Evaluation - Optional
In the phase Evaluation, I evaluate my/our goal achievement and show clear results and reflection on how the work fits my design goals.
The main evaluation is three-folded:
- Reflection on Design Goals
- Reflection on skills
- Reflection on permaculture tools
Tracking Goals and Outcomes
Reflection of Challenges & Realistic Assessments - Optional
Challenges
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we are not allowed to live in the house, but honestly, we can not live in our small apartment in the village and go every morning to our herb hut and back in the evening. That's no realistic option
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overloaded ourselves with work
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renovating and furnishing the herb hut (slant of the roof) while having a lot to do outside
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having no babysitter for our daughter
Challenges in the project “herbs”
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the decision what we want to grow in the future and how we process and sell it
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Finding the right balance between producing herb products and the price to sell them to companies or consumers
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no long experience in drying and processing herbs (mixtures, etc.). We often feel unsure ourselves if everything is done correctly.
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applying for a retro perspective recognition for an organic agriculture
Reflection “Herb Project”
So far we consciously have no Design for the herb field. In our first year, we wanted it to be an active experiment by learning by doing. Without a lot of planning, we chose our herbs (some for tea, some for condiments and some for tinctures) and placed them on an appropriate place on or close to the field. We started our design process for the herb field by Surveying the area and implementing a sector analysis.
The Sector Analysis of the herb field can be found in Supporting Evidence.
Possibilities & Realistic Assessment
We achieved a lot in this one year, so we really can be satisfied! We played the foundation for the next Year socially and ecologically and a little economically. So we are in good contact with the local village community and different departments. We experimented with growing and processing herbs and we are clear now how we want to continue this experiment in the next Year. And we found some possible business cooperations.
Reflection of Design Goals (on a content level)
Evaluation: How my Design fits the Design goals
We want to produce a big part of our food by ourselves.
In general, we planned many areas where food is grown, but not in square meters. The detailed design of producing food for ourselves needs to be a Design process itself. The main part grows in the vegetable garden and other food is produced by the fruit trees on the contour lines and the berry shrubs in between. Between the contour lines is enough space to grow vegetables or grain.
We plan to set up a small business that provides around 50-75% of our family income.
The starting work for this goal is done: Finding a place for a herb field, experiment with growing herbs and looking for cooperations to sell the herbs.
We are going to harvest energy, such as firewood and solar energy.
There are enough firewood and timber in the surrounding forests, probably a lot more then we need by ourselves! We planned to catch solar energy with the help of the greenhouse and ponds.
We want to harvest, store and retain rainwater, both in the soil and in containers.
We are clear now where the ponds and the cistern is placed. The only thing we don’t know yet it how many water retention basins we will place on the south slope and what size they are.
We want to create biotopes that provide habitat and food for many (rare) animals and plants.
We created a sunny and dry area (consciously without contour lines) for rare animals and plants. Other biotopes are not directly mentioned but they will find a place on the other parts of the property.
Purpose - Creating a Pattern Design of the property that shows where we best place different interconnected systems.
The goal to create a Pattern Design for our property is met! We now have an appropriate plan where we place different systems on our property. With the help of several permaculture tools, we found for each system and/or element multiple functions.
Skill-flex tracking
Reflection of permaculture tools - Optional
My goal was to create a pattern property design using permaculture tools. I am not new to the field of permaculture and already had some ideas what tools could be useful to for my Design. In the following I summarize my used tools and give a short reflection on them
Ethics and Principles:
The Ethics and Principles are the basis for a permaculture design. That is the reason why I choose in the beginning principles I want to pay special attention on, because they are in my eyes particluarly important for the land design.
Site Survey:
A good site survey is the basis for a realistic assessment what is possible to implement on the land and what the land needs.
I struggled a bit to implement the site Survey, because I was unsure about the details I need to observe in order to „complete“ the Site Survey for a Pattern Property Design. It was also challenging to document my ongoing observations and structure them.
Client Interview
This was not a typical client interview, as my partner and me are our own clients. Nevertheless in some parts I really interviewed him.
The Client Interview was a good tool to get our capacities, ideas, wishes, and vision in one paper, this makes it very clear
Sectoring
I felt a little unsure how to make a good sector analysis of our property, so I asked Fabian to do it together. We thought about different influences from outside and with the time it was clear what to draw and how influences are coming into our property. A very helpful tool for our pattern Design
Resources, Boundaries and Needs
One of the most importnant and meaningful tools for me! I collected all resources, boundaries and needs from the Client Interview and the Site Survey and created a simple table. This is the tool to create a simple basis for every further design!
Function and System Table
Also very effective and clear! Helps to check out different opportunities. Although I sometimes struggled with the assignment of a certain point as I was unclear if it is an system or element.
Web of Connections
Without being too conviced I used that tool. I had no new insights and theresult in the end was a little vague. So its a nice drawing, but it did not help me effectively to design our land.
Zoning – snapshot of zones and planning zones for the future
In the beginning I just created a zoning map on how we want our zones to be in the future. That was very helpful for the Design, but it felt there was missing something. So I created another zoning map that is a snapshot of the zones in their current size and arrangement. Now it feels complete and zoning our property made completely sense. ad was very helpful for the final design.
Using Overlays to draw maps
In the beginning we only had a DINA-4 property map, with a scale on 1:1000. It was clear that we need larger maps. So I scaled it up to 1:500. This is the size I used for all my drafts and designs. I printed out the original map twice and then used overlays to draw on. This was a great experience, because at times I had four different layers of paper and always could see different things (e.g. sectors, zones and Basemap at the same time).
