Earthworks

Where are the women earthworkers?

this section by Heather Jo Flores

Sadly, there aren’t a ton of women who are experts at earthworks, and it wasn’t easy to find women who had both the time and the expertise to teach this module. Meanwhile, all of the other topics had lots of qualified women available to contribute. Why?

Surely there’s a story here.

• Is it because women are less likely to own large plots of land due to economic imbalances in our culture?
• Is it because women feel more hesitant to rush into a project that permanently restructures a piece of the Earth?
• Might it be that we’re just not as into tractors and backhoes and digging big holes?
• What are your own theories about this?

Quotes from a discussion in our forum:

“I know how to use machinery, and enjoy digging in the earth with that and manual tools. But I don’t want to rush in and restructure things. I think for me confidence plays a big part here and sometimes I will see people creating earthworks they probably should have put a little more thought into…I like digging at home where I can make small changes a little bit at a time and adjust where I need to.” —Nadia Gaona “

There is still a strong stigma against women using machinery. I was viciously sexually harassed when I took a shop class to learn power tools. I know many other women who have also had negative reactions from men when they tried to learn traditionally male skills. I know another woman who was rejected by the ‘brotherhood’ of her blue-collar union when she was accepted into an apprenticeship, and as a result of not having the backs of her co-workers, she broke her leg badly in a dangerous situation. My point is, many men don’t like it when women try to learn the skills that men think gives them an “edge” in the world. As long as we stick to the quiet, soft and feminine, they can keep us dependent on them for certain skills.” —Rowan Maya Green

I Earthwork with no power tools so it is a slow painful process. Once there was a famous teacher in our city to do a workshop. He decided we needed this thing and it would take a backhoe to do. I found the whole process kind of violent. The male person who overrode me on this project told this permaculturalist it was okay to do this and that he would rent the backhoe. The noisy-ass project got done but the place where all that time and money was spent closed. No one has access to that Earthworked place, and when the property sells I am sure that will be undone. SMH. Access to land is a problem for women, so too can be the access or the willingness to use big equipment.”—Tuka Rivers

“There is nothing in earthworks that cannot be achieved by anyone with access to education, land, machinery and finance. All things in short supply for many women, but, we do have desire, passion and persistence, which will have to be reasonable substitutes in the meantime.” —Carolyn Gemmel

Keylines, Berms, and Swales, oh my!

In this class we will discuss different techniques and applications of earthworks, the practice of re-shaping the land to make it more productive and interconnected. There are many schools of thought as to how we can do that, however some can be very destructive so it is important to consider our impact on any improvements we want to make. This module will highlight earthworks as it applies to your designs and developing your sites, however big or small they may be.​Understanding the basic elements of earth and water, how they work together or not, is key to any ecological design. Whereas water is the mover, (of material, nutrients, etc.) earth can be thought of as the keeper or holder. An effective and efficient landscape design will consider the existing holding and carrying capacity, and optimize for maximum soil building and water retention.

In this module you will gain a deeper understanding of the relationship and interaction between earth and water. This will enable you to look at and consider growing spaces in a different light.

The purpose of earthworks is to keep water as high and as long in distance and time in the landscape as possible. Developing an awareness of how water responds to changes in the landscape, on any scale, from micro to macro, will help you understand how water infiltrates and travels through your earthworks project areas. In high rainfall areas, you may want to slow and divert the flow of water; whereas in drier climates, storing and infusing your land with water may be the priority. ultimately, the aim is to enhance or create the conditions needed so that plants we want to grow and animals we want to keep can flourish.

​Due to the changing climate, and the increasing frequency of unstable and unusual weather patterns, it is good to understand the thinking behind different approaches and techniques, and to be aware of how and why people in different climates approach this topic. This, together with close observation of the landscape or cityscape around you, will mean that you are able to respond intelligently when unexpected weather affects your area.

