So you’ve set the goals for your garden, as we outlined in a post earlier this week, and you’re ready to start putting pen to paper. Google Earth makes it easy to quickly create a plan to scale.

Zoom in on the space you want to garden and print out an image. Next, take separate sheets of tracing paper and use them to map out:

• your goals
• existing conditions such as trees and buildings
• future plantings
• where water flows when it rains
• sun and shade
• problem areas
• topography
• future paths (more on this in tomorrow’s post)
• permaculture zones

For a more accurate and sizable plan you can also use Google’s free 3D modeling program SketchUp. The drawback with SketchUp is that it requires a couple of evenings to learn.

If only we had taken the time to draw up a plan to scale when we first moved into our house back in 1998! Better late than never, and at least it’s easier now thanks to Google.

Special thanks to Darren Butler and Scott Kleinrock for inspiring this post!

Food, beauty and habitat.

Garden design does not come naturally to me. I’ve made plenty of mistakes and continue to make them. One of the biggest of those mistakes is thinking of a garden as a collection of plants. Designing this way leads to lots of money wasted at the nursery and a garden that looks like a hoarder’s living room. Trust me, after years of misguided gardening design, your first step should be to identify goals.

Making a List of Goals

Sit down and think of what you want the garden to do. This applies to a residential space, a community garden plot, a school garden, anywhere. Include everyone who will use the space in the process. Kelly and I sat down a few months ago and came up with the following ideas about what our garden should provide:

• solace and comfort
• a place to meditate
• food
• habitat for insects and birds
• beauty
• a place to sit and hang out with friends
• a place to sit and work with a laptop
• space for our chickens
• flowers for bees
• space for native plants
• areas that are semi-wild and not often visited 
• space for the composting

Think and meditate on your goals before drawing up a plan.  And for those of us in the urban homesteading movement, I think it’s important to measure productivity in more ways than just the amount of food you get from your yard.  How will the garden provide peace and well being? Educational opportunities? Ways to commune with nature? Some goals aren’t obvious at first. As authors we have a lot of people who want to come over and take photos, something we have to consider as we re-do our backyard. And I’m definitely aiming for a garden that requires less maintenance!

So what are some of the goals you keep in mind for the gardens you tend? Share some comments . . .

Special thanks to Darren Butler and Scott Kleinrock for an amazing class on Urban Ecological Agriculture that I had the privilege of attending. In this class I learned many important design concepts including the one in this post. We’ll share a bunch more in the next couple of posts.