What to expect when you’re permaculturing: plans versus reality.
this section by Heather Jo Flores
How many gardens have I started from scratch? I have lost count. Im a vagabond farmer. Dozens. And those were my own designs, my own implementations, with varying degrees of success. Work done for others, for clients, for mentors, and for friends? Dozens more—dozens of farms and yards and tiny rooftop gardens, bursting with plants!
More often than not, I have seen these sites follow a pattern something like this:
- Year 1-2: tons of energy and everything gets set up and looks amazing
- Year 3-4: whoops those trees all died, the rain catchment broke, and the greywater pond is a literal shitshow
- Year 5-6: trying to re-align stuff but resisting the need to go back and undo bad decisions made in naive design that probably got implemented way too quickly…site descends into chaos but then functionality starts to happen. Unfortunately now lots of junk to clean up, weird attachments to crap that didn’t work need to be purged, and so on.
- Year 7-8: ok finally letting things go and allowing the pendulum to swing back from lofty ideals and attachments, ever so slightly back toward “I just want to have a nice place to hang out where I can give something back to Nature.”Y
- ear 9-10: things come together, paths and flows start to make sense, beauty emerges> and so on…
10 years?? Here’s how to cut that whole learning curve in half, at least:
The degree of difference between the vision and the reality is exactly proportionate to the amount of effort put into a thorough and detailed outlining of the actual tasks and actions that were needed to bring the project from idea to fruition. In other words, make a plan; a detailed, task-based, step-by-step plan for every zone and over multiple phases of time.
How to create an implementation plan that will avert chaos (as much as possible!)
Once you’ve got your GOBRAD all down on paper, the IME part of the process goes very quickly…on paper. The implementation, maintenance, and evaluation phases, in action, never end.
What? That’s so overwhelming! Yeah, we know. That’s why we advocate creating milestones, marking goals, and organizing tasks into workable phases. To create the task list and 3-phase implementation plan we’re asking you include in your final project, use any or all of the resources on this page.
Caveat: you don’t need to include every tiny detail! We just want you to think it through, create a basic budget for time and resources, and practice using these important tools.
Tool #1: 3-Phase Task List and Roles Delegation Worksheet
Here’s a simple way to start drafting your plan.
Step 1: go through each zone in your design and assess the tasks that need to occur there. Go meta. Big tasks. Don’t fret about details, but think about what might need to happen before something else can happen. (Don’t get the chickens before you build the coop, for example.)
Step 2: go down the list and add a general due date to the phase in which you expect to complete each task.
Step 3: assign a person who will be ultimately in charge of the completion of that task. Does this mean they will have to do it all? No. It just means they will make sure it gets done, either by assembling a crew, hiring out, or doing it themselves.By way of example, here’s a filled in version, based on my own design project.
Click here to get a PDF with a similar, blank chart for you to use.
Or, if you use Trello, we’ve made this chart into a template for you!
Tool #2: The PEAR Process: a Pathway to Group (or Solo) Synergy
PEAR is a task-based project management workflow that I invented a long time ago and use to organize all of my stuff! It’s very simple and easy to explain, but what makes PEAR so awesome is this: nobody else even needs to know how to use it, or that you’re using it at all! You can be the catalyst for any sized project, share leadership, and let participants as much or as little creative control as seems necessary.
What is synergy?
Synergy is the interaction of elements and/or organisms that, when combined, produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individuals. A garden is the perfect example. In a healthy garden, all of the organisms interact together, and they each have a role. Do the earthworms produce fruit? No they do not–that’s the tangerine’s job! The worms do wormy stuff, and the trees…well…you get it. Synergy is biorhythm; niches in motion, together, changing and creating abundance.
Our collective working groups can coordinate with the same ease. We just need to know our roles, and since we aren’t as blindly connected to the natural cycles as, say, an earthworm might be, then it helps to also understand the overarching system in which those roles play a part.
Or not! As I mentioned above, you can also use this process like I do: to organize your own projects and then plug people into specific tasks or sets of tasks, according to who shows up, what skills they bring, and how involved they want to be.
PEAR is a synergistic process which allows us to be greater than the sum of our parts, while still emphasizing the action, autonomy, and accountability that is so important to our overarching ethics as ecological designers.
We can’t control anybody but ourselves, but if we want to change the world, we can’t do it alone. We have to play well with others, and it helps if we learn how to create space so that they may play well with us, and with each other.
But, as you remember, chaos/order is also one of those patterns, and human working groups seem to be especially inclined towards getting caught on either the chaotic end of things, or painfully obsessed with order. Either way, a dysfunctional working group will poison even the most brilliant of projects, and a balanced, synergistic group can work miracles.
The PEAR process will help you opt for the latter. Yay miracles!
Here’s how it works:
PEAR Process, step-by-step
Here’s a quick-reference cheat sheet and a rundown of the process.
Before you begin, have your S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals (and the rest of your design project, with all homework completed to this point) in hand.
PLACEMENT.
Don’t set unrealistic deadlines and then freak yourself out over them. Root down into the whole-system process and make a clear, achievable plan. You have until the end of the world to get it all done! Enjoy the process. This the best work in the world!
Use the tools above to help you reach this point, or just start from scratch, right now.
EVENTS
Starting with your brainstormed list of tasks, and expanding to the rest of what you know about the project, and identify important holidays, due dates, and milestones, and mark them on a timelines.
Focus on measurable achievements and tangible deadlines.
ACTION
Design from patterns to details. Break the milestones into smaller sets of tasks, and add them to the timeline. Determine which tasks need to go before other tasks, and which tasks are best left until later.
Take your time with this process, and work through each major milestone until you have your master timeline roughed out.
RELATIONSHIPS.
Establish a flow of communication, and delegate. Assign roles, choose tasks, and figure out who is going to do what, and when. Adjust due dates accordingly, as you discover what’s realistic for whomever is actually going to do the work. If you’re doing it all yourself, be kind!
Remember that the R is also Rewards. Treat yourself and treat your workers like the treasures you all are.
PRO TIP:
Don’t set unrealistic deadlines and then freak yourself out over them. Root down into the whole-system process and make a clear, achievable plan. You have until the end of the world to get it all done! Enjoy the process. This the best work in the world!
Homework for this phase of your design project
Now is a great time to go back over everything, one more time.
And if you haven’t been in touch for a while, reach out to your mentor and check in to make sure they have time to review your final design when you finish up, a couple of classes from now.
Feedback
In this step, feedback will come mostly from the people you’re plugging into the tasks of your plan. Take this opportunity to establish and/or improve any existing communication systems you have with your working group.
If you’re working alone, take this time to improve your record-keeping systems, and to get organized for the years of hands-on work to come.
Deliverables
Make your implementation plans.
Ooh! You’re almost finished now! Use the tools in this class to generate your implementation plan. Once you’ve got a plan for which tasks will occur in which phase, and by whom, you’re ready to map out each phase of this section of your design project.
Ooh! You’re almost finished now! Use the tools in this class to generate your implementation plan. Once you’ve got a plan for which tasks will occur in which phase, and by whom, you’re ready to map out each phase of this section of your design project.
The mapping part is simple: just create a layer for each phase, and include only the components that will be completed in that phase. You can include tasks on the map layer itself, or attach a separate sheet that outlines the tasks in each phase–whatever works for you, your designer’s mind, and your project.