​Reasons to use earthworks

Here are just a few of the reasons you might include earthworks in your design:

• Water management. Creating channels for water enables natural irrigation of crops.
• Directing flow of human and animal traffic. Berms, swales, and rockwork can create lanes, gateways and even facilitate natural weaning of lambs via traditional lamb creeps.
• Creating edge zones. The edge between one microclimate and another (such as between a pond and the shore, or between a swale, berm, and the flat zone,) is an area favoured by many plants and animals who like having the best of both worlds, or even all three worlds: the water world, the land and the air.
• Processing debris, such as with berms and hügelkultur. No waste! Debris can be used to create super fertile beds and great habitat, increasing biodiversity and encouraging natural balance.
• Creating habitat. Water attracts wildlife! Adding a pond multiplies the numbers and types of wildlife in, on and around the edges. Berms and hügelkultures also create habitat for small mammals, beneficial reptiles and insects.
• Preventing erosion. Controlling water flow can increase the natural storage of water in the land. It also slows the water, which allows it to drop sediment rather than washing it away.
• Establishing boundaries.  Long, curving berms and hedgerows are much more attractive and welcoming than fences. In many places hedges are traditionally planted on top of earth banks, or a mix of stone and turf, providing an instant boundary and shelter, long before the hedge matures.
• And so much more! What reasons can you think of for using earthworks in your own garden?

No matter what, your earthworks designs should always be site specific. Some earthwork strategies will be to retain water and help it infiltrate back into the soil and aquifer, and some strategies will be dealing with excessive water that needs to be moved into other locations on the site. 

Planning a series of terraces on a sunny slope can be a great use of space, but can be disastrous if erosion concerns are not addressed first and water flow down the hill is not considered. By the same token, a misapplied hügelkultur bed can lead to a festering, anaerobic overgrowth of bacteria in which nothing else grows.

​Cyclic opportunity

Heather Jo Flores discusses her acequia system in Southern Spain, an explanation of “source to sink” and “cyclic opportunity,” and a mini-tour of her Mediterranean food forest.

Part one:

Earthworks intro part 1

Part two:

Earthworks Intro Part 2: Acequias in Andalucia

Quick video of the acequia coming in!

Acequia irrigation system in Andalucia

​Slope and Contour

this section by Kelda Lorax

Working with contour/slope is like seeing the naked shape of the land and appreciating it, rather than ignoring, or worse, misusing it.

When we ignore the contours of the site:

• Gardens and other soil disturbances might be placed in ways that increase erosion and damage to the site
• We might place components of design in the wrong place, with decreased efficiency
• We might cause ourselves unnecessary work

It’s a crazy idea to make land flat without good reason! Sure, we want it flat for building foundations, terraces, tent camping, etc, but if we make land flat just for the heck of it:

• It can all flood out in one rain event, it doesn’t sink water to appropriate areas
• Because it doesn’t sink water, it can also all dry out at once
• Many useful, precious microclimates can be erased
• Is more prone to extremes from pests, weather, disaster, than a site with many different nuances

​So, how does one appreciate the natural shape of the land?

By building, gardening, working “on contour.” Contour is a line along one elevation measurement. It is a line directly perpendicular to the slope (up and down) of a site.

​If you think of your standing body as a hill, then contour lines run across your body like a belt, bracelets, or a neck scarf. If someone were to pour water on your head, the water would travel downhill, but when water hits the belt (if you and the belt were made of earth), the water would slow and spread along that line.

We slow and spread water on a site by building on contour. This decreases the speed with which water runs off the site, decreases the amount of erosion that running water can cause, and is stored in the earth (which holds it like a sponge, which leads to massive increases in fertility).

​What exactly is “building on contour”? It’s placing a path along one elevation line, or garden beds along an elevation line, or swales along one elevation line. They could all be on different elevation lines than each other, but if a garden bed starts at certain point, it then also ends at the same elevation, above sea level, as it started at. This is much easier to understand in pictures.

The land slopes down from bottom right corner of picture to the big compost piles at upper left. Some of the beds were built by guessing contour (yellow) and the others were built by measuring contour (red). The yellow-lined beds were always losing soil and depositing it on the left side of the lines (downslope), so they were quickly fixed for the following year.

There are many ways to find contour on a site in order to design for it. The easiest way to learn is to play around with a carpenter’s level on somewhere cleared, like a lawn or parking lot.

