Raised and Sunken Garden Seasonal Rotation

I've been struggling a bit with my personal goal of not irrigating and seem to have struck on a bit of a gold mine [in theory.]

Has anybody else here done sunken and raised garden beds in the same space, where the sunken beds are used for spring-summer growth, mulched over after harvest and used as paths, with the same being done for the raised beds growing during the autumn-winter season?

It seems like it might be the best of both worlds, and essentially gets each square foot of space in the garden growing something every year. The additional drainage [for both cold and water] is great during the rainy season, while the additional depth and shade helps the soil stay more productive in the summer.

If anybody has personal experiences or references to the personal experience of others using a system such as this, I'd love to hear about it.

My main concern would be the compaction of the path areas.

Tyler Ludens wrote:My main concern would be the compaction of the path areas.

Yeah, that concern does make sense.

My initial thought was that the influx of organic matter [particularly were it intentionally *not* 'chopped and dropped' but instead left standing to be squished into the soil by traffic] would prevent this.

I am not opposed to using some sort of walking boards that are flipped twice a year to distribute weight. Or possibly importing scrap cardboard to accomplish the same while providing additional mulch material in future seasons.

Hugelkultur beds, with big hunks of wood acting as sponges inside the berm, can be useful for wet winter months and dry summer months.

can anyone post a picture of a sunken bed? sounds really interesting