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Place the garden using permaculture zones

Locate each food element by how often you need to visit it. Elements you tend daily go closest to the kitchen; low-care elements go further out. This cuts walking, watering effort and missed harvests.

How

1. Start from the site master plan (site module) showing the house, slopes, water sources, drainage, access tracks and prevailing winds.
2. Mark Zone 0 (the house) and draw Zone 1 next to the kitchen door: herbs, salad beds, soft fruit such as strawberries, and the kitchen compost bin, all visited daily.
3. Place Zone 2 just beyond: main vegetable beds, longer-cycle crops and perennial beds that need attention every few days, usually irrigated and mulched.
4. Place Zone 3 further out for orchards, perennial shrubs and field crops visited weekly or less once established; Zone 4 for woodlots, nut trees and foraging; Zone 5 left wild.
5. Check sunlight: Texas A&M AgriLife advises most vegetables need at least 6 hours of direct sun a day. Move Zone 1 and 2 beds if buildings or trees shade them.
6. Bend the zones to fit the land. Both Oregon State and NC State sources stress zones are guidelines and need not be neat circles.
7. Keep the garden close to the water storage and greywater outlets planned in the water and sanitation modules, so irrigation runs are short.

Do these first

• site-1
• design-1

Sources

1. Introduction to Permaculture: Zones. Oregon State University (Open Oregon State), accessed 2026-11
2. Extension Gardener Handbook, Appendix G: Permaculture Design. NC State Extension, accessed 2026-11
3. Planning a Garden (E-289). Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, accessed 2026-11

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