1. Lay a carpenter’s level on the ground and place a stone at an end, that’s your first marker.
2. Looking at the bubble, slide the other end of the level slightly uphill or downhill, on the ground, until the bubble is centered. Place a stone at that spot
3. Move the level to the last stone and look for level again with the other end
4. Repeat the process to lay a handful of stones out wherever you find level.
5. Use chalk or string or some other marker to run a line through all the markers that were level to each other.
6. Now stand back, and without any maps, fancy equipment, or even numbers, you have found a contour line. See how that line runs perpendicular to the slope?
7. Pick a different spot, either uphill or downhill of that line. Eyeballing is fine, or you could start that line exactly 1 foot (or some other interval) away from the first line.
8. Repeat the process of placing stones, finding level, and drawing a line. Now you have two contour lines
9. Repeat the process of finding contour lines.
10. Now stand back and you see the pattern of the land just like a topographic map. 

How do you find contour on a site if you don’t have a level with you? If you can make a very secure “A” shape of sticks out of any materials, and some kind of string and weight, you can find level. The frame doesn’t need to be perfect, just sturdy. Hang a string from the top, making sure it goes past the horizontal stick, and then add a weight to that string.

Now stand it up, mark the spot where both legs touch the ground, and mark on the horizontal stick where the string hangs past it. Turn the A-frame around so the legs are switched and in exactly the same spot as each other just were. Now mark on the horizontal stick where the string now goes past it again. Exactly in between those two points, on your horizontal stick, is where the weight will hang when the two legs are on exactly level ground with each other. 

If you have a carpenter’s level, use it this way! This will give decent readings on bumpy ground at a nice accurate interval. If the interval between contour points can be bigger, just put the level on a big board and find points as described in the bullets above. ​

Here’s an article about using the Bunyip Water Level. 

What method you use depends on your scale, the degree of exactness you need in measurement, and of course access to different tools/materials.

Try this online contour mapping tool.

​Keyline Design

Keyline design is a step beyond working with contours if you need regular spacing of earthworks of any kind. If you’re working on a scale where you need all your tree rows exactly 10 feet from the next tree row downslope (or garden or terrace or animal fence, the exact component doesn’t matter), you’d quickly be in trouble if you start assuming you can do it on contour. Contour varies too much. At some points your tree rows would be 10 feet apart, and then 8 feet apart, and then 15. This matters if you’re using equipment and those variations will give you a headache. For example: if you want just one pass with a lawnmower or tractor between rows instead of sometimes one, sometimes half, sometimes two.

What also happens is that if the initial row is on contour and the following rows are exactly 10 feet (or whatever) downslope, is that the lower rows get more and more off-contour until they are potentially causing all the erosion problems that we’re trying to avoid.​

Thus, the keyline system. The basic idea is that the starting row is on contour, but starts at a place called the keypoint on the slope’s valley. First find the inflection point, where the slope goes from concave to convex, and the keypoint is just below that where water coming down a hill would naturally start slowing.

Finding inflection points on a map. 

​The green lines are valleys and the brown lines are ridges. The inflection point is at the place where the contour lines go from closer together on the convex slope to wider apart as the slope broadens and becomes more concave. I marked one, can you find others?

Click here to see how close you were!

The inflection points from one valley don’t necessarily match up on the same contour line as the inflection points from the next valley. They all erode and deposit in different ways.

Going from your map into the field is when you start to see the keypoints just downhill from the inflection points. It is a greener area that is hard to guess exactly from a topo map alone. Once you’ve identified your keypoint, this is the place to put your first marker. Then find your contour line (using any of the tools listed above) and map that line on the landscape. It’s called your Keyline because it’s a contour line starting at the Keypoint. Then, from that keyline you can figure out rows (other lines) at regular intervals upslope or downslope. For example, if you want tree rows 20 feet apart, stand at your first Keypoint marker, walk upslope 20 feet and place a marker for your first upslope row (leave a friend behind on the keyline, holding the dummy end of a tape measure). When you’re making that new row, don’t find the contour, simply walk with your friend and always be 20 feet upslope of her.

Repeat for lines further upslope or downslope of the keyline. You can see that keyline also lays out faster in the field, though it may take some time to find the keypoint. 

