terraced gardens

In hawaii where i am its mostly rock....so i was thinking of buying a south facing hillside lot and dozing it to the blue rock cause it wicks water and terracing it...as well as having a canopy to catch water and protect against the midday sun. Watering at the top and letting it work its way down to trees at bottom. We can get crazy wind and rain here so have to use green house of canopy or risk being washed out....let me know what you think...

Jason --- I'd recommend a lot of organic matter in there. Hugelkultur is great, or you can grow cover crops for a few years before planting trees. The more organic matter you have in your soil, the better!

Yeah its pretty amazing here anna...we get free mulch at the dump...they have huge piles all hot they really know what they doing....so i was going to terrace and back fill with that mixed with top soil from hilo side and then 6-8 inches of topsoil on top. I wanted to incorporate some kind of dual functionality into the rock walls make them waterways or something like that...but misquitos are a huge issue here...people have no idea about misquito abatement....its the wild wild west out here...lol....what would you use for a shade cover that i can catch water off of that is bpa free and will last a long time without being replaced while maintaining maximum light yeald?

I was thinking sailcloth since i know a distributer.

since you have a lot of rock you should be able to make the terraces with a slight lean back to prevent the soil washing out and saving your water..Sepps book has info on how to do this..also careful of the mulch and things from your municipaility as it could contain weed killers and pesticides

The mulch has no additives....the mulch comes from the rd maintenance dept. They have to constantly cut everything back around here or the roads would be destroyed.