gone over in this one had to be in place before the next step.

Thanks for reading! <3