​Instead of creating erosion, what happens is that all of the lines (though many of them are ever slightly off-contour) will slow and spread water from the valley to the ridge. This technique is known for sinking water into arid landscapes, thus the original intentions of the designer to hydrate landscapes to avoid wildfires.

Why would you use keyline rather than contour to set up your earthworks?

• For me, only if I needed regular intervals, otherwise the ‘on contour’ option serves me just fine (but remember, contour will never be regular). So if you’re ever wanting each berm (etc) 10 feet apart, you want to do a keyline system
• You’re in a highly brittle or dry landscape and you always want to sink even more water than you can on contour, or to spread it further into the ridges
• You are integrating your earthworks into an extensive design for water catchments like ponds
• Keyline moves more water and does a better job at preventing erosion than building on contour does.

Here’s an excellent article with tons of great examples of how keyline design can be used to improve big pieces of land.

Here’s a quick, fun video showing a keyline design at Hawk’s Journey farm.

Hawk's Journey Farm Permaculture Earthworks Installation

​Swales

this section by Amy Stross

A swale is an earthwork technique that takes advantage of the land’s contour to encourage infiltration and increase the soil’s storage capacity. For this reason, swales can be an important tool for passive irrigation, as well as reducing erosion and stormwater runoff.

Swales not only catch water, but also soil, seeds, and organic matter, keeping them onsite rather than washing them away. Swales work best on land that is gently to moderately sloped, but they can also be useful on flat land, as even flat land must drain somewhere.

On sloping land, water typically collects in waterways and valleys. However, swales are one earthwork technique that spreads water evenly across the contour of a landscape, tempering water during heavy rains. In this way, water can slowly infiltrate, creating more stability and consistency within the watershed.

First, let’s consider what a swale is and why you might need one in your garden, farm, or yard. Later, we’ll review how to construct a swale system.

A swale is a shallow trench dug along the contour line which catches water running down-slope. The soil that is dug for the trench is placed on the downhill side to create a planting berm.

All points along a contour line are exactly the same height above sea level. Therefore, a swale trench slows the water and spreads it evenly across the contour line. This slowing and spreading of water reduces erosion, and retains more water where it is needed.

Swales can be used both in broadscale applications as well as at a residential scale.

Keep in mind that this type of swales have the opposite goal of “bioswales” that municipalities use in their stormwater conveyance systems. This is simply an unfortunate mixup with “swale” meaning different things to different groups. Bioswales are not built on contour to catch and hold water. Rather, they are diversion ditches that whisk water away.

Swales, when used in the right context, create microclimates and add texture to the landscape that can improve the quality of food production, while improving the local ecology at the same time.

In general, swales are typically planted with woody perennials, whose deep and thirsty roots absorb water and hold the berm in place. Swale systems can be an ideal place for planting fruit tree guilds, linear food forests, or even hedgerows for privacy or as a windbreak.

In municipal areas, swales can help reduce and filter stormwater runoff, which is the number one source of water pollution.

Here’s an example of how a regular ole’ Josephine like me in the suburbs used a swale system to help with the stormwater problem:

A 1,200 square-foot house catches 30,525 gallons of rain from the roof each year. Using a swale system, 75% of that can be captured in the landscape, or almost 22,900 gallons. This roof water becomes passive irrigation for food gardens that require no work after the initial setup.

On top of their stormwater-reducing capabilities, swales build self-sustaining ecosystems. Instead of surface water running off or pooling above ground, a swale system directs it downward into an underground reservoir, which plant roots can access long after rain has passed.

It’s a no work, built-in, self-watering system!

This underground reservoir attracts microorganisms. Suddenly the soil is alive and the “micro-herds” begin eating, pooping and procreating (perhaps not in that order) and voila: We’re passively generating organic matter and fertilizer right in our food producing systems.

This means fewer inputs, which saves money and time. The more the organic matter builds, the more moisture the swale holds. With more organic matter, the system can better withstand both floods and droughts.

Let’s dive deeper into the details of creating a swale by exploring how to choose the best site and how to construct it.

