Measuring areas on a map
Have
you ever wondered how large a certain pasture area was so that you'd
know how many pounds of clover to seed? Or perhaps you'd like to
estimate how many cubic yards of compost it would take to smother your
vegetable garden in a layer one inch thick?
Pacing off the
boundaries of these areas can get complicated, especially if they're
irregularly shaped or have trees or buildings in the way. Enter Google Planimeter.
This fun tool layers on
top of Google Maps. You mark the boundaries of your area using as
many points as you feel are necessary, and the website spits out the
size of the plot in square meters, hectares, square kilometers, square
feet, acres, and square miles.
I quickly learned that
I'd been estimating our homestead area incorrectly. Instead of
encompassing two acres, our current garden and orchard are more
like...0.57 acres. Add on another quarter acre currently fenced
in as pasture, and our entire cultivated land comes to less than an
acre. Who knew you could spend so much time (and grow so much) in
so little space?
Of course, the tool
doesn't take hills into account, so if you are farming on uneven
terrain, it will underestimate areas slightly. Yet another reason
to move to the mountains --- you get more acres of growing area per
square mile of earth. I wonder if we get taxed on real acres or
horizontal acres?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Maggie --- It's an interesting distinction, and one people don't think about much. I can see how horizontal acreage makes sense --- it measures the amount of land that gets sunlight.
Debbi --- I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Have a great holiday!