How the Ancients May Have Built Terraces

[teresaq]

It can be interesting to find out that gardening does not need to be labor intensive according to those who have discovered "no dig" systems. Mulch, wait, pull back mulch and dig hole for plant in the now-workable soil, watch a great garden grow.  I tend to watch the snails and slugs proliferate, tho with my handy water and ammonia to dump them in. 

 

This is still labor intensive, but lets water do some of the work.

Build a Rice Paddy By Rick Groleau Posted 12.18.00 NOVA

Terraced rice paddies, masterpieces of ancient engineering, have existed in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere for as long as two millennia. The building of these stepped paddies—done without the aid of machinery—is no minor undertaking. How, then, do farmers construct them? Here, follow the evolution of a new paddy.

Launch Interactive

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See how farmers have traditionally constructed elegant and sturdy terraces for growing rice.

This feature originally appeared on the site for the NOVA program Japan's Secret Garden.

 

 

Primary source: Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao, by Harold C. Conklin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980.

 

 

[LynnDel]

I've always been fascinated by the beauty of those rice paddies on steep mountainsides.

[teresaq]

What I find interesting is how they used water to do much of the heavy labor.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/rice-paddy.html