I will close this design with an answer and question session with myself reflecting on how I believe the design process went for this design.  

What went well?

Having spent so much time each morning over the winter sitting in the barrel of cold water contemplating how I could improve this section of the garden I came to this design with a good understanding of what I wanted. Putting these thoughts into the FORAGE framework I was able to think through the design from a different perspective.

This was the first time that I have used the FORGAE framework for a land-based design and I found that I could logically encapsulate the different stages of the design process into each section of the FORAGE permaculture design framework.   

What has been challenging?

Using the popular permaculture design frameworks, you can get inspiration from the internet on how other people have used them. Creating a framework, yourself, you are your source of inspiration. I found myself going to my past FORGAE designs and having to think much more about what I needed to do.

I also knew going into this design that it was only going to be a short design but the writing up of the design still took me far too long to complete. I could list a multitude of reasons why this was but each of them would be just a different excuse to myself. 

What are my long-term vision and goals for this design?

To let it mature organically. As with all my designs, I want everything to be perfect straight away. The reality is becoming clearer with each permaculture design I do and that is, it takes time for a design to grow into its full potential.

So far in this design, I’ve achieved a very nice-looking area of my garden. What is missing is what can only come with time. Once the newness is replaced by age the true vision of this design will appear organically season after season, learning upon learning how the garden grows naturally.

What are my long-term vision and goals for the FORAGE design framework?

This would be pretty much the same as above, to let the framework mature organically.

This is my third time using this framework, the first was with a mental health design, I used it for my permaculture diploma pathway design, and now with my first land-based design. This framework is still in its early stages, and I need to keep using it and sharing my process on how I’m using it.

The long-term vision and goals for the FORAGE design framework are for other people to look at it and test it out with one of their designs and improve on it, and then for other people to see that design, and for them to use it and improve on that. 

What are my next achievable steps for the FORGAE framework?

I’ve already got my next design idea thought out for the FORGAE framework. This will be a new direction for this framework using it to retrospectively look at what I could have done better to save a wildflower meadow in front of my house here in Richmond when a planning application to build 28 houses was submitted. 

In what ways did the principles and ethics most significantly shift your decision-making?

As my design skills have hopefully improved with each completed permaculture design, the way I approach the principles and ethics in my design process has become the section in the design where I can tell a story.

My style with this design was to build the story around the mornings I would spend sitting in a barrel of cold water throughout the winter planning how I wanted this part of the garden to look. When I was in the barrel, I would be looking directly at the very messy area of my garden that I wanted to change, and it did not impress my thoughts with calmness. Using a little dry humour which is a contradiction considering where I was sat, I would weave the experience of sitting in the barrel into each of the principles and ethics to draw out my thoughts to paint a picture of the bizarreness of the whole experience.  

Writing in this way allows me to think about the principles and the ethics as a whole system and not as a box-ticking exercise as I was initially doing in my earlier designs when I viewed each principle as a necessary must-have that somehow had to go into a permaculture design no matter how it was squeezed in.

To answer the question I would summarise, that the principles and ethics add flow to my decision-making in the design process.