Does Everyone Really Map and Chart and Graph?

I see images and videos of Permaculture homesteads and farms and I love them!

And I read Permaculture books and they seem so exciting!

But it seems that for anything to be "real" permaculture, it involves a lot of this:



Ugggggghhhhhh....

Do I really have to make six or seven maps and all that for my 1/4 acre? And if I do have to, how can I see it as something fun?

I don't do it.  I pick a spot, make a guild of whatever tree and surrounding plants I like, and then repeat.  Sooner or later they will all touch each other, and then it will be a complete food forest.  My paths figure themselves out.  Planning ever last detail out is probably a good way to go for people that can do it, but like you said, it isn't fun for me.  My haphazard approach fits my personality.

Permaculture for me means working with nature, including my nature.  It sounds like you are more like me.  My advice is to have fun, make your gardens and food forest, make your life better with permaculture, rather than letting it become a chore.  You can make your piece of the world better and enjoy yourself at the same time.

I make a map of my fruit trees to keep track of where everything is (see attached). Mapping everything took a few hours, but I find it worth it for when one of the tags inevitably falls off the trees. Also, it was kind of fun using a drone to make a high resolution map of my house.

I find that even a crude sketch helps to solidify the image that I've constructed in my mind, and often reveals possibilities and pitfalls that didn't show up in the mental image. Things like "whoops, if I build garden bed A like that, it makes wheelbarrow access to bed B a real pain".

It's also much easier to shuffle ideas on paper than in reality. Back in the days of the tiny college apartment, I would make a scale drawing of the floor plan and cut out scaled rectangles of paper for the furniture and shelves. Shuffling the little scraps of paper to come up with an ideal arrangement was quick and much easier than shoving the actual furniture around and hitting those inevitable "maybe the couch should go over there" moments.

I don't think it's strictly necessary.  But it's helpful and interesting!   There are other ways to "observe" and document than maps and graphs and charts, etc.   Do what works for you, and for your understanding of the principles for where you are and what your property goals are.  

I made a simple hand-sketch of the location of my fruit trees and berry bushes for the purpose of keeping track of what variety is where. I don't get involved with graph paper and protractors. I second Trace's notion to do what works for you, and if you're not being called to or feel enthusiastic about making a map or chart, skip it.

I suspect even the elaborate map makers never have it go exactly to plan.  Something will always die and sometimes something will surprise you by thriving in what was supposed to be only a temporary spot.  Even the planners adapt to life.

I did one time mark out my backyard using an A frame and little flags but it was activity part of planning where to add some shallow swales in my backyard.  I marked level lines and then dig. There is one change I would make if I did it over and maybe a more meticulous planner would have caught my issue before digging, but they do what I need them to.

Nope. I've planned, with map sketches, but it never worked out quite the way it looked on paper, things change... my approach is very much more like Trace's: "This spot looks good - Ima Duit!".

Seems to me in many cases with small earthworks where we give ample leeway for extreme westher events, the main measurement that really matters is being level, or sloped in the direction we want. In those cases, I find it very fun to play around with moving earth, rock and wood to make water move, or stay still, how I want it to. It’s a lot like building moats for a sandcastle. Usually I am trying to slow, spread and sink water, or get it off a road or trail to somewhere I can do that. Making water meander and move more passively and beneficially through the landscape is fun and meditative at the same time.

[insert ol’ curmudgeon voice]
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a beaver’s work is dam rewarding!

I do it all and I think it's really fun! Really! But it's what I do in December and January when there's not much to do outside and I'm dying to be growing things and can't. So I start building my air castles.

Also I found I was spending way too much money buying plants that in the long run didn't have a great place to go. Like someone else mentioned, playing around in paper is way easier (and cheaper) than digging holes and then having to dig new holes.

Now that I have lots of different and less common varieties of perennials, I find it's also important for me to keep track of the names and where I bought them, the year I planted them, and the location.

But once I'm actually out working in the garden, a lot of my winter planning for annuals goes out the window and I randomly stick my over abundance of seedlings in whatever nook and cranny is conveniently weed free.

Spontaneity sometimes works great, like my random broccoli that grew perennially for 5+years next to the walkway to the front door (just snap off a little floret to nibble every time we come and go). Sometimes bad like the extra squash I stuck in my raised beds in a little gap last year that overgrew the entire plot and made it a challenge to pick any of the vegetables. And sometimes both good and bad, like the artichokes I didn't expect to survive the winter and now overgrow half of the side of the walkway each summer but I don't want to move because they are just so happy in that spot.

