General site planing ideas

Hello Guys

I want to do a permaculture homestead with animals. Mostly self sufficient. With some animals. Like Chicken, sheep or goat, ducks or geese, rabbits maybe. Also maybe a horse or two
Mainly want grow green leaf veg like spinach , kale etc.. Maybe some cucumbers and squash.

The land has some pine trees spaced out and on the left side of the land there is a bit of terracing facing north. The soil is quite stony. Meaning there are alot of stones. Also the land has been abused in the past by illegal cultivating so someone has tilled the land with a tractor for several years without giving anything back so the topsoil is almost dusty sand like.

My question is about house placement and swales also maybe a small dam and pond with some fish in the future hopefully. So I need some help with the placement of things. Where to locate the animals, house, swales, dam, pond etc.. I would greatly appreciate it if you could give me some ideas. I would prefer to locate the house behind the water well.

Our land is in Kyrenia in Cyprus. Our rainfall is the most around December and January about 90 mm per month. About 400 mm a year.
There is the five finger mountain range south of our land. And the Mediterranean sea is in the North. The sea is about 1.5 KM away.

Thank you again.

The first thing I would take into consideration is possibility of flooding. We opted to put our house on the high ground so water doesn't flow towards our living quarters.
If you determine that this is not an issue, then I would look to the lay of the land to tell me where the best foundation place is in the area I want to build on.
Swales are great and you have the high ground right at the road, so I would build my swales from there and go down hill, this will allow as much gathering of water as possible.

Good luck, that is a very nice looking piece of land you have. Lots of possibilities.

We are building our animal quarters away from the house, not a far walk to each but we are positioning them so that when we go to tend to their needs we are making a circle back to the house.
Pastures are connecting to each other for ease of moving the animals to rejuvenated grasses on what will end up being a weekly rotation.

Hi

Thank you for your reply

No risk of flooding really. Our rain here is very little.

How do you think is best to build swales from east to west ? How about a dam or pond ? Where do you think it would be best to build that?

Thanks again.

Yes I would make my on contour swales east to west oriented.

I like ponds to be placed where all the water wants to go naturally, it makes it easier to build them as well as for them to fill.
It looks like (in your photo) that would be near the pine tree stand to the north, to the east of the 314 marker on your photo.

Hello

I made a map of the swales. Ive placed them about 23 m apart on contour. My longest one is about 255 m. Am I going over the top here? Not sure about pond placement or size? Its about 50 wide and 40 meters accross.

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Thanks

I like that, very efficient and practical. the pond placement is good too since it will take on water from the swales. You should end up with some nice plumes at the lower portion of the property which is really good for fruit trees.