How do you measure your food forest?

An important step in the design process of your edible paradise is measuring your terrain. Today we have fantastic technology to do this quickly and accurately. This way you can make a very good terrain analysis with a surveyor, a drone or smartphone and the right software. In the old-school and down to earth way to map your terrain, we use a measuring tape or measuring device. With this way of working you can go two ways. Either you have fun or you frustrate yourself to death! The saying 'to err is human' was invented for this, I think.

Start by measuring your building and use this as a reference for the entire site. If you don't have a building, first measure some 'fixed points' that are impossible to move, such as old trees, a fence or a gate.

For the math haters: feel free to skip this article, you can perfectly use other methods that are simpler. ☺

Using trigonometry to measure your food forest

You take your tape measure and make your zero point (A) at the end of your chosen baseline. This is point A. You now measure all the important points from A and write them down as A1, A2, A3, and so on. Make sure these points are well marked. You take the second zero point (B) of the baseline and also measure the distance from this to A1, A2, A3… You call these distances B1, B2, B3… Note everything down very carefully so that you can use all this data when you are back at your desk.

Back at your desk, draw your baseline (AB) to scale on a large white sheet of paper. In this example, we use the scale 1:100, so 1 cm on your sheet is equal to 1 m in reality. You measure A1, A2, A3 with your compass and your set square. If A1 is 5 m, you measure 5 cm with your compass, so that the radius of the circle is 5 cm. Then you draw a half circle from point A. Now do the same with B1 and voila! The place where these two circles intersect is the place where the first measured object is located.

Measuring Right Angles with Pythagoras

Good old Pythagoras is here again, those math lessons were good for something after all ☺. Forgotten what he taught us? A quick refresher! The Pythagorean theorem states that you can easily calculate distances using right triangles.

The formula is as follows: a2 + b2 = c2 or (axa) + (bxb) = (cxc)

An important note here is that a and b together must form the right angle. Even more simply explained: do you want to know if an angle is right? Then measure 3 m to the left (a) of the angle and 4 m (b) to the right of the angle. If you connect both ends and that distance is 5 m (c) you have a right angle between a and b.

You measure your base line AB, or you use the straight lines of the building, and from this you measure a long perpendicular line, as far as possible on your plot. You leave the measuring tape. Now you measure perpendicularly from this measuring tape the distance to a certain point to the left or right of the measuring tape. How do you know if you have taken your second measuring tape perpendicular? Apply the 3, 4, 5 rule.

Measuring terrain using the herringbone method

If you do this with one baseline, which we call the herringbone, you have a basic trunk with all kinds of perpendicular branches. In this way you can measure your terrain. Transferring all this to paper is fairly simple. On the terrain itself you first choose all the measuring points. A1, A2, A3, A4. This is the distance from your baseline to the branch. From there you measure A1-L1, A1-L2 (L from the left). You always start at the same zero point, then you measure the distance to L1, then you measure the distance perpendicular to A1. This way you can easily map your terrain.

Want to learn more about food forest design? Read 'Design your own food forest' by Commensalist founder Louis De Jaeger or book a no-obligation phone call with one of our Commensalists.