Summary 

This design is about curating a food forest at Beyond Buckthorns into an area which has been a garden in the past but has since grown pretty wild, located in Zones 2 and 3. The design aims to increase biodiversity, get yields and enable teaching in this area. This is Lumia Huhdanpää-Jais’ Diploma Portfolio Design 8/10.

Design Framework

SADIM

Client & dates

Residents of Beyond Buckthorns: myself and husband Dominik 

Dates: Observing and small tweaking of as-is started back in 2016. Design 10/2023-04/2024 

Tools

Client interview, Maps, PASTE, DAFOR, Zones, Sectors, Photos, PMI, Functions-Systems-Elements, SWOC, Input-output, Weaknesses to solutions.

Ethics as aims

Earth care: This design aims to increase and support biodiversity and sustainable food production at our homestead. The solutions used should always be sustainable (and regenerative whenever possible), not harming the Earth in any way.

People care: The garden is to be designed should be a relaxing, educational place for humans. The creation of the garden should respect people’s resources and boundaries, not taxing them excessively.

Fair share: One of the aims for this design is to use the garden for teaching. It should also produce (as part of Beyond Buckthorns’ other systems) surplus yield of harvest that we can share with our friends, neighbors and community 

Principles guiding the design

Permaculture is imagination and information intensive: This design will challenge my knowledge and will require me to do a lot of learning, plus it will need creative solutions to work.

Everything works both ways: How can the resources and boundaries that we face in this area be used in a positive way?

Work with nature, not against it: I need to work with the area, it’s strengths and weaknesses and see how it can work, and not try to make the area something that it’s not.

The yield is theoretically unlimited: What are the yields we could get from this area?

Least change for the greatest effect: Work bit by bit, take small steps to keep the project manageable.

Everything gardens: Design to leave space for Nature to garden. 

Food forest design

This design was documented in a presentation format. Please download the presentation below as pdf for your own use and learning!