The way I do it, is to make spread sheets on the computer and just save a copy to match each year with any changes. So the initial formatting took a while but now it's really easy for me to update my plans each year.

Also you can print out a picture from Google maps and draw on it and that's a super easy and accurate way to brainstorm some plans.

Edit to add:
Here are some pictures of a few of my plans-
https://permies.com/t/174517/garden-plan-Garden-Master

OP wrote:Do I really have to make six or seven maps and all that for my 1/4 acre?

Let's find out together!  What is the definition of "permaculture design" according to, say, Bill Mollison?

Mollison on page 36 of the PADM wrote:Definition of Permaculture Design
Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms.  It seeks to provide a sustainable and secure place for living things on this earth.

Well, I don't see anything about "Permaculture design shall include at least one fancy-shmancy map."  So if you're your own client, then do permaculture design in whichever way suits your fancy, of course!  Besides, permaculture design is for "life in all its forms" and I don't think the trees and bugs and animals will mind at all whether we can draw a beautiful map or not.

That said, we do seek to meet needs, and that requires understanding the spatial needs of living elements.  For instance, a common mistake in forest garden design is not allowing plants enough space to thrive; and though I suspect it would be challenging to abide by the "Crowns Touching Rule" without drawing a quick map, it certainly wouldn't be impossible.  (Some string and movable pegs could be used to test distances directly on the design site, without mapping first.)



As a designer, are there other design options in addition to mapping?  
If we go back to Bill in Chapter 3, "Methods of Design", we learn the answer, a resounding "Yes!" as he includes a full section for at least 8 different methods of design available to the designer:

ANALYSIS
OBSERVATION
DEDUCTION FROM NATURE
OPTIONS AND DECISIONS
DATA OVERLAY
RANDOM ASSEMBLY
FLOW DIAGRAMS
ZONE AND SECTOR ANALYSIS

And if I do have to, how can I see it as something fun?

Back in 3rd grade I *loved* doodling in MS paint.  And I fondly recall taking an engineering drafting class back in high school.  After college I had fun with Google products and Sketchup, and lately I have been enjoying Inkscape.  Apparently I genuinely love the attention to detail drafting involves.  But that's just me.  So if the challenge of drafting in detail alone doesn't suit you...

Some things that can make mapping more fun:

Colors!  I recently had fun using colored pencils on a garden map, and Google Slides is very easy to add fun shapes and colors quickly.

Using fun landscaping templates.

Mixing medium.  For the Six Sisters Garden Map below, I started out with a basemap of the design site I drew on an chunk of scrap cardboard, then I used paper cut outs for playing with the arrangement of raised beds, and lastly I took a picture of the basemap.  I used Google Slides shapes to enable flexibility in design.  Google Slides were helpful when communicating quickly with clients and stakeholders.  The digital nature enabled quick edits and changes on site.

Collaboration.  Speaking of clients, inviting others to partake in the design process may add stress, but it could also be a lot of fun as you develop great design concepts together.

Speed. The longer you spend on a project, the less novel and fun it may become.  One medium people could use to make a design quickly is chalk.  It might be great for quick back and forth prototyping, and a Chalk and Talk Table could have cardboard cutout models to play around with, too.

Learning a new skill.  Inkscape and Sketchup were mentioned as examples.  Here's an example of an orchard site design I'm considering, which I drew in Inkscape.  I'm excited because the spiral patterns of the design site are already beginning to be visible from satellite!

https://permies.com/t/159680/a/138749/Spiral-Orchard.png

Even if it isn't fun, it may be very important:
On my latest design project, the Six Sisters Garden, I found the challenge of drawing to scale both necessary and enjoyable.  I wanted to ensure proper access for emergency vehicles, and good spacing for foot paths.  I also needed to know the right amount of materials to purchase.  The map ensured that my garden design wouldn't feel empty and sparse, yet it also enables enough "blank space" for community events or temporary tables to be added.  With the map, I knew beforehand the general or final placement of elements, and that the plants will have sufficient space years from now, and people will still be able to navigate around them without getting poked in the eye.  It saved time on site.  With these new raised beds we just built from scratch, the map gives me reassurance that the placement of the beds will get sufficient sun during early spring months.  So while maps aren't essential, they sure are valuable!

I only did this for the initial planning. Mostly to see how many of the fruit trees could fit and how to space them. After that, it was just filling in the gaps without fussing over graphing it all out.

