Pittsburgh Garden Experiment

One quick note on hugelkultur.  Make sure the materials are wet as you add them, or watering in the pile at the end will not be entirely effective and leave patches of dry spots throughout the new bed.

 

Now on to the urban swales. My house rests on a flat plain which breaks up a pretty steep hill, the backyard slopes towards the house and then flattens out at the house. This causes several areas of concern which include significant water loss to the slope which could be going to the garden, the potential of soil running off with the water, and of course it causes water to sit around my house, watering my basement rather than the gardens.

Now how to solve this issue. 

We know that swales are useful as a rain catchment system, but they can be unsightly or simply cause logistical problems for garden activities (i.e. wheel-barrowing, walking) in small urban lots. Some swales can be filled in with debris, my suggestion is to use garden paths which double as swales. Use the guidelines below and adjust them to your needs.

1. Identify where the water is flowing to and from
2. Incorporate garden pathways or use existing ones which run perpendicular to the water's path
3. Dig these pathways as trenches at least 6" deep and deeper depending on the steepness of the slope, deeper if it is more steep
4. Fill the trench with large gravel or mulch, though mulch will breakdown over time and compact, filling the trench

Your pathway has now become an attractive, useful reservoir for rainwater and alleviates the problems of a sloping yard. Additionally, it will be easy to weed and maintain, it shades the stored water, reducing evaporative losses, provides your garden and soil with water throughout dry weather and it may become home to some plants that love dry gravelly areas like creeping thyme.

Note: If you have paths that run with the direction of water, unless you are trying to guide the water in a particular direction, don't dig a trench or you will simply be guiding the water to get to where it was going (away from the garden) more effectively.

 

This is my first post, thanks for the space to share my ideas, I hope to get some pictures up soon and meet some folks in the future!

• swale
• Hill
• paths
• gravel
• water