posted 6 years ago
Permaculture is more of a mindset just like Elizabeth brought up.
When it comes to installing your garden spaces, swales, hugels, etc. I have found it best to do all the earth works for one area before you get down to planting and soil improvement.
This is because earth works take time, they can be of a type that destroys the soil microbiome, this means you want to finish the digging in one of your areas before you do anything else, and don't forget that water handling is probably the most important "do it first" items.
Many people start down the permaculture path with out a clear vision of the end results. This can lead to a scattered mass of different works going on in a disconnected manner which ends up causing more work and occasionally digging up and replanting items that were put in place ahead of their schedule.
That can lead to becoming discouraged quickly, and that is when a lot of folks simply revert to their older methods, be they permaculture type or commercial farming type of methods.
Since you are like Wolf and I (working full time and working on a solid permaculture homestead or farm) I would like to suggest you pick one space and start with the earthworks then plant and water then begin the building of the soil so it will support the life forms you planted there.
Jumping around a hunk of land, working in many different spaces, tends to lead to squirrel behavior, (jumping around willy-nilly and nothing seems to get completed), that will lead to exasperation and working all you can but never completing any single project.
I work on Buzzard's Roost for around 1 hour per day during the work week and then I work on as much as I can on the weekends, but I also make sure to make some weekend time for true relaxing (usually at the end of the day on sunday and in the heat of the day on Saturday (soccer match).
I've also had to learn that I can no longer go-go-go like I could even two years ago. Now I go out and work hard for an hour then I have to come inside, not only to cool off but to let my body recover so I can go out several times per day.
By changing to this tactic I can still get lots done, just not as much as if I was 40 and didn't have health problems that drag the body down.
"The mind might still be 18 but the 68 year old body has far more mileage", so I go slower and try to work on one thing at a time, this only deviates when some "emergency" problem creates the situation of have to do this RFN so I can get back to the scheduled work ASAP.
I'm happy if I can walk into the house at the end of an hour and not be ready to collapse on the floor. Most days this is one hour at a time with a minimum of 30 minutes break between stints.
Currently I have to complete the up hillside ditch beside my driveway so it won't be washed out in another heavy rain event.
I thought I would get started on it this past weekend, no such luck, had to put up a portable shed for the lawn mowers, which once the frame was together, Wolf decided it needed to be placed at the back of the yard instead of her original close to the house shed site.
Because of that decision I had to remove two trees that I had not taken down yet because of Wolf liking the trees (even though they were shading out our plum trees).
Now the trees are down, cut up and outside of the fenced yard, the frame still has to be carried to the new site and the covers put in place. Maybe this week will see this job completed in my one hour a night stints of farm work.
Don't let your self get discouraged, pick one project and work on it to completion, then go to the next. That is how we get things done without having to re-do them because we didn't do things in the right order.
Redhawk
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