Planning land layout for some farming

[NetComrade]

Can someone point me to a good resource on how to make decisions given the land we have?

We bought a one acre lot, half of it is "flat" and hydric soils that we plan on using for some light gardening. The other half is a relatively steep hill where we plan on building an earth sheltered home.

It's been difficult enough finding a builder that does what we want (still not 100% settled on that).. What we are also looking for is how to most efficiently use our 1 acre..

Given the topography and taking into consideration the sun, I feel we need to answer some of these questions before we finalize our decision on building.

Where to put a driveway.. where to leave room for chickens.. where to plant fruit trees.. where to plan veggies.. what size raised beds.. how wide of a path between them.. Is the house location important (I know it won't be in the middle and close to everything)..

I am not even sure what sort of specialist that would be.. Of course there is always a forum like this.. Just let me know if this is the right place.

[geo in mi]

Welcome to the forum. Everything that you mention except the driveway and maybe chickens need sunshine--so your house must face South, your garden also.... But you have your rooftop for growing things, and you may have to build some terracing, if the hydric soil is often wet or flooded. Where will the soil from the subterranean part of the house go? Can you do anything with that?

Hopefully your hillside is facing South?

geo

[NetComrade]

Good point with the chickens.. they'll can hang out somewhere in the shade.

Hill faces mostly east, with a bit to the south. There are lots of trees on the South side (and they're up hill too). I'd hate to take them all out just to get the South Sun. Given we are in zone 7A, I'd hope we get plenty of sun even with some shade.

The water "problem" we plan to address with better runoff control (there is water coming from the hill on the east side of the road), as well as with raised beds for planting.

The house will most likely go to the south-west corner on the lot. Lot is zoned AR-1, btw

[geo in mi]

I could see a rotunda to get more solar gain in the house, and terraces instead of raised beds. In some places, that is......

geo