What is a permaculture consultation?

Are you interested in learning about permaculture and how it can benefit your home or community garden? Perhaps you are unsure where to start, or you have questions about how to implement permaculture principles in your unique setting. A virtual permaculture consultation could be the perfect solution for you.

A virtual permaculture consultation is an opportunity to connect with a permaculture expert from the comfort of your own home. The consultation can be conducted over video conferencing software such as Google Meet, making it accessible from anywhere in the world. During the consultation, the expert will work with you to develop a hand drawn sketched plan for your garden, or farm that incorporates permaculture principles. 

Permaculture is a design system that emphasises sustainability, regeneration, and the integration of natural systems into human settlements. It is a holistic approach to gardening and farming that seeks to mimic the patterns and processes of natural ecosystems.

Some specific topics that may be covered during a virtual permaculture consultation include:

• Site analysis: The consultant can provide advice on how to analyse your garden space and identify its unique features and challenges, such as sun exposure, soil quality, and water availability.
• Design principles: Provide guidance on how to design your garden space using permaculture principles such as zoning, sector analysis, and guild planting.
• Plant selection: Provide recommendations on which plants are best suited for your garden space based on your climate, soil type, and other factors.
• Soil health: We can provide advice on how to maintain healthy soil using techniques such as composting, cover cropping, and natural fertilisers.
• Water conservation: Provide guidance on how to conserve water in your garden space using techniques such as rainwater harvesting, swales, dams and irrigation.

The consultation process typically begins with an initial conversation to determine your needs and goals. The consultant will ask questions about your land, your existing garden or farm, your gardening experience, and your vision for your future garden. A questionnaire will be sent to assist with answering these questions.

What you will need to provide:

As much information as possible so I can create a clear picture of your landscape. This would come in the form of topographic maps, videos walking around your garden explaining everything, contours maps, drone images and videos. 

Ideally an current topographic scale map generated from drone images. This would require buying or hiring a drone and or operator to conduct the survey. If you need help planning I can offer how-to guidance to achieve this yourself, its quite straightforward and easy to achieve.  

The process:

1. Book in a free chat with Blake, where he can chat with you about your project and get a scope of how he can best help
2. After the call he will send a questionnaire to help you gather the important information you need. Along with information about obtaining high quality topographic maps with contours. At this point you can send through any other videos and images of your landscape. 
3. Book a time for the virtual consultation with the booking form below
4. Leading up the consultation Blake will conduct a site assessment from looking over all the information you have provided. Such as local flora and fauna, solar angles, climatic and environmental factors. 
5. Consultation time. Blake will chat with you over video before changing the attention to your map where he will draw directly onto your plan, explaining, troubleshooting and designing your vision based on permaculture principles and design methods. This plan is then emailed to you at the end of the consultation. This stage may take up to 2 hours, depending on the size of your property.

Above is an sketch produced at the end of a consultation.