LandUrban Projects

Making a Terrace Garden, Part II


Photos by David Ashwanden

Readers requested more pictures to make it easier to understand the steps I took to create my terrace garden. Having scoured my photo collection for a more clarifying portrayal of what my terrace garden looked like, I can only find examples of another terrace garden, built on more or less the same principles but with a slightly different emphasis.

Below are the steps for how I made this one: you may note that they are very similar to the other. The only difference is that instead of starting from a high point and making a fence which is erected on a level below, you start from a low point (in this case the base of a tree) and build your ‘dam’ upwards.

With this additional information, I hope you will now feel adequately equipped to start making terraces.

Materials I used:

  • Four or five large sticks, at least 5cm in diameter and 2m long
  • Many small sticks (at least 50), around 1m long
  • Flat rocks of varying sizes
  • String
  • Various mulching materials:
    – Ash
    – Dry leaves
    – Fresh plant matter
    – Manure
    – Straw
    – Compost (small amount)

Tools I used:

  • Post hole digger – a heavy, 2m long sharp metal spike designed for the purpose
  • Pick axe
  • Shovel
  • Container for moving around organic material and earth

Step 1: Visioning

As with Terrace Garden number 1, it is important to plan where you will put the garden and to look around the site for anything which is already there which can help you to implement your plan.

In this case, I used the fact that there is a tree growing just next to a place where the ground slopes upwards. Observing this, I decided to try to utilise the trunk of the tree in order to provide a stable ‘corner’ for the terrace garden; to which I can attach the fence and which will serve as a firm and steady point to begin building from.

Step 2: Thinking about water

As with the other garden, it will probably be beneficial to create a small swale at the top end of your garden in order to increase soil fertility and stop your garden from being washed away, by catching and slowing the flow of water down the slope. Your swale needs to be dug on contour in order to do this effectively.

For more information on swale making, Chapter 5 of Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, provides concise and uncomplicated information on how to build a swale.


Plan of the garden from side

Step 3: Preparing to catch the soil

Next you can build your earth ‘dam’ to form the shape of your garden.

With the tree as one corner, I used four long sticks, two on each side, and tied one end of each of them to the tree horizontally.

For this to work, the sticks need to be longer than the gap in between the tree and the part of the slope which the sticks, once laid horizontal, will reach in order to create the terrace. But if they are a lot longer then you will need to do quite a lot of careful digging to hold them in place, so try to get a balance in length. I found about 10cm of stick driven into the ground is enough for stability.

Once the sticks are tied firmly to the tree, you can attach the other end of each into the earth where the slope comes up to meet them.

As you can see from the picture (below), one of my sticks is jammed against a large rock which makes up part of the slope.

You can also do this where the landscape makes it convenient, or simply plunge the end of the stick into the soil.

In this way you can form a sort of triangular garden, whose shape is reminiscent to me of the front end of a ship.

Make sure that the end of the sticks which are going into the ground are held firmly in place. You can mound up the earth slightly around the place where you have dug them in, and put flat, heavy rocks on top to stabilise it.


Plan of the garden from above

You will now have the shape of your garden marked out with the sticks.

Step 4: Making it human-friendly

In order to ensure you will have somewhere to walk through your garden, use your pick axe to flatten out the top edge, creating a path.

The path I made was in between this garden and my terrace garden number 1, leading through the middle of another garden and joining a different section of path at another point; thus fitting in with the wider, holistic plan of the area as a whole.

Depending on the nature of your slope, you may have to do quite a lot of evening out in order to create your path. If your slope is very steep, it may be advisable to wait and complete this step after step 5, once the fence has been reinforced, so that the earth can be caught more easily.

When the path is made you can reinforce it with small flat rocks to help keep the path from eroding and to make walking on it more pleasant.

Step 5: Weaving with wood

Now you can fill in the fence using the smaller sticks and string.

Take the sticks, one by one, and weave them under the top fence post, then over the bottom one (or the other way around!), using much the same technique as you would to weave a basket or other item using willow. Pack the sticks tightly together as you build them up, creating a fence with almost no gaps.

In order to hold the sticks in place, you can tie the string around bunches of them and then to the tree trunk or to the larger fence posts.

Step 6: Steady with the rocks

Once you have made a ‘basket’ out of the two sides of your garden, you can use the flat rocks to fill in the fence from the inside, in order to ensure that the garden is stable. This can be done in exactly the same way as with the first terrace garden.

