Looking at the potential subcategories for your property’s resources shown in the lesson Your Property Resources, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the task of collecting information and head into the other struggles of permaculture, “how does it all fit?”, “where should I start?”, and “when does it end?”.
My recommendation is to simply consider each relevant subcategory using the four variables of pattern: form, timing, placement and scale. For example, when diagnosing the precipitation patterns of climate, the second property resource category, you would look at the annual average, maximum and minimum of the various forms of precipitation and the intensity of single events – this is scale. The duration, frequency and time of year various precipitation events occur – this is timing. The prevailing direction weather systems come from or locations where snow might concentrate – this is placement. The kind of precipitation you get like snow, rain, hail and condensation – this is form. This same detailed description would be repeated for your solar, temperature, and any other sector patterns associated with climate and for each of the other resource categories and the associated subcategories relevant to your particular property. See the table below for a list of other words that are common when making observations and how they fit into each of the four variables of pattern. You can start to see now why having a good organization system is essential for all this data, and any attempts to memorize it would be futile.
The Four Variables of Pattern. The four variables form, timing, placement, and scale can be used to diagnose and gather information about any pattern.
| Variable | Ways to describe |
| Form | Shape, colour, relative quality, morphology, intrinsic characteristics. |
| Timing | Frequency, duration, cycle time, schedule. |
| Placement | Spatial location, orientation, direction, connections, relationships, angle. |
| Scale | Size, weight, intensity, quantity, amount, strength, efficiency, depth, length, width, girth, distance, speed, area, concentration. |