The good work and thoughtful design evident here is so inspiring!
I'm currently designing an alley crop - perennial herb/veg polyculture, the understory of which will initially be planted with annual veg as a market garden. Similar in spirit to what Roberto Muj has done, but on the Canadian prairies.
The site is just under an acre, with a sloping easterly aspect. The slope is not steep enough to need terracing, but should definitely be swaled as some years droughts here can be quite severe. Likewise storm and rain events can sometimes be dramatic, and will need to be mitigated.
However, if the site is swaled and trees/crops planted in the berm, which is obviously desirable, then the trees/crops will run north-south, not east-west. Does anyone have any opinions about whether it would be better to plant the polyculture running east-west to maximize exposure, especially for the understory, or better planted along the swales? The latter makes more sense from a water harvesting perspective, as well as for path and crop placement perspective, but I worry about creating large areas too shady for herb production.
Thoughts?