Slope
Hi all. I am new to the forum and brand new to gardening. By new, I mean I am starting my first one this year. My first of many many questions is where to place my garden. I just measured where I thought I was going to put it and the slope is around 6%. Any ideas on this? Too steep? My other option is far away from my water supply. I have no idea how much watering I can expect. I am sure it depends on a zillion factors. My plan is to bite off more than I can chew. I have 7 acres of just plain lawn. I hope to turn about 2000 sq feet into garden. I plan to attempt to grow just about every kind of thing I eat.
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DoubleDogFarm
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 6113
- Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2010 11:43 pm
Seann.
We all bite off more than we can chew.
My answer is berms and swales on contour. Being new ground, I would use a tractor or rear tined rototiller. Loosen soil dead level across the slope and shovel down slope. You could strip off the sod or just till, but make sure you bury it fairly deep in the berm.
I'll start there and others will chime in.
Welcome to HG
Eric
We all bite off more than we can chew.
My answer is berms and swales on contour. Being new ground, I would use a tractor or rear tined rototiller. Loosen soil dead level across the slope and shovel down slope. You could strip off the sod or just till, but make sure you bury it fairly deep in the berm.
I'll start there and others will chime in.
Welcome to HG
Eric
You might want to dig some trenches in differnet areas to see what your soil profiles are like. In the middle of my back yard I have 3-4 inches of sod topsoil over rocky clay. in one garden plot the soil profiled chages from clay to sandy loam, and in another I have 10 inches of good topsoil over top of sandy loam. When I was a kid somone wanted a garden so my Dad had a section of the back yard plowed up and it wouldn't grow anything but ragweed.
My plots are sloped/were sloped and I either have a berm on the low side and stepdown on the upper side or use a logs as retaining walls on the down side... basically a half sided raised bed.
My plots are sloped/were sloped and I either have a berm on the low side and stepdown on the upper side or use a logs as retaining walls on the down side... basically a half sided raised bed.