feet v swales (image attached) beginner house plan

Hi
This is our house in a beginner plan.
The plants are all real
The swales are my thinking
The creamy ones are high
The blue green areas are the low areas.
The red line is the preferred runoff for excess water.
My main challenge is where to put my feet or where to plan for it
In the winter it is cold and wet and makes sense to garden the high spots
In summer it is 40C and it makes sense to garden the valleys.
The swales are following the slope but not where we would likely walk eg to the back of the big shed or up to the lemon tree, front to back of the yard generally.
What do other people do if they want to be adaprive about where to plant but also want to walk across the swales.
Just go with the flow and walk over the bumps?
I am chipping away at the kikuyu but it is a bit hot for planting at the moment so it is harder to fill it with things before the prickles move in.
Thoughts welcome.

Land slopes from high on the right to street level on the left.
The top of the image is roughly north, north east a tad.
Southern hemisphere.
Really hot from the west and north in summer.
No light from the south.
Rings running down the front(left) are logs where I am trying to swale a bit.
Putting coffee grounds and potatoes behind.
Sandy soil at the top (left), boggy soil at the bottom. (right) roadside.
Quite nice soil in the middle.

What do other people do if they want to be adaprive about where to plant but also want to walk across the swales.
Just go with the flow and walk over the bumps?

It is very hard to move wheelbarrows etc up and down bumps and valleys of the berms and swales.   Since our 2 swales were not very deep we simply put wood chips to raise our pathways to level so we could get the wheelbarrow to pass.  The swales get divided in half, but we can still accomplish our goals of the swales catching the runoff and sinking it it.

I was thinking that each year I would remove the woodchips as it would start to decompose and replace it with new.  This way I would have this partially decomposed wood chips to place it where I needed it that year.   So in one sense it is an easy way to store my woodchips for future purposes.  So it serves two purposes.  Maybe one day we will replace this with dirt to make our pathway more permanent, but for now it satisfies our need of a flat surface to walk on and to move the wheelbarrow through.



Here is my woodchip pathway that crosses my two swales and divides them into four sections (swales are small and overgrown with "weeds")

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Appropriate access is extremely important as lack of it makes getting around the property extremely inconvenience.  One does not want to always walk the long way around to get to any point on the property.

So one can level the pathway with wood chips or dirt, or if it makes sense make a bridge over the swales so you have a "level" pathway to walk on.

Thank you Janet for sharing your image of your plan.  It is very impressive.

Michelle Bisson wrote:

Here is my woodchip pathway that crosses my two swales and divides them into four sections (swales are small and overgrown with "weeds")

Thanks Michelle
Good ideas.
The garden is not so impressive at the moment because the swales are not real yet.
The trees are real which makes me happy. =)