Quick! Make a morning post before the melatonin and tiredness kick in!
This morning (after work) started with an unsuccessful hunt for carbon. The carbonaceous bandit is roaming and ready to strike! No wood chips, no log trash, and no leaf bags today. That's alright though, we'll make it.
Got home and picked some dandelions to put in my eggs. I've never tried it before, and I'm now regretting that fact. SO GOOD. It tastes exactly like spinach, but with a little spice to it. Barely noticable, but it's there.
After that, I gave Sophie's leftover eggs to the chickens and got to work. What a gorgeous morning.
Today, we started our swales.
My two helpers. Without them, I wouldn't have had to dig balls out of the dirt every few seconds...
That's where we ended up this morning. I'll clean it up later, but it looks like it'll land around eighteen inches wide and deep (about half a meter). This is going to be our smallest swale, at about 24 feet long. Total capacity is 54 cubic feet, or 400 gallons, roughly. I think thats about 1,500 liters for anyone thats not american.
The other two swales are roughly double that length, and the top one will be a bit deeper and wider, so im thinking we'll have about 2500 gallons of capacity there in the ground after its all said and done. That's almost eight of our ibc totes full, which has even more wheels now turning in my head.
Anyways, theres another step in our #dfood initiative. Another step towards our food forest and a decentralized food supply! The energy is really flowing. I'm getting excited.
Wood chips just got a little extra urgent, but I have a good feeling that they'll show up soon.
I'm gonna go get a quick nap. Catch y'all later!
Stay relevant
Nate
Awesome. My husband asks: I thought swales were for sloped properties and larger land?
Looking forward to seeing how they work!!!
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This part of the property is sloped, so it's a prime candidate for swales. They can be large or small, depending on the scale you need. Some folks even put a few foot long swale by small new trees to increase their water capture and retention :)
But yes, swales are often used in larger places as a water catchment and to prevent runoff erosion.
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Hey Nate! Looking good, ive got a little helper that does the same haha 😆 thankfully shes getting better at remembering where shes hid things as its normally my trowel or other tools from the greenhouse... always fun turning over the soil and unearthing some lost artefact that was hidden a little to well. Hope the hunt improves
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They loved tossing balls into the swale as I dug. I'd get frustrated and kick the ball across the yard, which turned into a game that I had no choice but to enjoy hahaha
Sam lost his hand spade in a mole hole once. Last summer I taught him to dig up the tunnels, and he left it in one. The mole came along and dug the tunnel back, burying his spade.
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Haha i know that feeling, those unintentional games that you need to enjoy or itd drive you crazy if you didnt.
Only had to deal deal with one mole in the garden, thankfully he moved on before i lost my mind chasing it around the garden filling in mole hills
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I don't know if our moles have made any problems for us. I usually kit their holes with the water hose when they pop up, but it doesn't make them leave. That way we get to water the soil deeper than with surface watering. I'm pretty sure we benefit nicely from the aeration they provide in the soil.
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