In the last post of this series on forest garden design, I wrote about how to formulate a vision and goals, and why you do it. In addition, I described the criteria that one can use to find the right place for his forest garden. This second part of the series is about the continued mapping step and the analysis of both the survey and goal formulation.
When you then have found the right place for his forest garden, it is of great advantage to collect as much information about the place as possible in order to take informed decisions in the design phase. Mapping phase is largely about observing the place in different ways. The outcome of the observation - anything to happen for a year, in all weathers, both day- and at night - can usefully be summarized on a map that we can call for basemap. It is important to remember that the observation is an active process. Ben Falk skriver i sin bok ”The Resilient Farm and Homestead” [1] that after several years of observation decided to plant a fruit grove in a particular place on his farm, because the microclimate seemed to be perfectly. In the evening he dug planting holes for trees that he would plant the next day. When he came to the imaginary grove day after showed that planting holes were filled with water. Had he been more active in his observation, he had been able to opt out of place much earlier.
Things that are good to include in basemap is:
- Land Boundaries
- Buildings
- Roads and paths
- Vegetation Types
- Dams, Streams, delve osv.
- Elevation Lines and Slope
Additional map layers that can be good to take along on the basemap are those that provide information on:
- Soils
- Prevailing winds
- Light conditions
- Frostfickor
- Prospects
- Audio
- Extreme Weather
Finally, it may be valuable to observe how people move all over the place today. In permaculture, the term “zoning” to document people's movement patterns over a location. The scale consists of five different zones and the relative, ie. the lower the number on the zone, the higher the intensity of the interaction between people and place. Additionally, there are two additional zones, sun 00 which usually characterizes ourselves and zone 0 which is the dwelling that we in our climate present in most. Sun 1 is that part of our location outside the home as we move on, sun 5 is the one we visit most frequently, sometimes called the zone even for wilderness. Making a zonation map of their location is very valuable before the design work, because we thus get an idea of where we can place the most maintenance-intensive areas of the forest garden. Moreover, we can see if we somehow need to control the flow of people all over the place in a new way, so that even areas outside the main arteries of the activity receiving the attention they need. It is important to remember that the gardener's shadow is the best fertilizer.
- Frost Sensitivity
- Odlingszon
- Precipitation
- Temperature
- Soil Fertility
- Indicator Plants
- Soil Analysis Results
- Animals
- Lists of existing plants at the site
In one of the first posts I have summarized information of this type in a table that looked like this:
| Altitude: | As. 135 m above sea level in the medium |
| Annual precipitation: | 600 mm, which 360 mm during the vegetation period |
| Mean annual temperature: | 4,3°C |
| Coldest month: | January -6.4 ° C med i medel |
| Warmest month: | July to 15.6 ° C in medium |
| Vegetationsperiod: | 170-180 days |
| Sista nattfrost: | 15 May - 1 June |
| First night frost: | 1 – 15 september |
| Odlingszon: | 4-5 |
The result of all survey work may look like on these maps:
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It does not hurt to take a lot of photos on the site, they can be a useful tool in the design process. Once we have gathered all the relevant information in maps, text and tables, we start the analysis phase that is about to summarize what we have learned from both the target formulation and mapping. There are two questions we try to answer in the analysis phase: What are the major design challenges? And what are the key features forest garden must fulfill?
At first, it's good to stick to the perhaps five to ten most important design challenges. In Putt Myra forest garden, we have summarized them in the following way:
What are the key features that are most important varies from forest to forest garden garden, but for us it was the following, we wanted to focus on the design process, on the basis of both goal formulation and mapping:
• Gynnsamt mikroklimat
• Pests Balance
• Sustainable water management
• Build soil
• Kontrollerad succession
• Visit the Friendly
When the target setting phase, mapping and analysis phase is completed we will hopefully have all the cards on the table needed to be able to make sensible design decisions. In the third and final part of the series about the forest garden design, I will write just about the design phase and even a bit about the implementation of the design.
Literature
[1] Falk, B., The resilient farm and homestead : an innovative permaculture and whole systems design approach. White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green Pub., 2013.