Download this guide with step-by-step directions on how to construct a swale.

Swales are simply one technique of many in our toolbox. They aren’t a panacea. Here are some reasons why swales may not be the most appropriate solution for a given site:

• The site has a high water table.
• The site has a steep slope (greater than 15 degrees.)
• When soil is dispersive (dispersive soil moves easily even in slow-moving water.)
• When bedrock is close to the surface.
• Steep slopes + heavy rainfall = no bueno. A swale can destabilize a hillside in this scenario. Alternatively, see the terrace section below.
• The site has adequate, consistent rainfall year round with no drought or seasonal monsoon conditions.
• The site has heavy clay soil or otherwise does not drain within 24 hours after a rain event.

No matter if a site is frequently inundated with water or dry most of the year, there are solutions for appropriately managing water. It is our job as designers to identify which solutions (or combination thereof) will be the most appropriate for a site to encourage a well-functioning water cycle.

Often, there are time-tested solutions that have traditionally worked well in a given area. While swales may be a helpful solution, see if there are native solutions that will work just as well.

Storing water in the ground can have a profound effect on soil health and moisture retention. As we seek to optimize our relationship with our land, how we manage water will be crucial, and swales can be a useful addition to a water management strategy.

​Terraces

Terraces are an excellent way to harness the potential of a sloped garden and make it much easier to maintain. 

​Humans have been building terraced gardens since the dawn of agriculture. The basic technique is easy enough, once you’ve got your slope and contours mapped. If this is a technique that makes sense for your site, start with this article, by Amy Stross.

​Berms

this section by Loretta Buckner

What’s a berm? In landscapes, a berm is a mound created from masses of organic matter such as debris and detritus, collected from an assortment of onsite materials: For example, palm trees and oaks, piled up in a semi-circular bed, studded with nice, juicy greens (also known as compost scraps, manure, etc..) Decomposers may or may not be preferred. There is no better way to handle “chop and drop” yard waste and tree trimmings than a berm. In your design, this will most likely contain the same things as a hügel bed, with perhaps some additional sand, rock, or mulch. If you’ve turned your lawn into a garden, use the piles of sod you dug out, flip them upside down, and use them to build the base for your berms.

A berm can be anything which forms a hill or bump in the landscape. The purpose could be to decompose large debris, as with a hügelkultur, to form better soil and growing conditions, or it could be to create a windbreak. Berms can be large or small, depending on the size of the lot. Berms can also be used to create contour on an otherwise flat site, and the cool part about that is you can create those contours in any space, shape, and height you want!

Why would you build a berm?

• To use debris (such as a sod lawn that has been removed.)
• To mark a boundary.
• To create depth and contour.
• To direct and store water.
• To establish a garden bed.
• To create habitat

As in any form of earthwork, the important factors will be location specific. In other words, carefully chosen for their unique purpose and placed in an effective and aesthetic way to best utilize both the landscape and the berm itself. Sounds simple enough. Well, in many implementations, both berms and hügelkultures often resemble nothing more than ugly grave-like lumps. Any added feature needs to work with existing natural contours, or to soften hard lot lines. A properly placed and formed berm can fulfill the same purpose as a swale, and there’s the key: Proper placement.

Things to consider:

• How much yard debris will the property have on a seasonal/annual basis to process?
• How much space is there to create a mound?
• If there is slope, how much slope?
• If there is little to no slope, what are the other factors (sector analysis)?
• What do you plan to grow on the mound (or at the base of)?

The answers to these five questions will determine size, shape and composition. Any ecological design should mimic nature; therefore, edges should be curved rather than straight. The degree of slope added should also be in line with the existing surroundings (as in, it would not be advisable to add a small mountain in the middle of a coastal flatland.)

A properly planned design incorporating berms will, first, involve careful observation and utilization of the existing resources. Implementation can most often be done by hand, over time, with minimal (and positive) impact to the surrounding ecosystem. A combination of hügelkultur and berm/swale techniques is often the solution to many design strategies.

