Hello. I've been a bmx rider for most of my life, which means I hae spent a lot of time building and riding dirt jumps. Seems unrelated to
permaculture, but in truth
permaculture applies to everything. One thing that is always a problem is that when it rains, the shape of the jumps naturally directs the
water to the bottom of the pit between the jumps, leaving a big muddy puddle right where we need to ride. The problem is the solution, so I have begun to dig swales and infiltration basis that are fed by the jumps themselves, leaving the pits
free of water after it rains. Design just makes everything better.
My question here is what to plant along these swales once the
earthworks are done. There is a lot of bare dirt, all of it disturbed by our digging, and it is mostly sand, with a little clay, and almost no oranic matter. The site is an old dirt disposal lot for a street construction company, so most of it was sub-soil to begin with. My vision is to turn the place into a food forest, eventually. Right now I need to get something growing in the bare dirt. I'm thinking to start by planting a hearty cover crop, that will help some fast growing leguminous
trees get established. As well as some nutrient accumulators that will put tap
roots down and break up the hard pan. I'm hoping that we can get the legume trees up to shade the dirt and start dropping
mulch, Leading to an environment that will support
fruit trees.
The site is in Orange county, southern California. The rain falls in the winter/spring and then not at all until the next winter. I
think its about 14inches average rainfall, but it has been below average for a while. There is a water source on site, but not
enough to irrigate other than the ocassional hand
watering.
What plants would you reccomend to plant first? It would be great if they are commonly available and inexpensive. Edibility is peferred of course, but not essential at this stage. Also, thorns or thorny
seed pods are out, we don't want flat tires.
Its a challenging
project, but it could be amazing with a bit of effort and the right tools for nature.