Market Garden Vision

Clearly defining your vision is a critical first step in the permaculture design process. Unless your vision is consistently understood by all stake holders your design process and ultimately the project as who will by sidelined and roadblock by confusion and conflict. You will be confused your coworkers will be confused and your clients will be confused. In my introduction to permaculture course we cover in detailed how to get all of your great ideas into one clearly defined vision. This video clip from the course covers one of the techniques we use and how I have applied it directly to my own market garden project.

This summer I am looking forward to growing some great tomatoes. I love tomatoes, I know they grow well in my region and most importantly I know that my customers love tomatoes too.  Just look at these beauties how could you not want to eat these?

I use a design process map anytime I am applying permaculture design. This map allows me to move forward with the often messy business of design and planning. Whenever I am getting sidetracked by new ideas or interesting techniques the process map is an excellent way to bring thinks back on track. In using the  values goals specification (VGS) technique to organize my thoughts I have an easy way to mentally test my ideas on paper before I ever spend a dime or pick up a shovel.  This is where the impact of permaculture really shines through and it is a tool that I really need. I tend to be one of those people who like to charge out there and get to work. What I find is that some careful thought a head of time can save me thousands of dollars and hours of unnecessary work. In this instance I saved about $300 on my seed order as I carefully worked through the specifics of what I needed to produce in this first year.

So my seeds are here I've got my potting soil and seedling trays, I'll be starting them next week. Its a bit late but I am not too worried about it this year. One foot in front of the other that's all it takes. After my plants are started the next steps will be getting the soil ready. Let me tell you it needs a bit of work. I need to turn this into a market garden.

Its gona take some vision.