Zones and homestead layout, step by step
Interactive lesson: where to put the garden, hen house, compost, polytunnel, orchard and barn so every day gets easier, not harder.
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The whole lesson as text
1. The zone principle
What you visit every day goes closest to the house; what you visit once a year goes furthest away.
- Zones around the house — Six zones, from the house (0) to the wild (5). They aren't neat circles: they follow the terrain, paths and entrance.
- Zone 1 — Up to 15–20 m, visited several times a day: herbs, salad, seedlings, kitchen compost, rainwater, a small greenhouse.
- Zone 2 — From 20 to 60 m, visited daily: main garden, polytunnel, hens, rabbits, soft fruit.
- Zones 3, 4 and 5 — Orchard, field and apiary weekly; firewood woodland a few times a year; the wild part at the edge for pollinators.
Why: A place you visit once a day you go to 730 times a year, there and back. The closer something is, the more often you see it, and the more often you see it, the less it goes to waste. Lettuce 80 metres from the house stays unwatered and full of slugs.
- The distances are rough: on a backyard of 800 m² there are only zones 0, 1 and 2. What matters is the order, not the number of metres.
- A zone is measured in effort too: a spot 40 m downhill is closer than one 30 m uphill, through mud and a gate.
2. What goes where
For each element ask three things, and the answers decide its place.
- Three questions — How often you visit it, what it needs and what it gives. Write down the answers for every element.
- Fixed things first — You can't move the house, well, spring, road, a big tree or a steep bank. Draw them in first.
- Then the permanent ones — Orchard, barn, a polytunnel on foundations and the apiary are hard to move. They come straight after.
- Movable things last — Beds, a mobile hen house and electric fence move easily, so they go in last.
Why: How often you visit it, what it needs and what it gives. You visit hens twice a day, they need water, feed and shelter, and they give eggs and manure. That's why they usually sit in zone 2.
- You visit the compost every other day: it needs shade, water and kitchen and garden waste, so it goes in zone 1–2.
- An orchard needs sun and a spot above the frost pocket; an apiary needs shelter, morning sun and quiet.
3. Connections between elements · Locked
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4. Distances for health and safety · Locked
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5. When the terrain spoils the zones · Locked
Buy the Zones and homestead layout module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 25 steps.
6. From map to layout · Locked
Buy the Zones and homestead layout module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 25 steps.