My 22 acres is in a fairly cool environment for the mainland of Australia with an elavation above sea level of around 700m (with the main ridge rising to over 1,000m). Recently I've had a 20 tonne excavator in doing the sort of work that they love doing. Actually, the operator was helping clean up the remnants of some old forestry operations (ie. massive half burnt out stumps), fixing the driveway and cutting in some swales.

Swales are a bit of an unusual feature in southern Australia as you rarely see them. However, the volcanic soil here doesn't allow for the construction of a dam as the drainage is near perfect - good for fruit trees though. Even the fern lined creek which runs through one of the boundaries holds it's water partly above ground and partly underground. This is how it should be though, it's all part of the natural system.

Anyway the problem is that I have a small house, but for all sorts of reasons the roof catchment area is quite large and even in a drought year I receive many thousands of litres of water more than I can use (a drought year will produce about 150,000 litres of catchment - last year was about 420,000 litres). So, you have to catch the water and stop it from eroding the entire side of the mountain away. The best place to store it is in the ground, so I had a swale on contour dug in and planted the swale banks with willows and will soon add some mother shield ferns which are indigenous to the area.

The thing is though, having a 20 tonne excavator move across your property does massive damage to the top soil. There wasn't a lot to begin with either, due primarily to forest clearing operations (since the 1860's) and the locals also tell a dark tale about the "bush bandit" who apparently removed the remaining top soil and sold it off to gardeners in Melbourne - but that's another story. So what do you do to start top soil in a cool temperate environment?

Well I wanted to plant a new section of food forest in this area as well so was working towards a more fungal dominated environment. So starting with bare volcanic clay (which looks orangey-brown exactly like the sample that Geoff Lawton had in the Soil DVD) and I added:

The straw from the chook house bedding and mulched it with the mower - There's about 10 happy chooks in there with a big enclosed run and they produce a lot of poo and eggs!

Composted garden waste supplied by the local council (who pick it up with the green waste collection process, chip and compost it and then resell it) - It is a very varied material with fines and large bits and it get's additionally processed here by the chooks who turn it over and also poo in it! Go girls!

A thin spread of compost to provide the soil flora and fauna with a bit of extra help.

After this treatment I put down some rye and fescue seed mix which germinates readily here in any season other than summer. Some may dislike the use of grass, but it's quick growing which helps avoid erosion. Water will not run over land here where there is vegetation of any sort.

After a month or so it can begin to be cut back which in turn helps build up the top soil. Cutting and dropping plant material helps build soil activity here. It also gets thinly top dressed with both mulch and compost at regular intervals. After a while weeds start to grow and they too are cut and dropped and before long the species diversity is up around 50 to 60 species per square metre. Having the diversity helps it not brown off over summer and provides plenty of fodder for the chooks who in turn build up the soil as well. The fruit trees also do really well too.