I'm designing my
land and trying to do it properly. Zones are what bothers me. On every single manual for
permaculture design, zone map is drawn like a concentric circles with a house in the middle. House is then Zone 0. But for some of us, the story doesn't go that way. We live in appartment, as a true centre of
energy, zone 0, and maybe have a window garden as a zone 1. Or a small backyard, still zone 1. We have also a cottage that we visit once a week, or a month, or maybe once a year.
I first started, but then realized it was a stupidity, drawing a map of this distant property as a complete
permaculture system, setting a weekend cottage as a zone 0. It is not a system, it is actually a part of it, from my point of view. You don't have zones 0 and 1 on that land that you only occasionally visit. You start with zone 2 or 3. But still, once you arrive to the cottage, suddenly you have zone 1. Like a
compost heap,
firewood and all other stuff that does not need every day supervision, but can once you are there, you use them every day.
So how to name and draw this zones? I found it useful to make a new names, V0 as a zone 0 only when you visit cottage, V1 as a zone 1 in that moment, etc. When not visited, V0, V1 etc. are part of a zone 2 or 3. Map could look like this:
What I expect to get that way? It could force me to think in a way "what are the outputs of zone 1 and what zones can use them?". Maybe I prepare firewood in a zone v1, so I have a lot of sawdust that I don't need there, but can use it in zone 1?
Wood from zone 4 goes to v0 and 1. Maybe I start seedlings in zone 1 and move them later to zone v1? Also, a driveway (usualy much longer than on drawing) is a zone. Hor some, it's zone 5. But you visit it frequently, so could be also zone 2. You have some gas station on that way that produse a lot of waste. Maybe you can use some of it in your system? Or you are passing near the houses that can be a market for products of zone 3 and 4?
It's a complete system, so
should be considered that way, not as a 2 separate systems. What you think?