​Hügelkultur

this section by Diana Sette

Another example of earthworks that are designed to work with nature, is the practice of hügelkultur. Imagine the forest floor of an old growth forest. Layers of humus, maybe little slopes from tree roots, or moss covered, decomposing fallen logs, cover the landscape. Herbaceous plants unfurl in the crevices and atop mounds. Self mulched surfaces produce rich, organic matter from which mushrooms and shrubs spring. Decaying leaves are food for worms, insects, and other arthropods. There is no need for a hose to water, and if it downpours there, it is unlikely to flood, as the carbon-rich soils have significant layers of organic matter, and have an extensive water holding capacity. In addition to that, no human needs to fertilize the trees, or the ferns, or the herbs and shrubs producing beautiful berries and nutrient dense greens. This system is self-sustaining and regenerative.

From this springs the inspiration for hügelkultur. Hügelkultur (which, in German, means “hill culture”) is a raised bed with an intentionally layered structure with large wooden logs as the base layer. Layers atop the thick fallen-tree-like-foundation include smaller logs, branches, twigs, manure or other high nitrogen organic waste, local soil with indigenous microbes, straw, compost, wood chips, grass clippings, and even food scraps. The idea is to recreate the conditions of a forest floor by building a raised bed with a compost pile that balances the carbon and nitrogen. Carbon includes browns such as wood and straw, and nitrogen includes greens such as food scraps, manure and grass clippings.

Hügelkultur can be an especially regenerative earthwork practice in urban environments, as the soil and the earth has already been disturbed, degraded and altered. While working on a leveled vacant urban lot with compacted soil, hügelkultur provided an opportunity to revive the soil back to health by bringing back the land’s curves. The flattened and compacted soil had lost all its lushness; hügelkultur helped to round out and soften the space, and supported the natural processes of the earth, creating more sanctuary and depth. Hügelkultur is foolproof to destruction, because it has a restorative intervention, with less disruption.

Hügelkultur practice is a way to build a self-fertilizing garden with minimal irrigation and increased growing space and microclimates. Many people across the planet are beginning to implement this practice in their gardens and farms. Why? For lots of good reasons!

First, once you start working with trees and perennials, any gardener can tell you that it’s not hard to accumulate a large pile of cuttings from pruning, or from rotten wood. Therefore, hügelkultur is a practice that supports putting those waste products to good use by recycling their nutrients.

Second, hügelkultur is a great way to build soil. As mentioned above, the layering process, similar to lasagna gardening but with wood and logs included, is like building an instant compost pile in your raised bed. If you’re gardening in an area with sand, compact clay soils or water-logged areas, hügelkultur beds can be the solution to building soil through raised beds.

Third, hügelkultur beds are self-fertilizing. They are built like slow release compost piles that feed the microbial life in the soil, giving access to nutrients and minerals in the earth.

Fourth, hügelkultur beds require minimal irrigation. Woody material has a great capacity to store water. By imitating the forest floor and building a raised bed with dead woody material as the base, you are creating a growing bed that can hold water in its structure, like a sponge. The wood retains moisture and feeds it slowly to plants as needed.

Fifth, the practice of hügelkultur supports the conservation of water and increases drought tolerance.Sixth, like any raised bed, the mound structure of hügelkultur provides a height advantage that is more resilient to floods. In addition to simple mounding, the log layers will work to absorb excess water and spread it upward, while the height will keep many plants growing at a higher level high and dry.

Finally, hügelkultur expands the edge and microclimates available to grow in. Think of the ever-popular herb spiral that capitalizes on the variation of height and growing conditions in a contained spiral pattern. The plants at the top enjoy slightly warmer and dryer soils, while the plants toward the base of the spiral enjoy damper and cooler soils. The same scenario plays out for the hügelkultur bed that is more angled.

While many hügelkultur beds are built to be a more rounded, half-circle type shape, others can be taller or triangular to better leverage the potential for diverse growing conditions or microclimates.

The extra steepness of the tall triangular shape allows for the natural settling of decomposition. Some hügelkultur builders have utilized wooden pallets as a base for the sides of the hügelkultur bed. This helps support the steepness of the structure, while providing a little more foundation for planting at various heights. People who build taller hügelkultur beds report the benefit of an easier harvest due to less bending and reaching. Clearly, the reasons to build a hügelkultur bed are extensive!

