Starting to dream

I've read a bit about permaculture.(Wiki article on permaculture)  I done a bit of gardening and a tiny bit of planning gardens.  I've helped others with their gardens and discussed permaculture here and there.  Now, it's my turn to delve into our garden and our own permaculture plans.

One goal is to grow 50% to 80% of our food; the wide range is because I do not know what I am doing.   Another goal is to have a food system that I can maintain mostly by myself; Jason works many, many daylight hours and the children are not a reliable source of steady labor. One more goal is to find ways to have perennial and no-till arrangements whenever possible.  There are certainly other goals, but they are a bit more amorphous and difficult for this neophyte to articulate. I believe I will definitely discover new ones as I go along.

Let me introduce my property and the fantasy places and plantings I am imagining and beginning to plan for.

Here, just as we go out our back (preferred) door, we have this:

This side faces mostly south, a little east, and gets a full dose of sun year round. In the long run, it would be a good place to add a greenhouse, so our plans should not include things that would preclude a greenhouse.  Also, these are bedroom windows we want to enlarge and we must be cognizant of moving water away from the house.  My current thoughts are to build some cold frames and to put our herb bed here by this door.  The herb bed would be pretty and convenient; the cold frames could compromise moving water.  That's an area for research.

Here is the woodshed, which is on the other side of the back door.

We could put a trellis on this end of it to grow vines of cucumbers or morning glories or something.  Again, it gets full sun almost all day, though in summer it might not hit here until late morning.  The wood would be stacked from late spring until it was used in the winter.  The vines would somewhat protect this end of the stacked wood from rain, while the other open side would still allow the wood to dry.

Here is the garden shed, which is a good place to put starts once some of the frost danger is past.  Also, it has that south facing wall that might be good for cold frames or vines.  Some low bush might also be a good choice.  Maybe we could put gooseberries here.

This side of the house is a center of activity.  We prefer this view, and we like the picnic table out here.  There are some problems, like no out door water, but these can be addressed.  When we can address them, we'll have to decide to do with this field.

There are more spots to consider, but I've been warned to keep these short.  :)