Maximizing water on slopes: berms, swales, and countour

My Master Plan to plant my full-sun real estate (aka "the front yard") continues this fall....I learn by doing, so I tend to go do something and then revise it based on what I've learned. Several years ago, I build a sheet-mulch bed on the side of the house, which has done well, especially after I added a few berms to control water. I've been reading up on permaculture design over the last year or so, and plan to change that layout of that bed this fall to dig some swales/paths "on contour" for the permanent design.

In the front part of the yard, I built a circle bed two years ago, which is a nice feature. The first year, I planted it with Scarlet Runner Beans (growing up a "tepee"), which the kids loved. The second year, I put all my tomatoes there, and this summer, I had beans, chives, flowers, and an artichoke that grows well but hasn't bloomed.

Last winter, I saw this great idea in Mother Earth News to use straw bales and old windows to make some cold frames, so I plunked some down on my hillside to see if it would work. It did!

Cold frames with straw bales and old windows protected plants from several days of single-digit temps (Middle TN).

Once spring arrived, I put the windows away, added some compost, and planted the area with tomatoes, herbs, peppers, eggplants, and flowers. I was very pleased with this new "bed" area. It runs right next to a natural (and well-traveled) path, but I wanted to expand it for the next growing season.

Enter the simple A-frame, which is a great tool for figuring out where the natural contours of your hillside fall. I used a level with mine, but this video uses a plumb bob...it's short and explains how to do it if you're interested.

The "well-traveled natural path" is not  on contour, but I'm hoping to build/move my beds to intersect it. Today I dug out a swale, and I'm posing this to share my process and to get feedback!

Here is a longer view from the same angle as the "cold frame" picture above.

Envisioning the future....

The green lines on the left show one side of the natural path -- I planted the border with some liriope (monkey grass) that I got from a friend this spring. I'll mulch the area to the side of it well, and plan to add creeping phlox and possible some perennials, though the Magnolia tree does offer quite a bit of shade. The orange area shows one side of my "cold frame" hay bales, and I plan to make this my path border....I have plenty of large limestone rocks I can use to set the path border.

Intersecting with the path, you can see the swale I've dug, which is on contour. I have some hay bales out right now to kill the grass and hold the berm. The plan is to build a small wall in spring (purple lines), using stone pavers that match my circle bed. I can build another berm/swale bed (lower purple line) next spring or fall, depending on my time.

Here is the swale (so far) from the opposite side:

The swale is about one foot deep right now, and about 1.5 feet across (maybe slightly less). I plan to make it a little wider/deeper, and fill it in with small rocks/mulch to make a permanent path. The top "triangle" portion of the bed will be planted with perennials/herbs.


And here's one more view, from the perspective of the middle circle garden. Next spring, instead of hay bales, we'll have a low wall of matching pavers. (Also, you can seem my awesome hugulkultur bed in the background.)

I'm planning to plant the berm in some kind of cover crop this fall, and will use some low row covers for winter planting in the old "cold frame" beds. I had great luck with all my herbs/veggies there this summer, so I have high hopes for winter gardening!

What do you think?

Easiest way to build a great garden: Sheet-mulching

Easy. Do it easy. I believe this so strongly, that I even have an "Easy" tag for posts here South of Sunnybrook. And "sheet mulching" is the easiest way I've ever seen to build a garden. 

While I'm still all about adding veggies into my front flowerbeds, now that the blueberry "shrubberies" are getting larger, I can't plant tomatoes there any more. Plus, I wanted to try a Three Sisters Garden....and our full-sun real estate is our front yard, but the idea of tilling up my hillside seemed both daunting and unwise.

Summer 2013: No room for tomatoes here!.

Luckily, in May 2012, I learned about a technique called sheet-mulching. Basically, you make a big pile of organic matter on top of cardboard and let it sit for six months before planting. How easy is that? I decided to give it a go.

Building Soil

I started with several inches of manure in my bed. I am very lucky to have an aunt with horses. She is lucky to have a niece to help her cart it away! Generally, the sheet mulch begins with cardboard, but I didn't have any yet. It really doesn't matter, as long as the weed barrier is near the bottom -- it's all going to end up as topsoil anyway. A nice feature of this method is that you can make your beds any shape you like. As you can see from the picture below, I have a curve in my garden to accommodate the shade of the magnolia tree.

Wet each layer down well to get things mixing and breaking down. This does need to stay moist for optimum soil development, so I did water it occasionally during the hot Tennessee summer.

So easy, a child can do it.

Here you can see my first layers: manure, cardboard, straw...then compost, lawn trimmings, and other organic material on top of that.

I decided to use my remaining straw bales to act as a barrier to keep all my good stuff from slipping down the hillside. Two years later, I can tell you that was a good call. I am planning this year to grow a living fence just beneath the straw bale layer, using the abundance of forsythia I have on my property. I would love to know if anyone has done this before, or has other suggestions for which plant(s) to use.

I planted a cover crop in the late summer, and then last spring, I had a bed all ready to plant. I have a picture here of the bed in August of 2012. 

Getting into permaculture

Below, you can see the garden in May 2013. I decided to add a path near the tree. I also observed some erosion issues, so I built two hugelkultur berms, with swales to control water, where the two pink lines are. These have worked beautifully.

Below, you can see tomatillos, flowers, and purple basil growing near one of the hugelkultur berms. I also started an asparagus bed near the driveway. This method builds great soil, and it's so easy that I am slowly but surely planting my front yard this way! It's highly recommended here South of Sunnybrook.