The best person to design the property of your dreams is you. This book gives you the tools to succeed. Building Your Permaculture Property offers a revolutionary holistic method to overcome overwhelm in the complex process of resilient land design. It distills the authors' decades of experience as engineers, farmers, educators, and consultants into a five-step process complete with principles, practices, templates, and workflow tools to help you: Clarify your vision, values, and resources Diagnose your land and resources for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats Design your land and resources to meet your vision and values Implement the right design to enhance your strengths and improve your weakest resource Establish benchmarks to monitor the sustainability and success of your development. When designing a regenerative permaculture property, too many land stewards suffer from option paralysis, a lack of integrated holistic design, fruitless trial-and-error attempts, wasted money, and the frustration that results from too much information and no context. Building Your Permaculture Property is the essential guide for everyone looking to cut through the noise and establish an ecologically regenerative, financially sustainable, enjoyable, and thriving permaculture property, anywhere in the world.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Geoff Lawton Preface Introduction      The Problem with Permaculture     You Need a Process (Not a Prescription)     About This Book and the Companion Website     Your Very First Practice: Get an Accountability Partner Step 0: Inspect Your Paradigm     The Gorilla in the Room     The Upward and Downward Spirals     Takota's Story: The Coen Permaculture Farm Upward Spiral     Practices for Step 0: Inspect Your Paradigm Step 1: Clarify Your Vision, Values, and Resources     What Do You Have?     What Is Right?     Takota's Story: Two Paths to the Same Cliff     What Do You Want?     Walking Through a Field of Landmines Blinded by a Scarf     Be Careful What You Wish For      Practices for Step 1: Clarify     Takota's Story: Buckets of Well-being Step 2: Diagnose Your Resources for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats     Takota's Story: Don't Skip Your Diagnosis!     A Watershed of Information     Takota's Story: Growing Up a Carpenter     Two Stages of Diagnosis     Black Swans     Takota's Story: Black Swan Dam     The Value of Digital Mapping and Open Data     Practices for Step 2: Diagnose Step 3: Design Your Resources to Meet Your Vision and Values     Why Design?     What Design Is Not     Takota's Story: To Swale or Subsoil?     Form, Timing, Placement, and Scale     Takota's Story: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly     Creating a Permaculture Design     Practices for Step 3: Design Step 4: Implement the Right Design That Will Most Improve Your Weakest Resource     What Is Your Birdshot?     What Is Your Slug?     Pull the Trigger     Good, Bad, and Ugly Decisions     Takota's Story: The Bazooka Approach     Practices for Step 4: Implement     Takota's Story: My Best Advice for Solving Any Problem Step 5: Monitor Your Resources for Indicators of Well-being or Suffering     The Push and Pull of Life     Monitoring Your Resources     Takota's Story: Monitoring for Mastitis     Takota's Story: Building My Own Permaculture Property      Takota's Story: An Ecosystem Disguised as a Farm     Practices for Step 5: Monitor     The Solution to a Sisyphean Task     Putting It All Together      Your Very Last Practice: Your Permaculture Property Planner Afterword: The Land Needs Us to Live Differently Here Glossary Notes Index About the Authors About New Society Publishers