Gilad Fisher

Hi dillon, thank you again for you good ideas and help.
I will address everything you said:

A.

Hi Gilad, looks like you've made some good headway, I like the tweaked center portion.

Thank you very much

B.

In your most recent version, the tiny triangular bed in the lower right with the single keyhole path into it... that is a pretty much perfect use of this concept in my opinion. Yet, can you not remove the perimeter path around the outer edge? Or is it needed to access something not shown?

You have a very good sight my friend
Indeed I wish to perimeter my lot with blackberries vines so I will need access to them.

C.

Have you considered starting to design from the outer edge of the lot, allowing enough space there to use the perimeter of the lot for something, and then placing paths as you work in towards the center?

Well, I have but I didnt put to much thought into it. I think I wil try a new plan and I will post it here for you to give your thoughts.

D.

Although the outer path for both the circle and the lot perimeter is narrow, it still accesses plant-space on only one side for a much of its length. Often people will plant berries or vines around the edge/on the fence;

You are right, but you said what you did because I havent posted the hole sketch, here is it (of course, its still in the making):


E.

I prefer to put these where I can harvest both sides, away from the deer on the far side of the fence, but this is down to individual circumstance and taste.

Good point. Thank you for making it clear for me that harvest is needed at both sides. About the deer: here in Israel we have only a few of them and only in the desert (not where I live) .

F.

If you want to continue iterating in search of an ideal fit, you could also try a leaf pattern, and see how you like the results.

I would like it very much! any new thing about this subject interests me. I try to google it though and I didnt find any information about it. Could you give me a link or something?

J.

Finally, I would advise against being over-zealous when narrowing paths; I have seen plenty of people plan very tight beds, and then find the results space frustrating to work in. Plants get stepped on, more time is spent being extra careful... I have certainly been guilty of this myself. I now try to allow more generous paths, in the belief that if they prove excessive, it is easy to allow the perennial plantings to encroach on the paths, or to slightly expand the annual plantings next year. I like this better than the alternatives of relocating perennials, or being forced to keep them overly small, or stepping on annuals..

Yet again, a very good point. Here is the data about the walking paths:
1. outer and inner circle walking path: 0.5m.
2. Keyhole walking path: 0.3m
3. Keyhole hole: 0.6m diameter.
4. Big straight walking path in the middle: 1 m.

My thought was that I need a big path in the middle for a wagon or something like that and I dont need this kinf of access to each place.
What are your thoughts about that?

Thank you very much again
Have a nice day.

So I thought and I need a big path only in the middle.
I cut down the outer circle path by hlaf, and here are the results:



Hope that some of you learned from my hard work

Have a nice day.

So I did some better calculations and measurements and I got to this:



So now its only 49% because I included the outer walking path (witch I didnt in the first calculation).
If we would take out the outer walking path, we will get 67%, almost 10% better.

Yet, I feel it could be better.
Anyone?

H Dillon, thank you for replying.

Here is the total sketch (of course its not close to be finished:



So the plan is to divide that area to circles and in the triangle like shapes between them to plant perennial plants that will help the food plants so no space is going to waste at the sense.

In the data I brought in the first post I did not include the outer circle path.

Hello all
So Im planing to rebuild the soil on a large empty plot I have.
I thought its a good chance to try out the keyhole/ mandala garden.
Here is the sketch I made:



The green area are the garden bends.
The brown are walking paths.

So here are some data (R=radios):
Total area: 122.71 m^2 (R=6.25 m).

Big walking path at the middle: 14.5m^2 (14.5L 1W)
Keyhole walking paths: 8.84 m^2
Circle walking paths: 26.25 m^2
Total walking space: 49.59 m^2

Net Growing space: 73.12 m^2

How much % is used for growing: 59.58%


Some more data:
A. The width of circle inner walking path is 0.5m.
B. The keyhole circle has a radios of 0.3m.
C. The diameter of the keyhole bed is 1.8m (6 feet)


So its looks really nice, but I read that a keyhole garden has a very good use of space and here, 40% of my space is for walking, not growing.
For sure, Im doing something wrong and that there is a way to take a better use of the space.

Thank you for reading and helping

P.S.
I noticed that the inner circle path takes 21.39% of my area. Maybe there is the problem?

Dan Boone wrote:The permaculture design books and study materials go on for endless chapters with detailed solutions to this basic problem, complete with geometry and equations. A ruthless condensation of that tedious wisdom -- most of which I confess I do not yet understand -- seems to boil down to:

1) Edges. Shape your forest patches so that light comes in from the exterior edges or in through planned clearings.

