Building Your Permaculture Property: A Five-Step Process to Design and Develop Land

"A book to take the reader from thinking into action, Building Your Permaculture Property offers an excellent addition to permaculture theory and provides a key resource for all designers. By confronting and working through real, thorny, and often invisible human and landscape problems — a terrain in which they have earned their share of cuts and bruises — the authors slice through the Gordian knot that stops most people from realizing their home and nature visions through a powerful design system. Their vibrant and positive attitude yoked to psychological insight harnesses clean language and a keen focus on process to cut a neat furrow of systematic thinking through the complexity of living systems assessment, design, and management. Offering a window on digital design tools, clever illustrations, and examples from the demanding world of cold prairie farming, the authors have created a well-marked pathway for the advanced learner to reach professional outcomes."
— Peter Bane, executive director, Permaculture Institute of North America, author, The Permaculture Handbook

"As well as being a valuable tool for individuals in their permaculture journeys, Building Your Permaculture Property represents another step towards permaculture being recognized beyond its widespread misconception of being simply a fashionable form of organic gardening. It highlights the need for permaculture design thinking in creating resilient, regenerative, landscapes and communities. Through this work, Rob, Michelle, and Takota make a valuable contribution to the ongoing evolution of permaculture thinking and action."
— David Holmgren, permaculture co-originator

"A fresh, integrative, and holistic perspective on how to orientate oneself to the process of establishing your dreams and visions on the land. Designing and managing a farm that can build soil, create amazing food products, and sustain the farmer financially is possible anywhere; and yet it is the clarity of our context and decision-making and our attitudinal responses to design and management that largely underlie success. If you are dreaming of starting out on the land, this book will be a useful companion that will help you clarify your own approach to success, and help you navigate complexity with confidence."
— Richard Perkins, author, Regenerative Agriculture, owner, Ridgedale Farm AB and Making Small Farms Work AB

"Exactly what is needed in the regenerative agriculture, homesteading, and permaculture community right now. It is loaded with practical, non-ideological, and actionable material on how to approach building your permaculture homestead. The information here is completely guided by experience and facts, unlike a lot of content out there these days that is rooted in hopes and dreams and built on a lack of practical application. This book will certainly be my manual as I develop my off-grid permaculture homestead."
— Curtis Stone, farmer, consultant, and author, The Urban Farmer

"Those just embarking on a project, and those in the thick of creation, will find value from Building Your Permaculture Property's systems approach to regenerative design. Anchored in permaculture's basic tenets — earth care, people care, and future care — the book's five-step process is organized with templates to collect and manage information, helping the reader to identify design ideas that consider her values, resources, and personal vision. These mental tasks are enhanced by playful illustrations by Jarett Sitter and lessons learned on the ground from the Coen family farm. Highly recommended!"
— Catherine Wanek, co-founder, Builders Without Borders, author and photographer, The New Strawbale Home and The Hybrid House, and co- editor, The Art of Natural Building

"As a well-being economist I would encourage government policy makers, First Nations, businesses, and farmers to contemplate the pragmatic processes and guidelines offered in this wonderful book. What would a permacultural approach look like adopted to the complex challenges of our economy? A permaculturist approach to the economy might consider maximizing well-being and minimizing suffering as the ultimate goal of a better life for all. This book provides a practical choreography of how to optimize well-being in our front yard gardens, our farmland, and across this vast expanse of Canada."
— Mark Anielski, economist and author, The Economics of Happiness and An Economy of Well-Being

"If you are serious about designing a permaculture property, this book has to be in your toolkit. The authors offer an accessible and current guide to the complexity of good design based on years of practical experience."
— Morag Gamble, Permaculture Education Institute

"A critical book for those at the beginning of planning their permaculture property. Michelle, Takota, and Rob have spent years developing their five-step permaculture process and have now boiled it down into one concise manual. This book does an amazing job of breaking down and simplifying a complex design process and will get you on your way to building your dream permaculture property! Practical, concise, and an essential read!"
— Jen Feigin, ex-director, The Endeavour Centre

"A life well-lived includes leaving the land better than we found it. This fivestep design manual jumpstarts that journey to a foregone conclusion, laying out a thoughtful process for making permaculture principles your own. Every farm, every ranch, and every homestead benefit from thinking deeper about how human intent engages with the places we're blessed to call home. Restoring integrity to degraded ground is our primal mission now as a species. Restoring diversity means planting many more trees. Restoring ecological posterity begins with listening to the heart of the mother... and then reading this book."
— Michael Phillips, Holistic Orchard Network, author, The Holistic Orchard

"This book is doing a world of good by reorienting readers to the holistic nature of permaculture. More than just a gardening method, permaculture is rooted in systematic observation, design, practice, and feedback for re-design to create regenerative, biodiverse, and profitable landscapes. I enjoyed reading this book!"
— Zach Loeks, director, The Ecosystem Solution Institute, author, The Edible Ecosystem Solution and The Permaculture Market Garden

"Rob, Michelle, and Takota have put a pair of glasses on something that is often blurry in permaculture design: process. Their step-by-step process from beginning to end is exceptionally useful, along with Takota's story which proves the process through a case study of a well-functioning, finely-tuned permaculture farm. Interwoven with a good amount of philosophy and detail, Building Your Permaculture Property is a needed read for anyone who is serious about developing their property through a permaculture design."
— Nicholas Burtner, founder and director, The School of Permaculture