I'd imagine the reason why mapping things out is so prevalent might be in part because of PDC's. They often have people plan things out to show they understand the concepts they are trying to learn. Some teachers may be sticklers on the math side, while other might be fine with a more South Park approach to layout.

There's no reason you can't cut out pictures or shapes to roughly plan things out for yourself. Maybe sit at a table with spice jars to use them as stand-ins for plants and take a photo for later reference. Some people might prefer to just go outside and put plant pots or some other marker down to help visualize how things will work out in 3D space. Again, pictures would likely be helpful.

If you take a PDC and try to sell your designs to other people, I'd imagine most of them would want a design on paper before they unleash you on their property. With planting, it may not be as big a deal if you can juggle everything in your head, but I certainly wouldn't let anyone with an excavator loose on my land without a very detailed plan in advance.

And that brings up another point - excavator operators often aren't familiar with permaculture and might not comprehend your reasoning for doing uncommon earthworks to the point they may go rogue thinking they are helping. Giving them plans and making sure they understand they are not to deviate from said plan if they want to get paid can help avoid counterproductive earthworks.

I started thinking about my garden in terms of interactions, functions, needs, products, and other characteristics last night. I tried writing it out in my journal... but the depth I want to go into for this becomes a bit difficult to manage on paper, so I just downloaded some mindmap software. We'll see what I get out of it!

Mindmaps are not going to be good for physical mapping, but for conceptual stuff like interactions it could be a very helpful organizational tool.

Can't do it, won't do it for a number of reasons.  First it sounds really tedious for me.  Second, when I have a plan my brain treats it less as a goal and more an unbreakable commitment so I agonize and stress and become rigid and try to make the outside world look like a 3D version of the 'paper' map we drew.

We moved our annual garden this year to a completely different site which makes WAY more sense.  I know most people could just update their plans, but again my brain would really struggle since that wasn't part of the original plan.

So basically, my brain is obsessive - which serves me well in a great number of ways - so it's my job to figure out how to guide that obsessiveness to healthy outlets and mapping out our property would not be healthy for me.

I don’t, but it is for a different reason than most.  My wife has virtually zero mapping skills. She cannot transfer concepts from paper to real life.   Therefore, we have to walk the area in question where I put in markers indicating what we decided on.

I see both points

It has its place but far too many people do nothing but talk and plan what they are going to do, with never putting boots on the ground.

Myself, I have always planned things out with maps and farm plans, and I think it has served me well.

I like to even do a scale model of certain areas to get an idea of topography. That really helps me to see where all the water is going and why

George Yacus wrote:What is the definition of "permaculture design" according to, say, Bill Mollison?

Mollison on page 36 of the PADM wrote:Definition of Permaculture Design
Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms.  It seeks to provide a sustainable and secure place for living things on this earth.

Well, I don't see anything about "Permaculture design shall include at least one fancy-shmancy map."  So if you're your own client, then do permaculture design in whichever way suits your fancy, of course!  Besides, permaculture design is for "life in all its forms" and I don't think the trees and bugs and animals will mind at all whether we can draw a beautiful map or not.

As a designer, are there other design options in addition to mapping?  
If we go back to Bill in Chapter 3, "Methods of Design", we learn the answer, a resounding "Yes!" as he includes a full section for at least 8 different methods of design available to the designer:

ANALYSIS
OBSERVATION
DEDUCTION FROM NATURE
OPTIONS AND DECISIONS
DATA OVERLAY
RANDOM ASSEMBLY
FLOW DIAGRAMS
ZONE AND SECTOR ANALYSIS

This!

A Professional probably uses software to map out his/her client's proposal.  If I hired a permaculture designer I would question their ability if they did not make a map, charts, and graphs.

Since I am not a professional, I still have been doing this for years for both vegetable and flower gardens.

Like me, I would imagine that professionals sometimes while working with a client make changes several times.

You questioned how to make it fun, but I think that is all about personality type and how you think and make plans best.

Even as a child I found it great fun to tape several pieces of paper together and draw out maps and plans for gardens and houses. I could imagine all the things I could not turn into reality- yet! And many decades later I still think it is a lot of fun to plan out on paper by drawing maps. It's like art and puzzles mixed together with science and geography and it's just plain ol' fun.... for me, that is.

One kind of charting I should do and don't because it seems so boring and tedious to me is weighing and counting and recording my yield from my garden every year. I know why I should and I agree that it is a good thing to do but I just don't wanna! 😜 So boring! But I know other people really enjoy doing that.