2) Tree spacing. A mature wild forest has an interlocked canopy that admits very little sun. You'll want to plant your trees further apart than that.

3) Choice of canopy trees. Some trees let in more sunshine between the leaves than others.

4) Shade tolerance in the understory plants. Plants lower in the layers need to be chosen for their ability to tolerate less than full sunshine.

Hope this helps!

Thank you for answering. I have some qustions about what you said:
A. I have some good books about permaculture, these are what I have:
1. 1978 Fukuoka- The One Straw Revolution
2. 1988 Mollison- Permaculture, A Designers' Manual Bill Mollison
3. 1992 Bell- The Permaculture Way, Practical Steps to Create a Self Sustaining World
4. 2001 Hemenway- Gaia's Garden, A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture

I still havent read all of them. If you have one of them, will you mind telling me on what page/ section they talk about the sunlight in food forest design?

B. about the tree canopy: so would you say that if I have a tree with a maximum canopy of 4 meters, I should plant other trees 5 meters from him?

C. Do you have any data base of some resourse I can learn and see what trees give more of less shade?

Peter Ellis wrote:The tall trees take care of themselves on the sunlight issue. Shorter trees come in a couple of varieties - early succession type stuff that wants lots of sun and dies well at reclaiming open ground for forests, and the types that are adapted to growing under the canopy of the taller trees.

When planning out a food forest, you want to have in mind which kind ofnshorter trees you are working with and where you are planning to place them. If they need lots of sun, you probably want them on the edges. If they are understory trees by nature, then they should be fine in the interior.

There are also considerations for how dense is the shade from your overstory trees. Some are much more, or less, effective at blocking sunlight.

Plotting sun angles, figuring out placement to manage where how much shade falls and which plants to position in which shade levels. All parts of the puzzle of designing a food forest.

But, when it comes to the understory trees, you want to pick trees that like those shaded conditions. There definitely are such trees. Pawpaw leaps to mind, the young trees can be killed off by too much sun.

Thank you for reapling as well.
I have some qustions for you as well:
A. Do you know of any data base or resourses that I can learn witch trees are under-canopy trees in nature?

B. I ask you qustion number C I askedDan Boone.


Thank you guys!

Hello all.
Right now Im trying to plan 2 food forests.
One is kind of small, about 70m^2 and one is bigger, about 250m^2.
As O learned, the methodes are the same no matter the size.

So there is the 7 layers of the forest:
1. The tallest trees.
2. Smaller trees.
3. Bushes.
4. Herbs and small plants.
5. Plants that grow horizontly.
6. Root.
7. Climbers.

So here is my qustion:
Most tall and small trees need full sun light.
The thing Im just cant get is how the small trees and the bushes get the sun light they need if the higer plants block of the sun?

Thank you all!

Hello all.
I have a customer that I wish to put a herb spiral in her garden.
I need to order the smount of stones for it (there is no avilabe stones in the area to use and she is kind of welthy so she wants to buy).
Any way, I cant calculte the amount of stons I need.
The diameter of the spiral will be 1.2m and the hight 1m.

So can anyone help me with the math?

Thanks!

Thank the both of you for the help.
There is still something I dont understand:
Lets say I use a penial cover crop, like Tropaeolum majus.
Now how can I chop it, leave it on the ground to decompost and not kill the plant? I mean if I cover the plant it will block the sun and the plant will die, no?

Tropaeolum majus

Hi all!
I have a qustion about cover crops and mulch:
So Im in permaculture for only 4 month and already im planing a community garden for my village.
Im doing A LOT of reserch, maybe 100 hours of reserch or even more.
Now I know that every guild need 5 things:

nitrogen
nutrients/ dynamic accumulators (non mineral, mineral, soil)
mulch
pollination
protection from external threats

Now here are the things I dont understand fully, and will help me a lot if someone could answer me:

1. How do I get the N out of N-fixers? does the plant puts the N in the ground via his roots? or do I need to chop it down, lay it on the ground and wait?
2. Same qustion about the dynamic accumulators.
3. Lets say I use clover as a cover crop. Lets say I have a climing rose and clover all around it. Now I want to mulch the clover and put it on the ground as mulch. but the whole ground is full with clover? what do I do? do I put the cut clover on the living one? wont it kill it?
4. Living in Israel, Its harder to find info about native plantes and there permaculture usess. Is there any way to know permaculture usses from the plant data? for example: I find that a plant has a flower that is rich with P, K, Ca and Cu. So can I know that the plant is a dynamic accumulator to those minerals?
5. lets say me cover crop is 30 cm tall. If I put higer plants in the cover carpet, will those plantet thrive? or will they be stangled by the cover?

Thank you very much for reading and helping!