02151 Zones in the Permacultured Kitchen

No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers. — Laurie Colwin

Permaculture uses zones as a way of analyzing and evaluating the uses of specific parts of a site. While the concept developed for application to homestead properties of several acres or more, the principles can be applied at any scale where you do permaculture design work, because zones are always based on the context and the central viewpoint of the designer..

The Basics section has documents on the topics of zones and sectors. The traditional permaculture zone system looks like this:

Zone 1 — The area closest to the house and/or along frequently traveled pathways through the site. Design elements placed here are those that need the most frequent attention from the household’s residents. E.g., “Plucking plants” like greens and salad makings, kitchen herbs, etc.

Zone 2 — The area, not quite so close “to the back door of the house,” where we put elements which need attention, but not quite as much as the Zone 1 elements. This could include some perennial fruit production (smaller trees, cane fruit, bushes, etc.), compost piles or bins, vermiculture projects, and annuals like corn or hot peppers or beans which don’t require daily attention.

Zone 3 — A larger area of food production which needs not-so-much attention, e.g., a wheat or hay field or a fruit and nut orchard of larger trees.

Zone 4 — Semi-wild — forage for animals, firewood, semi-managed.

Zone 5 — Wild — undisturbed by human management.

This isn’t just a rhetorical construct to make things look tidy. Placement of elements and activities is an important aspect of energy conservation (remember human energy). These zones are not concentric circles (although in theory they could be). They may meander around depending on the lay of the land, the size of the site, and the typical pathways to and through the site.

Now let’s look at the zone concept and apply it to your kitchen.

Kitchen Zone 1 — The areas used most frequently. This is the traditional kitchen “work triangle” of refrigerator, stove, and sink, with a food prep area somewhere along these lines of travel. If you “watch yourself” while working in the kitchen, you will see that you go through this pattern many times during the course of a day’s food production. This area should receive a lot of attention and study. As you prepare foods, do you spend much time looking for utensils and ingredients? Are there items you rarely use cluttering up the work triangle while other items, which you use frequently, are not conveniently located?

Kitchen Zone 2 — As you continue to observe your food prep habits, you decide the location of the Zone 2 of your kitchen. What is the area of next-most-intensive use? Possibly the food pantry and equipment storage? Shelves that are harder to reach?

Kitchen Zone 3 — Compared to the intensity of use of the kitchen work triangle in zone 1, the traditional permaculture zone 1 (actual food production areas with plucking plants, herbs, annual plants that need frequent attention/harvest, etc.) moves to Zone 3. For those who have no land, we could reference a container garden in a sunny window or on a balcony or sidewalk with herbs and maybe a tomato or two and some salad greens and radishes. Don’t discount the contribution that techniques like container growing, microgreens, and sprouting can make to your diet. You will be amazed at how much food you can grow in a small space. If you don't have any household food production, the Kitchen Zone 4 described below moves up to your personal Kitchen Zone 3.

Kitchen Zone 4 — These are the places where you source food you don’t produce yourself which comes from your region. This would be farmers markets, cooperatives, and etc.

Kitchen Zone 5 — Food sources such as locally owned supermarkets carrying regional and store brands.

Using zones in your design.

Zones are important to help you develop a design that is comfortable for your family and that works well for household. The kitchen work triangle is the center of household activity in the kitchen. Make sure the intensive activities of this area are well planned and integrated into the design.

As you work with your maps, you may want to make cutouts of various elements so that you can move them around and visualize different configurations of the necessary/desired elements and systems.

By careful observation and design attention to the patterns of activity in your food systems, you can develop systems that make the work go easier and more productive, and conservative of human effort.