Here is an Overview our current design - for a more detailed explanation you can print click here
Project brief
Develop a design based on permaculture principles for the area beside the house to:
- allow year round vegetable production for my wife and I, with surplus going to the community
- be a showcase of permaculture principles to show what is possible and to inspire others
- provide a modest additional income through natural products eg. basket making
- serve as a demonstration site for future course attendees
- minimise the use of plastic by maximising the use of natural and available resources
Budget: sufficient and confidential
Timescale: incremental build starting in 2025
Team: myself, volunteers, and occasional local contractors
Equipment available: mechanical mower, rotavato, mini-digger, soil blockers, various spades, rakes, etc.
The detail
Flowers and fruit – this area was previously a lawn and is very compacted and unsuitable for vegetable growing. Instead we have planted trees (fruit and nut) and flowers. In winter we sow a cover crop of daikon radish (decompaction), vetch and phacelia for enrichment. The flowers are a mix of wild flowers for pollinators, and cultivated flowers for beauty and sharing. The fruit is a variety of heirloom apples, pears, plums, hazel, and cherry.
Pond – will store water from the roof of the house for bio-diversity and vegetables. Its position will assist in hydrating the area. A shallow drain will lead eastwards to hydrate the berries and vegetable patch.
Basket willows – these will grow on a swale to the north of the solar panels. We will divert the water from the roof of the barn into this swale. We will coppice these willows to make baskets. This will be a modest income stream.
Swales – these will trap water and hydrate the soil. The soil type is loam above a gravel base (probably an esker) and while the loam will store water, the gravel base will not so the area will need continuous hydration.
Compost – at the top of the hill so that any nutrients that leach will enrich the growing areas below.
Vegetables – a series of 10m x .80m beds for the growing of summer veg.
Tunnel – This is a must for the wet and windy Irish climate. The polytunnel will allow us to grow a diversity of vegetables. We have room for a second one if needs be.
Berries – our dedicated berry house.
Firepit – for fun
Pizza – a cob pizza oven for yum.
Geodesic dome surrounded by more fruit and nut trees – the trees will give privacy to the dome for sleeping or gathering.
Potatoes – we have a number of people interested in growing spuds – this is for them
Solar – solar panels supplying the house, charging our electric car, with excess going to the grid.
Forest – a new native broadleaf forest (4.74 Ha) to offset our remaining carbon footprint and to be a sustainable source of timber in the future. It will be predominately oak, with some beech for beauty, sweet chestnut for nutrition, and coppiced willows either for weaving or pelletising as fuel for our pellet stove.
Large pond – not shown is a large pond we have dug together with a few small ones to improve the bio-diversity. These are at the lowest part of the farm ensuring we trap any runoff before it reaches the drains along the boundary.
Studio – where we hold our workshops.
About the drawing
The drawing above was made as follows:
- The property was mapped with our DJI Air2S drone using Dronelink
- The drone images were stitched together with WebODM to produce a geo-referenced orthoimage
- QGIS was used to generate the contours and produce the "basemap" for the new garden area
- This image was loaded into Inkscape and Inkscape was used to add all the features at their correct scaled size.
- QGIS was then used to combine this new image with the original orthoimage. This is what you see above.
The next step is to build the structures in the indicated position. this will be achieved by downloading the image from QGIS to a mobile device using QField. Using the GPS we will then position every element where it belongs.
Workflow
I offer this as a possible way of working. It works for me (Macbook Air and IPhone 14), I cannot guarantee it will work for you.
- Create QGIS>export and QGIS>import folders
- Set these in Plugins>Qfieldsnyc>Preferences
To export a project
- Save project
- Go to Plugins>Qfieldsync>Package for Qfield
- Make any changes suggested and Press Enter
- Open finder QGIS>export
- Select project folder and airdrop to iPhone
- On iPhone save to Location “On my Phone”>QField>Imported Projects
To work on iPhone
- Open Qfield
- Open local file>QField files directory>Imported Projects
- To edit map press Hamburger menu and tap Pen (edit) at bottom left, return to map
- Perform action
To import project into QGIS
- Open file manager on iPhone
- Go toLocation “On my Phone”>QField>Imported Projects
- Select file and hold, press Share and select device
- Accept on device - it will probably go to Downloads
- Move from Downloads into QGIS>import folder
- In QGIS Plugins>Qfieldsync>Synchronize from QField (if this crashes QGIS then simply copy the changed file(s) into the project folder.
- Changes should be seen immediately, otherwise close and reopen the project
Notes:
- Make sure that the returning data is synchronized only once. Before going out again to collect more data a new QField package should be created. This will avoid sync problems later on e.g. duplicates.
- Documentation https://docs.qfield.org/get-started/tutorials/get-started-qfs/