Earthwork design cost

I just purchased 10 acres of land in San Diego county and I'm looking into getting 5 acres shaped to manage water flow and erosion. How much should I be expecting to pay for this initial start up?

Looking for:

• initial design
• land manipulation
• planting of agroforestry system

Just looking for a ballpark idea of what this will cost.

Hi Alex,

Welcome to permies

What an exciting stage to be in.

There are a lot of variables involved in the earth works costs. The cost per hour of the operator is going to be a lot more in your area than in mine (depressed economically, rural). A good starting place is to find a person experienced in the work you want to accomplish. Maybe there is a fellow permaculturist in the area with the equipment? Somehow establish what the rate is for the machine and operator. Are you planning huge alterations, or thinking more along the lines of swales, infiltration basins and key lines?

Depending on the complexity of the work you want to accomplish, consider how much earth you actually want to move, and how many times. This will involve many variables as well, such as slope of the land and access, and how far you are from where the location of person & the equipment .

Where are you in your permaculture journey? I don't want to insult you by guessing you are a beginner, asking you if you know what you are doing. I'll just mention one thing people do with earthworks: hugel beds. You are in a very dry climate (as am I). It would not be a good idea to make a hugel mound, but you might want to bury the hugel material below ground level, maybe have water from somewhere fed to the buried material.

Being as you are brand new to this site, you may not be aware of the regional resources. Here is a link I hope will take you to your region:
https://permies.com/forums/f-38/southwest-usa

There might be people there who could help with finding experienced operators and cost estimates.

Good luck

Thekla

One more thought, have you read of Mark Shepards' New Forest Farm? Restoration Agriculture is the name of his book, and he is on several You Tube videos talking about his work. He has a lot of experience with Agroforestry and Silvopasture.

Thekla

Thank you for reply,

I am extremely new to the whole permaculture design process. I've done about 4 years of research while saving to purchase some land at a reasonable price. I've done small scare gardening but nothing like this before and it's really exciting but also overwhelming! I've read Ben Falk's book and I've followed Mark Shepard, Geoff Lawton and Joel Salatin.

Goals:
I don't have any crazy earth work goals. I'm shooting to put in Swales and a high pond and a low pond. I want to do an agroforestry system with ally cropping and grazing inbetween the Swales. I have a full time job so I'm trying to create a very diverse system to retire on but can feed my family and neighbors for now.

I have a blade and a frontend loader but I'm extremely inexperienced with the machine and the grade of the hill is a bit steep so I need to get familiar on how to run that type of equipment.

I'll attach a photo of the 10 acres.

Oh, great. Now I really am excited for you. I hope you'll find some great local helpers through the regional resources.

Thekla

Thank you! I'll be recording the whole process and posting it on YouTube. Hopefully I'll be able to help people my age get into agriculture.

I encourage you to take a permaculture design course and design for yourself. I paid 995 dollars to take Geoff Lawton's course and it was the best decision of my life. As far as earthworks go. Machines in this area with an operator are around 125 to 150 dollars an hour. They can do a lot of work in an hour but its variable based on terrain. Your going to need a tree nursery to be able to plant the 1000,s of trees you will need and your going to have to do it yourself

I would focus on the center of the property that already had alot of native plants growing.

My wife and I have discussed doing a design course. I would have to do something on the weekends cause I'm working 100 hour weeks at the moment. I've spoke to a consultant and I discussed having a lot of say in the design process and that I would do a lot of the leg work and have him help where I lack in knowledge. I'm also just trying to get the five acres around my house shaped so we can the system going while my wife and I work slower with the other ten acres.

Would you know if this school would be something I could do on the weekends and in Southern California?

Alex Medina wrote:My wife and I have discussed doing a design course. I would have to do something on the weekends cause I'm working 100 hour weeks at the moment. I've spoke to a consultant and I discussed having a lot of say in the design process and that I would do a lot of the leg work and have him help where I lack in knowledge. I'm also just trying to get the five acres around my house shaped so we can the system going while my wife and I work slower with the other ten acres.

Would you know if this school would be something I could do on the weekends and in Southern California?

Lawton's course is online, and I believe it is somewhat self paced, so weekends and what's left of you evenings should be fine. Also Jack Spirko et. al @ http://permaethos.com has an online PDC that I know is completely self paced and even a little less expensive than Lawton.

Thank you,

I'll be giving those a look ASAP. I need to get this system rolling.

Congrats on the property. From the satellite image looks like you might be in the Campo area?

My favorite group in San Diego that offers a PDC is the SD Sustainable Living Institute. They are already into a PDC right now but will probably have another in a few months - they do offer them on weekends. There are some other groups that offer them but I'm not sure if any are coming up.

I would highly recommend Brad Lancaster's books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond Vol 1 and 2. Sooo much good info in those books.

If I had more time I would offer to help with design and implementation. I am slowly building a permaculture education and demonstration site in Ramona. If you are in fact in the Campo area I know one or two permaculture people that live in the area who would be stoked to help.

If you do decide to hire anybody for permaculture work I would recommend Ecology Artisans.

You nailed it. I'm off old highway 80. Next to the golden acorn. If you need any help I'm always up for learning through hard work. Unfortunately, it's hard for me to get into those Permaculture schools with full time work and keeping up with the family and ranch.

I'm actually meeting with ecology artisans on Wednesday. I'm excited to see my land from someone's else's point of view.

I'll look into those books. That's exactly the type of stuff I've been looking for.

I hope you have a great meeting with Ecology Artisans.

I will have a work party day sometime in the near future at the education and demonstration site. If you send me an email I can let you know when it happens.

My email is chris@permasystems.org

I would be game to come help you at your place some day too.

You can check out my blog on my website, I try to post some permaculture stuff and am also trying to post about building my cob house.

permasystems.org

Good luck!