Be careful about the wood you choose to make the hügelkultur with if it is diseased, allelopathic or chemically treated. Prunings from diseased trees and shurbs are best burnt and used for biochar as otherwise they can infect other parts of your garden. Some trees are allelopathic plants which means that they release chemical compounds that hinder the growth of other plants. Understandably they aren’t the best choice for hügelkultur, so avoid walnut and eucalyptus wood unless it is already partially rotten. It is also important to avoid construction lumber unless you can ensure it is untreated, many commercial lumber varieties are treated with toxic chemicals that will leach into the soil of the hügelkultur.  

Download this guide with step-by-step directions on how to make a hügelkultur bed.​

Pro tip: Use the Scale of Permanence!

From Veteran Permaculturist and Australian Earthworker Carolyn Gemmel:

“Successful earthworks begins with a desire to get the backbone of a design right. Following the design priorities of Water, Access, Structures (Yeoman’s Scale of Permanence), leads one onto the obvious placement for food productivity and leisure systems. The most difficult thing I have to face as a designer and earthworks installer is when I show up at a site and the client has already decided where everything will be going, pointing across the open space, house there, orchard there, chickens over there….Ecological design is about just the opposite. First design the water systems in the context of the land form, it then becomes obvious where everything else sits attached to that backbone.”

The scale of permanence is a tool you can use to gather information, analyze opportunities, and prioritize components that will have the biggest impact for the least effort. It is also a tool to measure the potential for error, and to avoid making huge ones. As you can see, landform is hard to change and repair, and soil is super easy to ruin (and repair,) and earthworks affects both, so think hard before you start digging.

If you’re not sure what we mean by Scale of Permanence, that means you haven’t done the Observation class, in our Design Studio…so now would be a great time to check it out.

Every site will have different considerations to look at. Earthworks can be simple or complex, depending on the needs of the site. No matter what sort of land-shaping you do, it is essential that you learn how to measure the slope and map the contours of your site.We include this reminder here in the earthworks module because, once you get behind the wheel of a tractor or even just a really good shovel, you have the potential to either reap huge rewards from your work, or bring in a whole new set of challenges. 

​The more clear, intentional, and protracted your thought process is around the design of your earthworks, the more likely it will be the former.

​Yes, mistakes are tools for learning. But you don’t want to cause long-term damage to your land by making one ill-informed decision. The scale of permanence gives you a compass by which to navigate large, important decisions that will affect the long-term viability of your site.

Ecological design, by definition, is site-specific. Read the land, consider the impact of your actions, and design everything with careful attention to the relationships between components.

​You don’t need a backhoe to do earthworks

this section by Marit Parker

“I find working at a close personal level with the land, plants, and animals brings a much deeper awareness of the effect you are having and a far more intense connection. Working with large machinery tends to distance one from damages done simply in the use of that machinery. When one is ensconced inside of a machine it is difficult to even notice the plant and animal life which abounds, let alone connect with and preserve it.” —Sherry Johnson

“I am lucky to have neighbours with a tractor and a quad bike who will help me with heavy work, and I admit to being envious when I see old Land Rovers, but I’m also conscious that even one trip over a field with a quad bike leaves track marks where the grass and herbs won’t grow as well for a long time. The heavier the machinery, the greater the damage to the soil structure.”–Marit Parker

After seeing all the pictures of large projects, thinking about embarking on earthworks without machinery may seem daunting. However, some people prefer to work by hand, and some places don’t have access to or for machinery. In industrialised countries, we assume that we need machines for big projects. We forget that across much of the world it is normal for people to work together without machinery. For example, the terraced landscapes in the Konso highlands of Ethiopia, the Loess Plateau in China, and of the Incas were all created by hand. Dry stone walls, typical of the landscape across upland areas of Britain, were also built by hand.

At garden scale, heavy machinery is rarely an option.

