The Swales or Terraces

Our front yard is just one big ugly hill. The soil is poor, partly because it was graded and stripped of all top soil when the house was built but also because the hill is so steep everything washes away. A steep hill with nothing growing in it just does not retain water or humus. In come swales. I first learned of this from the book Gaia's Garden. A swale catches and holds water in the soil. We first started a hugelkultur swale a couple of years ago. We were amazed to watch how quickly it changed the landscape. This hill would normally grow next to nothing, even weeds don't take root in many places. It very quickly became lush and green.

I was also inspired by the terrace gardens of China. Many cultures have had to garden on hills and they do it successfully by terracing it. Most of the Chinese terraces I saw were just dirt sided, no stones or wood holding it up. And if they are maintained they can last not just hundreds but over a thousand years. I decided this could be a way to actually do something with our big ugly hill and give me more gardening space with full sun. I also quickly learned that I'm rather good with a shovel and it doesn't take that long to sculpt the yard with one.

This is a view from the Fairy Garden. That section there behind it is actually planted with Romano Bush beans, Husk Cherries and some cabbage.

Here is a partial glimpse of the hill from the top. It's steep. The trees and bushes are growing slowly because the water and nutrients are just washing away.

The right side of the photo above and the left below show our first swale. It's the green growing thing. I initially piled large amounts of dead and decaying wood in a swathe all around the hill. I then dug into the hill and tossed the dirt over the wood. It's been planted, all 90 ft in length of it, with potatoes, turnips, lettuce and clover. Clover adds nitrogen to the soil and the turnips were a quick growing green mulch that would hopefully crowd out any weeds before they could get a head start.. And so far it has done that with everything but sorrel. The bed will be furthered refined and shaped once we harvest the potatoes. We are trying to build up the soil.

These next two swales/terraces were mostly dug out by me yesterday. They need to have manure added to them and be further shaped and leveled. But I'm really pleased so far with them. Excuse those big clods of dirt in the first path. They rolled there as I was tossing dirt onto the next terrace.

So instead of one big ugly steep hill we are going to hopefully have long curved terraces full of fruits and vegetables, trees and flowers. That first swale has a Lilac, a few blueberries, a rose, a Rose of Sharon and a fig tree.

Hugelkultur Compared

I showed some pictures previously of the process of building our hugelkultur bed. I can't remember how many of them I showed. A couple of weeks ago I began to suspect that something odd was going on with our cantaloupe beds. I had had one packet of cantaloupe seeds. I planted 3 hills each in 2 beds. One bed was a hill bed like you might plant with corn and squash. I cleared a rectangle and dug out 3 circles about 18 wide each and enriched it with old manure and alfalfa pellets. We then mulched all over the bed with straw.

I also made an experimental hugelkultur bed. We put branches on the ground that were mostly freshly cut. We tossed on pinecones and bark from the pine tree that fell and hit our house New Years day and had been laying in our yard. We tossed on some leaves and we put on a layer of manure. Lastly we tossed old sod on. I use my stirrup hoe and scrape the grass or mostly weeds rather on the ground to prepare a garden bed. The only dirt it pulls up is a thin layer attached to the roots. It looks similar to the sod strips people put in their yard only no one would buy dandelion sod. We placed that on the hugelkultur bed with the weeds facing down and the dirt side up. In my head I thought of it as a garbage bed. We made it entirely out of what people want to get out of their yard and dispose of in some way.

I didn't expect it to do much, at least not this year. But on the top of the bed we used a small shovel and lightly dug in 3 piles of red clay for planting. I had the extra seed so why not? I didn't get around to planting the cantaloupe in that bed till 2 weeks after planting the first. It did come up. I was worried about the plants getting enough water and having some where to put down roots since I planted in them a brush pile basically. Recently though I would glance off the front porch at the two cantaloupe beds side by side and wonder if I was seeing things. Was the hugelkultur really looking better than the traditionally planted one? See for yourself. Here they are side by side:



Here is the hugelkultur bed. Look how gorgeous and green and lush these leaves are? That is a burlap mulch but weeds are growing through. It was the start of an experiment I never finished. David keeps asking me if I am sure I used the same seeds. I used the same seeds from the exact same packet.

And the sad traditionally planted one is here. It looks like it's missing something doesn't it? And this had a 2 week head start.


I think amazing is not an over exaggeration here. I am amazed! I had wanted to apply some alfalfa pellets to the hugelkultur one but never got around to it. They have both received 2 applications of actively aerated compost tea. That's for another post though. One thing that stands out in my mind is how the branches in the bed are supposed to have the ability to hold in large quantities of water in the soil. Permaculture design does place an emphasis on finding ways to help your yard hold water in the soil. I am too tired to elaborate on how and why and I just remembered a hose turned on earlier today/yesterday and wonder if it was ever turned off :( But I now have some exciting plans for all the trees we recently cut down.

Here is a photo of these same beds taken earlier for comparison:


It's taken from the other side of the beds so that is the hugelkultur bed on the left and you can see how the plants are smaller than the ones in the bed on the right. See how lumpy that bed is under the burlap? Not a finely prepared garden bed!

Trees, Corn and Hugelkultur

The boys are becoming rather daring with their tree climbing. That's Isaac at the top and Fintan lower down. All Fintan wants to do is play outside.

We have corn planted on the right. The bed on the left is us attemping a hugelkultur bed to plant the boy's pumpkins in. I assume the vines will spread into the corn and help mulch the ground. I do plan on adding a straw mulch to the corn though. The hugelkultur was kind of spur of the moment but we'll see how it goes! It needs a little more work but I am not real particular about it. It is layers of old and new branches, pinecones, dirt, weeds and grass that had been in the compost pile and aged manure.