Using the shape of the land to maximize water capture is a time-honored tradition. This practice is called contour gardening. While straight beds may be visually appealing and easy to harvest or hoe between, they are not always the best to conserve moisture.
Read on to learn more about contour gardening.
What is Contour Gardening?
You don’t always get land that is perfectly flat or has
straight lines. Sometimes, you just have to wing it and get creative
to make garden beds. Don’t force beds where they aren’t naturally fitting
into the landscape. Instead, use the oddness of the land’s configuration by
building contour beds.
Developing contour garden rows makes sense. It allows you to
work with the land rather than against it. Consider the rice paddies of Japan
which arch and angle as they tiptoe down the hills. Great examples of contour
gardening are often found in commercial crop fields where every inch of land is
valuable and topsoil loss must be avoided.
There are many ways to develop contour garden rows. Often
using existing soil is sufficient, but on deep slopes, swales and trenches are
needed. Sometimes, wood is buried under the beds to increase water absorption
in poor soils.
What Does Contour Gardening Do?
The four main benefits of contour gardening are:
- Directs and captures rainwater
These are important in any cropping situations but
especially areas where soil is light, and rain is plentiful. Much of our
cropland has been drained of its nutrient rich topsoil. Heavy rains drive deep
trenches in soil and cause landslides. Even in controlled irrigation, much of
the water is lost to runoff when there is nothing to catch the moisture.
In situations where fertilizer and herbicides are used, this
means the chemicals flow down into moving water systems, causing algae
and creating a toxic environment for wildlife. Without contour garden rows,
crop and land losses can occur. Planting across the natural lines of the site
reduces rain gullies and runoff.
Tips on Building Contour Beds
If your site is small, all you will need is a shovel to
start the process. Take a look at the curves of the land and consider how
pitched the slope is. You may want to eyeball the situation or map it out with
a laser or A-frame level for a professional job.
If the slope is not steep, simply scoop out soil following
the curve of the land and deposit it on the downward sloping side of the
trenches, making berms.
You can choose to shore these up with rock or stone. Alternatively, you can
build raised beds to confine the soil. These create microclimates
that encourage a diversity of plants.
