Jared Doyle

The back porch is actually in really bad shape anyway, so I am already planning on replacing it with an attached green house. That probably won't happen until 2014 though, due to financial restrictions.

For 2013, I really want to focus on my food forest, earthworks, and garden beds.

First of all, thank you everyone for being so welcoming and providing so much good information. I will try to answer the questions you've all asked as well as I can.

Goals - my primary goal is to provide food for my family and later my community.

Winds - they are well dampened. As you can see, I have woods on the south, east, and west sides of the property. It isn't really possible to see from the images I have available, but the road itself is a wind-blocking berm to the north. The west bound lanes are probably 20 or 30 feet below the east bound lanes. I might try to get some images of this later.

Existing plants - basically nothing. No fruit or nut trees, but there are a few leguminous trees I will keep. I will also keep the 1.5 acre wood (my property) to the west, the wood to the south isn't mine, but I hope to buy it some day.

Earthworks - these are one of the biggest things for me to figure out. I think I should put a swale just below (south of) the power lines, the legal edge of the property. I think another should be placed just below the driveway. I would like to put a pond in somewhere, but I'm not sure where would be appropriate.

Food forest - I would like to put in a food forest along the power-line-adjacent-swale and down through the eastern edge of the property. I will remove most of the existing sparse woods on that eastern edge to do this. I will use the widest possible selection of fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, etc...

Hugelkultur - I will place some behind the house for tomatoes and such.

Livestock - I would like to use the majority or the exist pasture area for a paddock shift system with some combination of chickens, sheep, goats, and pigs. I have a long time to experiment with other animals as well ofcourse. I probably won't do any of this but free range chickens until 2014 as I will have to put in a lot of fencing.

@Michael Campbell - the aerial photo was sent to me by my real estate agent shortly after I purchased the property, not sure how he arranged for it or otherwise acquired it.

Hopefully the covered everything.

I've been lurking here for a long time, but this is my first post.

Earlier this year I purchased my first home on 6 acres in Iowa. I am USDA zone 5 and there is a gentle slope from north to south through most of the property. I own and am reading Gaia's garden, but most of my permaculture education is from Jack Spirko and Paul Wheaton podcasts. I am trying to figure out some good options for a permaculture plan. What do you guys think?

This is a satellite picture of the property.



This is an aerial taken in the morning this summer.



These are taken from my south facing back porch.

East



East South East



South



South West



West (sorry, this was late in the day)





These were taken from my north facing front porch

East



North East



North



North West



Hopefully all these pictures are helpful, I'd be happy to take any other someone might want as well.