Hugelkulture/chinampas sort of hybrid

So in planning out my parents' backyard garden, I decided to make a root-shaped access path system for their main annual beds, essentially in a keyhole fashion, but with no typical keyhole bulge at the end of the path, just a very traditional blunt ended root shape to aid access. I also decided to put in a pond nearby simply as an overflow of the rain catchment system I will be building and using for the primary drip irrigation system.

Now, this whole time, I've been trying to figure out where to direct the overflow of the pond. It is located at the "high" point of our yard, nearest the house, and will flow to the back somewhere, but I'm not sure. One option I've been toying with is making a sort of chinampa/hugelkultur synthesis, where the overflow trench from the pond will go past the annual beds, the trench filled with gravel/stones/mulch so it can still be a walkable path. However, rather than flood out the root paths on all available sides of the beds like it would in a chinampas, perhaps there can be a log as an edging for the head of each bed that is slightly embedded in the gravel, enough to reach the drainage water line, so it soaks up the moisture as it overflows past all of the beds to it's final destination, and then once it stops raining/overflowing, the logs will release the moisture back to the beds slowly over time.

I dunno, it's an idea I've been toying with, I'll see if I can make a drawing to better explain it. The one concern I would have with it I guess is spreading the water out enough. I don't want to spread it out too much obviously, but I also don't want to concentrate it on the first bed it comes to and just seep in, I kind of want it to drain all the way to the farthest bed and eventually drain into a "wet" zone where some riparian species can grow. The problem is that the "high" point is not very much higher than the low point, only maybe a foot or so, if that. The makes me worry about pooling, and also because of how sandy the soil it, I'm not sure if the end point "wet" zone will end up being that wet unless I make that a full on dug bed hugelkulture.

Anyway, any suggestions or perspectives on what I've outlined would be appreciated!

Seems like it is worth trying. If the log edges are uphill from the garden beds, then the rate of absorption by the logs will be much slower than the rate of flow from the pond. So the water should hit the logs, partially sink in, but keep going down hill. If you set up the contours in a sort of key line fashion, you should be able to water the farthest beds (eventually).

been kicking around something similar here myself..just haven't had the equipment, time or strength to get it done yet..if ever.

We put in a large pond here and it has an overflow that goes into a ditch..the ditch drains the acerage around us back into a swamp area on our land and then onto a river.

I would love to not only dig some branches to the ditch at 90 degree angles to make some chinampas..but also would like to put in a series of smaller ponds along the area as well..

I love the way they are in the permie books, with the hugels or berms on either side and the pond/water/ditches in between parallel to each other..and i have the room for them..but I am too crippled up to use the tractor or to dig that much..and son hasn't the time to do the work for me..and hubby ..we (head injury) won't.

so it is still a dream for me..but it might happen..I have a ditch about 1000 feet long..that has water in it off and on through out the year..but small ponds or ditches would hold a lot of water on our property..that could be used by us or wildlife..would love to have that