New garden design

During the last 3 years I´ve been mixing perma-culture with a more traditional style of gardening. I was looking for a smooth design first, but after 3 years I was getting bored with straight lines. So in line with one of the main designprinciples of permaculture I redesigned the garden. On the Picture you will see that I´ve moved towards a design that is closer to nature. In nature you won´t find straight lines. The spiral-looking beds are not only more fun to look at, they should also bring more energy to my garden. It is on the borders of the spirals that the most energy can be found. It is on the edges and borders that things are happening. Not only in my garden, but in all aspects in life, the marginal elements are interesting objects.

The redesigning was very intense. I noticed that after 3 years a design seems to "settle". Plants that were there since 3 years and that survived the harsh winters, are still in place. It makes no sense to re-plant them. So we had to develop the new design with these plants in place. On the old pathways we put carton and straw. On top of that came compost. In the end this resulted in 1 big bed. The next step was that we created new paths, resulting in what you see on the image.

About 2 weeks ago we started planting and today we can see the first plants coming up.
The danger with this way of working is that when the weather is dry, you need to add a lot of water. The rainwater sinks down very quickly through the compost and straw.

This new design will show its effect in the next couple of weeks. But I already know that it will take Another 1 to 2 years to settle.

Next year I hope to integrate a next area in my garden, which will make it 50% larger as today.