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In this design we will be planting linear-food forests all along the downhill side of each of three hugelkultured swales. What is a hugelkultured swale?
While the tress and shrubs are in the early stages of growing (small) we will use the open space to grow some of our annual vegetables. We will also plant some nitrogen fixing ground covers and dynamic accumulators to help build the soil.
Open areas between the linear food forests allow for access to harvesting the crops, provides full sun penetration, and creates an area for our annual gardening or small animal grazing. The nutrients from animal droppings are washed into the hugelkultured swales which in tern soaks up the nutrients to fertilize the entire linear food forest.
Directory of Design Elements
The hyperlinked items below lead to more detailed explanations of each element in the CSC permaculture design. The others will be posted and linked as we complete them over the coming weeks and months. You can follow our RSS feed or subscribe to our blog by email to receive automatic announcements when each new element is posted.
I think think this is a really great way to do food forests. After time the center can be left open for gardening and grazing, or filled in with more trees depending on the needs of people around it.
One note on the hugel beds based on sepp holzer’s teaching. You may have factored this into your design based on your site, but its worth noting. He recommends against laying out hugel beds on contour and instead lays them slightly off contour. This allows water to slow down, but still drain if theres a lot. otherwise you risk blowing out the bed. The idea of a hugel bed is that it’s light and airy, as opposed to the berm of a swale which should be a bit compacted to stop the water. Also, having it slightly off contour can help drain cool air and eliminate potential frost pockets where you’re trying to grow food. That said, next year were building some in our food forest very similar to yours pictured here. With a swale, on contour. The land has very little slope unlike the alps where Sepp is living and I’m not too concerned about it on a gentler slope.