they say you should plan it all out on paper

SO, while I was bored I just drew up some really rough diagrams of my property and gardens.
If anyone is at all interested in seeing the plans for the food forest gardens on my property they are now posted on this link on my blog

http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/p/food-forest-garden.html

I have areas of the property NOT on the diagrams, but they are areas where there is no food planted on purpose..so they aren't in the diagrams, only the food forest areas..someday I'll diagram the non-food areas and add them to the blog.

Wow, that is planning Brenda!

Nice drawings and details, thanks for sharing 

I don't think I could plan it on paper - certainly not that well! 

That's impressive.

I've made many drawings for my "plans", but since I'm new to it all, even knowing which plants to plant where and by which other plants, I tend to get overwhelmed by the drawing/planning process.

A few simple sketches with general ideas are really all I'm capable of, for now.

The writing is all upside down for me, but the SW corner was in the right spot.  Seems like you have a lot of evergreens on the south side--are those casting shade all over?  Also that Ash seems like it would really shade your grape arbor--would it?  I couldn't tell if there was slope to deal with.  Looks good, but hard to see with the trees being filled in zig-zaggy--maybe just use circles.  Nice start to plan it out--how much of what's in the drawing is planning, and what is already there?

Thank you for sharing, very nice.

Nice job, mapping, and knowing the actual boundaries of the property is suddenly becoming a problem here.  Google maps isn't helping much. 

It seems that you are really bored with all this drawing. But I think it was an important step. However, a plan does not mean that you have to stick to it. While working outside or reading inside youy get better ideas or maybe see what does not work. You either change the plan only in your head or you are neat and change the paper plan as well.
I think it is important that planning is a process and it does not stop when you are laying your pencil down.

Everything is already planted, these are plans of the garden FINISHED, except for the 3 peach trees to the right (east) of the rear garden which I'm planning on either moving there from the front or putting new ones in there this year..also plan to move my jerusalem artichokes to the hedge north of the garden in the rear.

Yes the large ash tree does cast a lot of shade and we are going to miss it terrribly..it will be removed soon as it is dying from emerald ash borer..it is absolutely huge..the grape vines that are north of it have been there longer than the tree, the grape vines are about 150 years old and the tree is about  100 to 125..it is about 3' in diameter at the trunk ground level..it is also surrounded by ancient lilac bushes which were cut to the ground when we had our housefire in 2002.

I have planted all of the evergreens (ziggy zaggy in pictures) myself and most of them in the front are full grown size..they do cast shade but they are ..the closest..40' from the house and don't really shade it except late in the afternoon in the winter..summer sun is still above them.

the ones on the rear property line are only about  10 feet tall directly behind the house, and they are just babies about 2' tall to the west of the way back garden..just planted in the last few years..some of the ones in the back yard however are full size..the canadian hemlocks..there are also hemlocks to the east of the front yard but they are outside of the picture as is our garage and driveway and a lot of our eastern property, I didn't include in the diagrams because there are no people food bearing plants at all on them except some black raspberries beside the garage and a rhubarb plant..

the scale on the planting is 2 feet per square..

our property extends beyond to the east and to the north hundreds of feet each way..there is mostly woods to the north and mostly pond and field dotted with trees and shrubs to the east..difficult to map so I didn't bother.

When we had our housefire, the old house was a 2 story victorian and it was to the east of the large ash tree and the grape arbor there..it weas built in the 1900's and burned with a ligthening strike to the large ash tree and house in 2002  July 28..we had it removed and graded and we put our new home 40' behind the garage at that point which removed a lot of landscaping all over the property including all of our fruit trees and most of our gardens..I dug up everything I oculd and put in storage gardens while the bulldozers  were working here..lost a lot of our trees and shrubs but saved most of our perennials

edibilecities...we have lived here 40 years this summer and have been working on the gardens for that long

GPtech...there wasn't much of a slope on the land originally..the area where the ash tree was was the top of the grade and it sloped slightly to the north and to the east and west at that point, but when we had the new house put in it was raised up 4' onto a mound and the drainfield in the back is a raised one up 4'..so..the land now slopes away from the house gradually in all four directions..less in the front, steeply to the west by the house, gently from the drainfield north of the house all around the circular lawn which is centered over the raised drainfield and somewhat steeply to the east of the house down to the pond. The back garden slopes slightly to the east to the pond and to the west to the neighbors but is basically flat..the woods in the back is highest as it is closest to the garden and slopes away slightly to the back becoming swampy in some areas as the water table is very high.

the evergreens in the front were planted by me many years ago and are our privacy from our neighbors and from the road..the shade they cast isn't so heavy that I can't grow things underthem except in the very front ..where they are the thickest..

the ones along the east fence have ground covers growing under them and some perennials like columbines and lily of the valley and aegopodium, the ones in the center bed are intermingled with shrubs of snowberry, barberry, junipers, honeysuckles, roses, flowering quince russian olive and viburnum..if you look at the photo pages you can see photographs of the front evergreens and shrubs in the summer and in the winter

Dang, I neglected to scroll down and see the other 3 drawings.  At first I thought you were crazy about coniferous trees, but I see the rest of the area has a lot of fruit and things.  Nice.

thanks, yes fruits and nuts are my passion as well as perennial fruits and vegetables as well as "edible ornamentals" of which I have gobs and gobs..like daylillies, violets, herbs, etc..I have a list of my plants on the blog, most of them, have thought of several I didn't write down though...esp the edible "weeds".

In the spring about 1/2 of my meals come from weeds like lambsquarters which I like better than spinach.