PRE-Back yard Landscaping/Preparation for permaculture

Hi folks!

I live in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada (West Coast)

I'm not too well versed in permaculture as of now (read some books but I'm more of a learn by doing person) and I am just preparing to lay out the plans.

My backyard right now is just a giant slope with a couple of seemingly inconveniently placed trees. By the end of summer I want to have totally re worked the landscape and have it mulched so by the following year, when I do have more of an idea of what I'm doing I can keep the ball rolling.

My main concerns are as of now:

-As I don't know too much, is it safe to assume that I could sort of open source this planning/blueprinting/layout phase with the folks on this site and expect enough feedback to help me through this landscaping phase?
Just considering placements of terraces and making sure Water run off is under control..maybe considering particular plants that would work well in my environment. I'm thinking that worrying about particular plants can wait any ways as it will probably take a good amount of time to creative fertile soil anyways. It'll be a nice, levelled backyard at least.

-I'm pretty strapped for cash, so I am thinking of hand bombing most of this work (Mr. Shovel and pick axe). I'll probably hire someone to take down one of the tree's and de-root it. Perhaps bury the tree in the ground for added sustenance.

-just overall taking the safest approach to this (avoid breakout species, water drainage into neighbor's lawn, causing my neighbor's patio to collapse, etc.)

and overall if their's any particular way that I should present my design to the community here for their feedback. Also any oversight's that I'd also want to include in my design (asides general layout)

It seems that you are plant zone 4/3 after a bit of researching. You have about 2inches of rain every month.

You should
1) Get a soil test
2) Add trace minerals and get your Ca, Mg, K etc ratios balanced.
3) Add some microbes
4) Add 30lbs of dutch white clover per acre to fix nitrogen and build soil
5) Add 30lbs of daikon radish to help infiltration (they have 3ft/100cm carrot like roots, plus fine root that goes another 4ft so 7ft root system)
6) Add 2inch/5cm of mulch, you want the soil to warm up quickly, deter vole/mole

Can you give us numbers as to how steep the land is.
I currently live on very flat land now about 1ft drop for 100ft travelled.
I once live at a site that had 10ft drop for 30ft travelled.

Can you upload some pics of the site,
maybe googlemap+printscreen>>MS paint to let us know what ideas are going thru your head.


Check out this website and let me know what you think of it
http://www.nuttrees.com/other_edible.htm

Oh that's great! thank you so much!

I'm just thinking for:

2) Is their any particular place that you would suggest getting this figured out? I imagine the soil test will help figure out what I need but
just were the best place to go for it would be.

4)5) I will probably have to clarify the specific way to apply this at some point. Hopefully won't be too much of a obstacle to getting this going.

I'll get the measurements up asap though, will probably have to work around the snow that hasn't melted yet (should be gone in a couple weeks though so it might be worth it to wait)
I'll take additional photos at different angles and find out the most accurate way to measure the slopes.

Got a few family members who will probably help in planning this out so as the vision isn't conceptualized yet but it should be pretty straight forward and easy to work with.

That site is fantastic though! If i'm not wrong all of those plants (zone 3-4 compatible?) should be workable with the plan. That will be helpful for further research!

I'll see what I can do.

For soil testing such browse around these guys website
http://www.loganlabs.com/doc/Soil-Report-Sample.pdf
http://www.mblabs.com/html/services/soilfertility.htm

As to how to work out the right ratio. You can make a post for it and ppl will help out.

Most of the plants from the nursey that I listed is hardy to zone 4 a few to zone 3. So they will be ok at your site.
Your summers dont seem to get hot, that will be another thing to work around as you plan this some more.

Looking forward to your furture postings

That's Great to know!

Yeah I think the temperature might make even some of those plants unworkable.
Just crossed my mind, you mentioned mixing the clover and radish into the mix.

Do you mean mixing it together with the soil or planting it after laying the land out? If the prior what that method is called.
many thanks!

I would plant the dutch clover and daikon radish about the last day of frost (in May).
The rock dust and such, you would so separate, the sooner the better, the finer the dust the better it is.

Anjovi Kulam wrote:That's Great to know!

Yeah I think the temperature might make even some of those plants unworkable.
Just crossed my mind, you mentioned mixing the clover and radish into the mix.

Do you mean mixing it together with the soil or planting it after laying the land out? If the prior what that method is called.
many thanks!

I am pretty sure S. Benji meant to plant them after, not to mix them in with the soil.

You might want to consider Swales, rather than terraces, although it depends very much on how steep your slope is. Swales would be a bit less work than building terraces by hand, but they are not recommended on slopes above 17 degrees.