About the Book
The best person to design the property of your dreams is you. This book gives you the tools to succeed.
Building Your Permaculture Property offers a revolutionary holistic method to overcome overwhelm in the complex process of resilient land design. It distills the authors' decades of experience as engineers, farmers, educators, and consultants into a five-step process complete with principles, practices, templates, and workflow tools to help you:
Clarify your vision, values, and resources
Diagnose your land and resources for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
Design your land and resources to meet your vision and values
Implement the right design to enhance your strengths and improve your weakest resource
Establish benchmarks to monitor the sustainability and success of your development.
When designing a regenerative permaculture property, too many land stewards suffer from option paralysis, a lack of integrated holistic design, fruitless trial-and-error attempts, wasted money, and the frustration that results from too much information and no context.
Building Your Permaculture Property is the essential guide for everyone looking to cut through the noise and establish an ecologically regenerative, financially sustainable, enjoyable, and thriving permaculture property, anywhere in the world.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Geoff Lawton
Preface
Introduction
The Problem with Permaculture
You Need a Process (Not a Prescription)
About This Book and the Companion Website
Your Very First Practice: Get an Accountability Partner
Step 0: Inspect Your Paradigm
The Gorilla in the Room
The Upward and Downward Spirals
Takota's Story: The Coen Permaculture Farm Upward Spiral
Practices for Step 0: Inspect Your Paradigm
Step 1: Clarify Your Vision, Values, and Resources
What Do You Have?
What Is Right?
Takota's Story: Two Paths to the Same Cliff
What Do You Want?
Walking Through a Field of Landmines Blinded by a Scarf
Be Careful What You Wish For
Practices for Step 1: Clarify
Takota's Story: Buckets of Well-being
Step 2: Diagnose Your Resources for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Takota's Story: Don't Skip Your Diagnosis!
A Watershed of Information
Takota's Story: Growing Up a Carpenter
Two Stages of Diagnosis
Black Swans
Takota's Story: Black Swan Dam
The Value of Digital Mapping and Open Data
Practices for Step 2: Diagnose
Step 3: Design Your Resources to Meet Your Vision and Values
Why Design?
What Design Is Not
Takota's Story: To Swale or Subsoil?
Form, Timing, Placement, and Scale
Takota's Story: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Creating a Permaculture Design
Practices for Step 3: Design
Step 4: Implement the Right Design That Will Most Improve Your Weakest Resource
What Is Your Birdshot?
What Is Your Slug?
Pull the Trigger
Good, Bad, and Ugly Decisions
Takota's Story: The Bazooka Approach
Practices for Step 4: Implement
Takota's Story: My Best Advice for Solving Any Problem
Step 5: Monitor Your Resources for Indicators of Well-being or Suffering
The Push and Pull of Life
Monitoring Your Resources
Takota's Story: Monitoring for Mastitis
Takota's Story: Building My Own Permaculture Property
Takota's Story: An Ecosystem Disguised as a Farm
Practices for Step 5: Monitor
The Solution to a Sisyphean Task
Putting It All Together
Your Very Last Practice: Your Permaculture Property Planner
Afterword: The Land Needs Us to Live Differently Here
Glossary
Notes
Index
About the Authors
About New Society Publishers
About the Author :
Rob Avis, PEng, is co-owner and operator of Adaptive Habitat, a leading-edge property design firm for resilient homes, acreages, and farms, and Verge Permaculture, a globally recognized award-winning education business described by Geoff Lawton as "one of North America's premier permaculture design and education companies." Co-author of Essential Rainwater Harvesting, Rob has been professionally involved in project management, ecological design, and sustainable technologies since 2005. He lives in Alberta, Canada.
Takota Coen is a permaculture educator and co-owner of Coen Farm—an award-winning 250-acre permaculture farm that produces nutrient-dense raw-milk-fed pork, grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, forest garden berries, and herbal teas. Takota is a second-generation organic farmer and holds two Permaculture Design Certificates from the Permaculture Research Institute, two Holistic Management Certificates from Holistic Management International, and a Red Seal Journeyman Certificate for Carpentry. He lives near Edmonton, Alberta.
Michelle Avis, PEng, is co-owner and operator of Adaptive Habitat, a leading-edge property design firm for resilient homes, acreages, and farms, and Verge Permaculture, a globally recognized award-winning education business described by Geoff Lawton as "one of North America's premier permaculture design and education companies." Co-author of Essential Rainwater Harvesting, Michelle has over a decade of experience in project management, ecological design, and sustainable technologies. She lives in Alberta, Canada.
