introduction

[knuckledragger]

Hello, I am really new to the concept of permaculture, an I am reading alot on it and steadily learning, but I have a ways to go. I am a firefighter/EMT/reserve police officer in a large urban area and my wife and I have decided to get our family out of the city. Recently, I purchased a 4 bed, 3 bath foreclosure home that is on 3 acres and has a pond. It was in the middle of a remodel, so there is a good bit of work to be done on it, but we are very excited. I started a blog about the place we just purchased and I have included a diagram of the property in it.

If anyone is willing, please visit my blog and offer suggestions on how I can best get started on a good permaculture design for this property. The blog is http://www.charishomestead.blogspot.com and we really want to grow alot of veggies, have fruit and nut trees, and have chickens, bees, and maybe some goats. Any advice/input will be greatly appreciated.

[eco4560]

Welcome to the board. What part of the world are you from?
To get started - sit outside. Do nothing. Watch which direction the clouds roll in, where the breeze comes from, where you get your rain from, where the sun tracks. Look at what already grows on your site and what can you use. Look where the dry spots, the wet spots, the cold spots, the sunny spots are. Get to know your neighbours, talk to them about their gardens, the weather you can expect.

When you are ready to start, start small and close to the house, and use good design principles to keep your time commitment and cost within your scope. Once you have mastered that bit move out further.

[Susan Horn]

Hi, I'm new to this forum also, and fairly new to PC -- though the first time I got a hint of what it was about, I instantly felt, I'm home, this is what I've been looking for my whole life! The advice to observe first, then start small sounds very wise; I believe we might have bitten off more than we can chew all at once with our "Phase One" PC makeover!

I'm in the Florida Panhandle (Zone 8B, white quartz sand instead of dirt, lovely for beaches, challenging for gardeners) and hoping to connect with other subtropical PC folks for possile plant/seed/tip trades. Seems most resources I can find talk about temperate climate PC, or PC for the tropics, but rarely about subtropical PC. More than ever this convinces me I am an edge species.

For instant gratification (once you've got a design and a plan) -- I strongly suggest putting in an herb spiral. We made one last summer and it has been a wildly popular, satisfying, tasty success for us as well as frogs and good bugs (plus a few too many slugs and sow bugs). It's also fun to get free organic material for mulch, compost, etc. by stealing other folks' bagged leaves, pine straw, etc.!

I'm so glad to have found this site! Don't know my way around enough to know whom to thank, but for now I will say a big fat thank you to everyone who makes this resource available.