There are many advantages to slower, more hands-on approaches, such as:

• Having time to observe and mull over the work and make changes to the plans.
• Introducing changes at a pace that allows plants and creatures to adapt.
• Being able to include others in the work (instead of keeping people away from dangerous machinery.)
• Making it a community event.
• Learning new skills and keeping traditional skills alive.
• Being able to hear each other talk and sing, and enjoying the sounds of nature.
• Avoiding particular areas at sensitive times, e.g. leaving ground-nesting birds or frogspawn in peace.
• Freedom from using fossil fuels means less pollution, less financial cost and less expensive or time-consuming repairs.
• Being amazed at and proud of your achievements!

Another advantage of working by hand is that you can take advantage of nature’s earth works, another way of working with nature rather than against it. For example, in Nepal, farmers sometimes take advantage of landslides to make new terraces.

Working by hand gives you a chance to feel subtle changes in the soil and to choose stones that are just right for a particular space. It can become an immersive and meditative process.​

Taking care of your body is very important when you’re engaging in heavy manual work. Always start with some gentle warm-up exercises and stretches. Remind everyone to take care when lifting, to bend their knees, use their abdominal muscles, and to look after their backs (keep your back straight.) Work together, share the load: “Many hands make light work.” Take regular breaks. Don’t be tempted to do more when you are tired, as that’s when mistakes and accidents often happen. Listen to your body and stop when you need to rest.

​When NOT to do earthworks

The risks of doing permanent damage to your site with ill-conceived earthworks cannot be overstated. Keep this admonition in mind as you work to redirect water and resources around your site. And please, do not do any sort of major earthmoving (or even heavy shovel work) when any of the following conditions apply:

• The soil is too wet.
• The soil is too dry.
• You don’t know enough about the soil.
• You haven’t observed the site for long enough.
• You haven’t talked to the neighbors up and down slope.
• You haven’t measured the slope and contours of the site.
• Your earthworks plan is not tied into a whole-system design.
• You don’t have a plan for where newly-harnessed water will drain.
• You don’t have a plan for where to take any soil or debris you will dig up.
• You haven’t spoken at length with whoever is driving the equipment and made sure they 100% understand the design.
• You haven’t clearly marked the boundaries and parameters of the project so that workers can see where to stop, turn, and drop material.
• You really don’t need to dig anything up because a no-till approach makes more sense for the site.

Homework

Questions for Review

1. What are your ideas for earthworks on your site, and how does the annual rainfall in your area affect the functionality of your potential earthworks or water harvesting strategies?
2. Where are the contours on your site and how can you use them to direct and conserve water and other resources? If you have a flat site, how will you create contour?
3. Which earthworking techniques are appropriate for your site? Which are inappropriate? Why?
4. Read the land, with earthworks in mind. How has the land already been changed by humans? Would you undo any of that? Why? What would you do instead?
5. Consider scale of permanence, look for the components of it. Where are they?

Recommended Hands-On

If you haven’t yet, go and do that Observation class in the design studio, then come back and do some of these hands-on activities.

Go on a field trip: 

Visit a local garden where they are using some form of earthworks and interview the people who designed it. Talk to them about what worked and what didn’t. Ask them what they would have done differently.

Visit a site where large equipment such as bulldozers and backhoes are doing large scale earthmoving.

Watch them for a while, and notice the impact.

How is what they are doing impacting the soil, the insects, birds, and reptiles?

Are they causing erosion?

Preventing it?

What purpose does their project seem to serve?

How does it make you feel to watch them?

​Write about it. Keep track of your ideas, and begin to organize them.

​Build a whole-system sandbox!

• Build a sandbox-sized model of your site.
• Refer to the draft design you did in step one and make a mock-up. Again, think about slope, contour and keylines: Imagine you’re working on your own site or one that you have visited recently. Add rocks, trees, objects and elements that you will have to work around.
• Make some berms and swales, maybe a tiny hügelkultur, using sticks, grass and dirt.
• Make some terraces and/or irrigation channels.
• Add a pond or two, maybe a tiny house with rain gutters and greywater channels. Connect everything together and imagine your closed-loop system.
• When you’ve got a reasonable mock-up, use a watering can to make it rain!
• What happens? Is there erosion? Does the water go where you expect it to?
• Try again. Switch the angles and positions of things. What changes when you change the earthworks?​

Earthworks Outro