Working with a hill

[mossbackfarm]

Hi RainbowFarmer

It sounds like you are on the right track :D

You may consider adding legumes and nutrient accumulators (buckwheat, comfrey {carefully}, others at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture/1997-October/004104.html) to your sites

It depends a lot on how much you plan on grazing your orchard (more grazing, I'd put in more legumes), vs how much you want grains/tubers as a yield.

My site's pretty similar....past overgrazing caused lots of 2-4m ridges and draws throughout the property...Definitely a microclimate paradise....

Cheers

Rich

[Richard on Maui]

Have you considered doing any kind of earthworks on the contour? I can't remember what your soil is like, sandy or clay, or is all just rocky?... but you get most of your rain in the summer right? Sounds like swaling would be a good option. Or even the next best thing of laying mulch, rotting logs, banana trunks etc on the contour. Hedges of lemongrass or vetiver grass would catch a fair bit of soil and organic matter runoff too...
I seem to remember Geoff (my PDC instructor) stressing that the tops of hills should be reserved for trees. Everything else promoting erosion, or in the case of houses being a candidate for getting blown away or burnt down...
By the way, I wish we hade undulations. Our topography is pretty much either up or down! On top of that they made cross contour raised beds to grow pineapples, so the water and soil is headed for the bottom of the gully fast!

[biofarmag]

What Richard said (that his permaculture teacher said to him) was quite correct. Hills and slopes should be reserved mainly for trees. They don't cope with regular cultivation because of the erosion risk. And they tend to have very thin topsoil BECAUSE of erosion over the millennia. Unless it's geologically-young stuff, like the volcanic-origin red stuff that you see in places like Childers, you find that a lot of hilly country is fairly skeletal. So you won't have a whole lot of cultivatable depth there anyway. Very hard to get decent annual crops. So why make life hard for yourself? I bet you have plenty of better soils down gullies and on flats, right? You'll get a much greater return for your effort by using THOSE areas for annual crops. Hills and slopes are better for permanent crops, like trees and grass. Nothing wrong with grass. Often highly underrated. Bluegrasses and Rhodesgrasses do well on those types of soil. They're stolonising (meaning they put down stolons, or "runners") which help bind the soil in place. And Stylo's are good 'n' hardly legumes that grow well on slopes, which will improve the protein content of the feed. Oh, and ripping around ridges Keyline-style is a great way to get some water penetration into sloping country.

Putting in swales and contour banks is all good and practical advice. But if it was me, I'd still be taking the easy way and cropping the better soil.

[ho-hum]

RF,

Definitely contour anything you do. I would be tempted to try the following plants:

lemon grass
vetiver grass Soil grabbers, very tough and fire resistant when established.

sugar cane
pineapples You dont have to grow commercial crops and all these can handle chewing when established and will last a while.

dolichos lab lab
velvet bean
pinto peanut These are vines, legumes, fodder and soil holders but can 'escape' but you have goats!!

Buffel grass, eurochloa, paspalum, kikuyu.

My own cure-all favourite is pigeon pea, great addition to any system. Its a bush up to 4m, a premier pioneer plant. [Stop the rave now!!]You can grow tagasaste in your area. I would plant that at the top and let the seeds wash down.

Interplant everything with parrot mix-remember though when you thin plants out cut them off dont pull them up. Leave the roots in the ground to rot and allow water penetration.

Put a few acacias in too as chop and drop barriers. My goats [maximum 2 at any one time] ate black wattle but ony sparingly although she ate any volunteer seedlings.

Do one slope at a time and see what works for you.

If these dont work I have heard that blackberries and lantana do a great job on slopes... :D :D :oops:


Cheers

Floot

[SueinWA]

Have you read any of Yeoman's works about keylining? It might be suitable for you, even just as grooves in the slope to catch & hold manure, seeds & rainwater.

You can read at least one of Yeoman's books online here:
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrar ... lcome.html (http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/01aglibwelcome.html)
(by author, so it's near the bottom).

and it does include drawings. Albrecht's books are there, too.

You might be able to pick out some tidbits that would work for you.

Sue

[heuristics]

RF - any chance of some piccies so we can all have a stickie at what U are talking about????