sloping garden

[tomuk56]

I have a 1acre garden on a slope i am going to have 20ft by 5ft beds should i put them down the slope or across the slope.

thanks for any help

[OllieMartin]

You could build the beds across the slope by digging half the bed out of the slope and using the soil to raise the other half level creating tiers of flat, level beds up the acre. Otherwise I can imagine it would be more difficult to manage a bed that ran downhill.

[Snadger]

As Ollie says.......cut and fill!

[organic]

terracing - Google Images

[Two_Sheds]

"If your plot is on any sort of slope it pays to position your beds along the contours. ...which runs level along the side of a slope.
Growing your crops downhill (or against the line of the contour) will inevitably lead to soil loss. Even if you have good green cover, when soil is being tilled on a regular basis a heavy downpour is often enough to wash topsoil away”.

photos here: On a Level: The Early Days of my On-The-Contour, Raised Bed Garden. Transition Culture

[pinksleepybear]

Also, consider narrower beds unless you have long arms. I have a sloping plot and struggle to reach the middle of a 4ft wide bed from the path above the bed.

[Storming Norman]

I agree with pinksleepybear [what a great name].

My first raised bed I tried is 5 foot by 10 foot - a bit too wide even for a tall person to avoid treading in the beds. The 4 foot by 8 foot beds I set up later are a joy to use in comparison.

Do you think 20 foot is a long way to walk around to get around the garden for something you might have forgotten?

[shoreham_steve]

I have a sloping garden and have levelled up my raised beds for all the reasons stated by others above.
My largest beds are 2 metres x 1.25 metres (6'6"x48") as that is the size of the pallet wood I've used.
I find this size big enough to grow in and small enough to reach across and walk around.

[chuffa]

My beds are 4ft x 10ft. 10 in total that fill up my plot with paths in between. They are on a slight slope but not that much to make any problems for me. If it is steep, make the front of the bed higher to compensate for the slope. Check out my albums.