Design choice for market garden on a slope

I'm working on this tomorrow through the weekend.
I had 20,000 lbs of compost dumped at my property
yesterday (nearly free of charge).

For food production, would you do straight-rasised-rows
with raised hay beds, or circular fashion for a market garden?







Here's a quick mock-up, and the area itself. I was thinking of
making use of the 'horseshoe bed' I tossed together. Raised-bed config
would be best...similar to..


How about Mandala here?

So,just give me the short and skinny. For this area, how would you approach it? (consider slope/grade)
and really maximizing space for optimal output of vegetables...

What type of soil is it? Do you think you'll have to irrigate on a regular basis? Those factors would weigh heavily on my decision to choose contoured beds or mandala style.

Also, how the hell did you get that much compost delivered for nearly free?!?! Nice score!

It's composted hardwood bark, chicken and horse manure, with sand
and salt for minerals. I have drip irri in the area, I'll certainly re-direct
when when I get it situated as we routinely get 100+F in the summer here.
I just know a few good people ;- )

I haven't used chicken tractors or mandala beds, but it works well here: http://www.purplepear.net.au/

Leila Rich wrote:I haven't used chicken tractors or mandala beds, but it works well here: http://www.purplepear.net.au/

Thanks leila..
looking for a quick observation on direction to take..it's more or
less in my hands,just need to gather mass amounts of raw material
and move forward..
just looking for simple inputs on potential designs.. very off-the-cuff
remarks are good --

Ah I should've been more specific. I was asking about the indigenous soil, not the stuff you've amended with.

I've got experience with both mandala and straight row gardens. I will say that I feel like mandala's have a much more pleasant feel about them. If you have to keep moving your drip irrigation to different areas, placing them accurately in mandala's can be a real pain in the ass but if you can leave the drip irrigation in place for the season, it wouldn't be a problem of course.

I hear ya,Trav.
I'll have some xtra tubing and mini spigot fittings in the
next few days as well.. I can place 'T' fittings where I
like and really keep it clean and effective at water delivery.
I'm really going to try to get 16" between growing space to
channel excess water out and onto some plants that are a bit
more water loving...

I think I would do raised garden beds on contour. Last year I made a few different bed styles and found that the ones that I made on contour held more water and were able to be harvested pretty easily. Don't do anything that would make harvesting too time consuming.

While linear beds look fairly nice and professional, i'd want to eliminate as much of the interior foot path as possible from the growing area. That would mean using something more along the lines of keyholes which are almost twice as efficient in gardenspace:walkingspace. I remember seeing the Mandala Garden for the first time in Gaia's Garden and it's simple and beautiful organization seemed almost wasteless.

Whether you do use linear garden beds or not, i should mention the one possible danger to building them on contour, or in any such way that they catch water. depending on how "raised" the bed is, if it catches too much water on the uphill side it will move downhill. In Sepp Holzer's Permaculture he makes a point of keeping his linear hugelkultur beds just off of contour to encourage water against the beds while channeling it slowly downwards.

From my own experience with various garden designs, you should be sure not to make your beds too wide, because it is hard to reach into them to harvest, and don't make your paths too narrow or they will get overgrown by bushy plants and make moving through the garden difficult and potentially dangerous. When I made my paths very narrow ( 1 foot wide) or (stupidly) made only stepping-stone paths, my garden got so overgrown I stopped going into parts of it because it was too difficult. My current paths are about 18 inches and they're even getting overgrown by healthy plants.

Do you have sandy, loamy, or clay soil? If you're going to have to irrigate a lot, I'd go with dripline and slightly off contour beds as Nicola cautions. If watering isn't a problem, or you have to use a hose/circular sprinkler, I'd go with a mandala, and put the sprinkler in the centre.

It's construction fill dirt to be honest. I threw down some cardboard and building a different soil profile above ground 'cause the base layer is nearly worthless (iron oxides,clay)...

Here's a clip from this very area. http://youtu.be/Zkep02089NY

Here's diameter of irrigation tubing (that runs alongside the horse-shoe shape currently)

Moving forward..
Mandala beginnings..
More here: http://livingwind.tumblr.com/post/19051228332/mandala-garden-genesis-sc
Any/all input is still very much appreciated.

Rock on -

So, it's really come together...
http://youtu.be/_piLTzbSaRw?hd=1
More to share in the next few days...

Started swaling down my slopes, as well...

http://livingwind.tumblr.com/post/21072619770/swale-creation-with-hand-tools-sc

I hope you will send us a picture from the same spot as the first one was taken so we can tell
better what you have done.

Alex Ames wrote:I hope you will send us a picture from the same spot as the first one was taken so we can tell
better what you have done.

It's on the Youtube link just above you...Progress thus far.

George Lee wrote:

Alex Ames wrote:I hope you will send us a picture from the same spot as the first one was taken so we can tell
better what you have done.

It's on the Youtube link just above you...Progress thus far.

I see that you can dig like a gopher but I can't tell which way you are digging without the house in there
to give it some orientation. If there is a picture in there taken from the same place as the first one I can't
pick it out. I am not having any trouble recognizing your dirt. I have some of that myself.

Yeah, haha, I for one, love to dig...

Consult this video to see the slope in relation to the home. I'll finish digging this week and provide more updates. Things are certainly shaping up and becoming that much more efficient.

http://youtu.be/nPMqDBy63Aw?t=5m12s

Have you made it to China yet?

It has been a couple of weeks now, I am curious about how it looks now.

Swaling a bit down this slope. Filling with organic materials.

More to come later on.