Place the flat rocks (or tiles if you are using these) with their flat sides facing the fence, fitting together. It doesn’t matter if some rocks overlap; as long as you can cover pretty much the whole fence from the inside.

I did this step originally by balancing the rocks on top of each other and then filling in with earth once the whole inside of the fence was covered. You may find it easier to make a line of rocks around the bottom of the garden; then fill it in with earth. Then build another layer of rocks on top of the earth, then fill this in, and so on.

Either way, by making sure that every part of the fence is supported with rocks from the inside you are helping the garden to stay sturdy.

Step 7: Building up the soil

This next step is exactly the same principle as with the other garden: moving soil from one part of the slope to the other in order to create a flat surface.

Carefully dig out the soil from the top part of the garden and move it to the ‘dam’ at the bottom, smoothing out the ground as you do so until the level is more or less horizontal.

Once you have done this, a great way to boost the growth of the plants which you will put in the garden is to build up the soil in layers of sheet mulch, making sure you spread the layers evenly to keep the garden horizontal.

You can use all kinds of organic material to make the sheet mulch; it does not really matter exactly what. Far more important is to bear in mind what kind of things will break down into the appropriate nutrients to be beneficial to your garden.

One of the key aspects of building up soil is ensuring that the balance of carbon to nitrogen is correct, and that there is a good amount of both.

So for carbon you can use dry plant matter such as twigs and dead leaves, sawdust, charcoal, straw (be careful with putting this close to the top; if there are grass seeds present they will take over your garden) or even paper (although it depends on how long you are planning to leave the garden to ‘cure’, as paper may not decompose quick enough to integrate with the rest of your soil).

For nitrogen you can use all kinds of green plant matter, but especially any nitrogen fixing plants (such as clover, alfalfa, vetch, beans, peas, fenugreek, etc). All kinds of manure are good too, but especially high in nitrogen are horse, donkey and chicken manure.

It’s good to also consider what else other than carbon and nitrogen is needed for a really tasty soil. Potassium is another key nutrient element; for which you can use crushed shells, seaweed, ash, or even, if you happen to have some, blood and bone meal.

After laying down every layer of mulch I gave it a good soaking; accelerating the decomposition process.

Step 8: Ready to Grow

Once all of your layers are in place you are ready to plant up your terrace garden. Before doing this I added a final top layer of previously-made compost, in which to plant my seedlings. The idea of this is that the new plants have nutrient-rich soil already around them, and by the time their roots get big enough to reach down through the mulch layers, these have decomposed enough to provide more nutrients.

Now you can step back, relax, and enjoy the newest manifestation of this ancient technique for helping the land to help us.

Additional Notes:

Food Protection

When I built this garden it was joined to the terrace garden number 1. Around both of them I created a fence, using the fence posts already put in place as part of the earth ‘dams’, with a gate opening onto the path.

For me, this fence was an essential part of the design plan as deterrence to any unwanted browsing animals with their eye on my vegetables. If you feel this is a risk you may have in your garden, implementing your own fence design is advisable.

References:

  • Hemenway, Toby, 2009. Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, Chapter 5: Catching, Conserving and Using Water. Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont.

Charlotte Ashwanden

Charlotte Ashwanden (nee Haworth). Born in London, I am very interested in peace and community and have a degree in Peace Studies. I got my Permaculture Design Certificate in 2011, from Treeyo at Permaship in Bulgaria, and my Permaculture Teaching Certificate in 2018 at Aranya in India. For me, permaculture is about so much more than garden design; I am mainly interested in applying ‘human permaculture’ as a complement to peace practices. In particular, I like to look at how human permaculture can be applied through psychology, communication and education techniques. In 2015 I got married in a pagan ceremony in a field to David Ashwanden and changed my surname to Ashwanden. With my husband, I’ve travelled a lot in Europe and Asia and encountered many permaculture and community projects. I have lived in various situations, from squatted land to intentional communities, as well as more ‘normal’ places, in the UK, Spain, Italy, Thailand and Vietnam. A professional dancer, I do fire and hula dance and sometimes run dance meditation workshops. Currently, I live in the Andalucian mountains.

2 Comments

  1. Do you have experience or reading to support that this garden will not shorten the tree’s natural lifespan?

    Of course, using trees as fencing for a terrace is a wonderful idea for trees that you don’t want to keep. I will definitely keep this in mind!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

Back to top button