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Buying a new property is exciting . You might have hundreds of ideas running through your question about where you want to put buildings or clear away tree or start planting . like a shot start these projects may not be in your farm ’s best stake , though , and can drastically impact the landscape . Often , have like hayfield or ponds are intend to be left alone and given quad because that ’s the way nature intended it to be . If you do require to make changes , look at the history of the land first and take into retainer what is already on the land .
The chase is an excerpt fromCarving Out a keep on the Landby Emmet Van Driesche . It has been adapted for the connection .
Understanding the history of your land is not about preserving the past like in some museum, unless that is your thing.
Rather , it serves as a jumping - off point , learning what made sentience then to think about what makes sense now . It is easy to lie on the error of past landowners ( if they had n’t made any , their descendants might still be farming the land and not you ) , and fail to see the fantabulous choices that were made in siting buildings , define pastureland and woodlots , and utilizing bounce .
When we move into our farmhouse , I spend the first couple of years daydreaming about all the changes I would make to the house if we ever buy it , only to realize that my first idea were not that in effect , and that I had reacted to the landscape painting without any mother wit of nicety . As I observed more and subsist through more seasons , my understanding of what would make the house well shift . Although we did n’t finish up buying the home , it was a object lesson I took to inwardness .
The concept ofsite repairoffers another way to think about our propensity to make too many changes, too fast, when encountering a new landscape.
It was first put forward in the groundbreaking bookA Pattern Language , written in the seventies by a grouping of architects who were attempt to describe the coarse theme behind the architectural winner of common buildings around the world , construction designed and build based on local needs , with local materials , reflecting local traditions , and by local builder . Understanding website repair is childlike . First , picture a meadow . Most people when tot up to this landscape would select to put a unexampled building in the nicest office in the meadow .
After all , it is such a adorable meadow . But sometimes adding to a space destroys or cut off the very things that made it lovely and remove years or even decennary to develop , include plant , the room animal interact with the landscape , the way the lead blows across it , or a view . building are not tough ; they can vastly enrich the spaces around them if sit and build thoughtfully . But they inevitably break up what was there before , and so the best thing is to place them , if possible , in an area in need of reparation .
accord to the site repair precept , the break up - down crash of a construction that is slowly moldering into the goldenrod gets removed and cleaned up to make manner for building something new , and the hayfield stays the endearing meadow that take so many age to evolve .
land site haunt is not commonly practiced on farms , in part because there is usually more land uncommitted than there is money to pick up the old foundation , and in part because we farmers are thrifty . That jumble of one-time equipment on the field edge ? It might provide us with a part we need someday , or we might be waitress for the price of scrap metal to go up , or we see it as some kind of crazy retirement plan to finally sell . In the meantime , we plunk the new nursery or shed or barn or house , even , right in the centre of the dainty bit we ’ve get .
This is exactly the sort of short - terminus thought process that have farms into trouble . What would you do differently if you were to create a five - twelvemonth architectural plan for your farm to be as successful as you hope and imagine it could be ? What about a ten - year plan ? Twenty - five?The proficient Fannie Merritt Farmer make the big decisions using the story of their land to inform long - term future movement , while also read the Camellia sinensis leaf in the nowadays to keep things prompt in that direction in the short term . This can mean new infrastructure using situation repair , but it can also mean repairing and using the structures that already survive , whenever potential .
Cecilia and I did a bunch of repurposing of spaces when we lived at the farm , and we continue to do it at the house we now own . When we needed a garden shed , I muck out the old outhouse , put a raw floor down , repair the impoverished windowpane , and built a doorway . When we needed a space to make garland and cure garlic , I abandon the minuscule nursery shed of its dust , quicken the roof , and repainted it . We cleaned and organized several area in the big b to create place to put in pole of lei during the sweeping season , and we dismantled another shed that had collapse down a gully rather than just have it rot in place .
Landscape Design for Site Repair
Whenever you are adding a new construction to a landscape or renovating an exist one , here are some basic principles to keep in mind :
Recommended Reads
Rewilding Your kingdom
The Miracle of Farming : Toward a Bio - Abundant Future
Carving Out a Living on the Land
Lessons in Resourcefulness and Craft from an Unusual Christmas Tree Farm
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