Count how many times I say "this is the first time" or "this hasn't happened before."
I woke up this morning after fourteen hours of much needed sleep to a thunderstorm. I always miss these storms because I'm at work or out doing other crap that doesn't matter, but this time I was home for it! Super stoked. So I got my shorts on and ran out in the peak of the storm to watch the water move.
My first dtube video that I talk in! Told y'all it'd happen eventually. Lol
At the end, you can hear Melissa yelling at me for being outside in the rain lol. She was brought up NOT to run outside in a storm, what a silly idea.
I found where most of our ground water flows from. The neighbors straight back to the west from us have a big concrete pad that washes across the easement to us. Much appreciated, we'll take it!
Then there's the water washing from the neighbors south of us. Part of their property drains to ours and washes along the south hugel and into the middle swale, which overflows to the bottom swale.
This time, the bottom swale didn't overflow. It drank everything. As soon as the rain slowed, the bottom swale showed how fast it was drinking. All that water went right into our soil, where it'll help establish a more resilient system that'll resist this Summer's drought. Cool thing is, it'll get better every year and with every storm. Thats the thing with regenerative systems! They keep getting better!
This is a huge learning experience here. Some things I've noted are that the chicken run still flooded. It drained much faster than last year, but I'll still need to work more on the ditch that fills the top swale. Another thing to consider will be the water running underneath the hugel. I may need to put a pipe or something through there to reduce soil erosion from that structure. The top swale also doesn't drain to the lower two. It'll take some more observation to see if we just need a much bigger rain or what, but it hasn't yet gotten full enough to fill the lower part of the system. Maybe I made it too big and need the drain point to be lower in that swale, but we'll see. It's early to be making that big of a change in this system yet.
What a cool little blessing, getting to observe and learn from all this today!
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i was out in my food forest when you posted this yesterday...and could feel the tremors of excitement ALLLLL they way up here bro!!!!!!!!!!! dude...awesome video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sooo feeling you on the swales...and the land.....infiltrating all that water!!!!! LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) cheers!!!!!! can't wait to see it all develop over time~~~
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It's soooo important to get out on the land, or in the garden - often! - during ALL weather (and that includes storms!) to see where the prevailing winds, run off, harsh sun etc actually come from. In all my 55 years living in several countries and having degrees in both literature and journalism, I have never heard of a swale. An Americanism?? So - new word researched and I'm feeling better knowing one more person in the world enjoyed a great storm.
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Swales are ditches dug on contour of the land. A permaculture technique for slowing water down so it soaks into the land, so a permacultureism :p
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My brother has had a permaculture property in Oz for 30 years and I've NEVER heard that word. Not common in other permaculture environments at all. ;)
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Sure it is! I heard it from Geoff Lawton. He doesn't make a video without them lol
It's not something that everyone uses, but it's certainly a popular implement worldwide.
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I'm only book-learning educated on permaculture really, since I don't have land to practice it on, and I was taught swales, too. :)
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Ooh, what books? Need moar books!
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Oh, I actually took a free class online through Oregon State U about permaculture! I just meant that in the "theory, not practice" kind of way. :) Though I do try and compost and collect snow and things for the balcony grove, that's about as far as I can go in pots. ;)
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Apartment scale permaculture is fascinating. Like bill and Geoff say: the more restrictions, the more elegant the design will be!
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I did totally map my balcony out for the class! :D
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Very cool, man! Maybe it's a good thing that the top swale didn't drain to the lower two, if you've got water coming in to the middle swale from your neighbors' property?
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Hey, maybe so! I hadn't thought of it that way :)
Top swale handles the water from the West, bottom two handle water from thw south! It works! Woohoo!
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That's awesome! I imagined swales as being huge, deep ravines. That looks totally doable! I'm glad it's working for you.
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No way! The middle and bottom swale are a foot and a half wide and deep, and the top swale is two feet wide and deep. Eighty feet of length total, and I dug em all by hand in a day last fall :) not huge at all!
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Having dealt with our neighbor to the south and had his water running on our property, and knowing he uses a LOT of roundup, that was my first thought: What are the neighbors using on their land?
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Oh no...
I'll go scope them out. I know the ones to the south are alright. They've got almost as many weeds as me. Almost.
The one to the west is questionable. Their yard is pretty fancy. Not that that matters, but I usually don't take leaves from people with super well manicured lawns, as that's kind of a warning sign to me.
We'll see. I may be building a wall.....
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Whoa, very nice, man! You sound very thrilled to see that system working... and a bit panicked to hear the wife's voice :D
I do see room for improvement, as do you as well. The water that comes in the hugel - I'd channel that to go to the top swale or the middle one, or even the bottom one. A simple shallow and wide ditch would do, no need to dig a big depression. Not that the hugel won't absorb water, but currently it's very coarse structure as it hasn't decomposed much.
The top swale should certainly overflow down, etc. If you see too much of an overflow at the lowest part of the system, think about making the swales a bit wider at the top, I think you have the space. The top part is where most of the volume is as it widens.
How does the coop get flooded? Have you dug a drainage ditch on the higher sides of it? Have you tried simple french drainage? Where does the drainage lead? I think you should really get to work on that property map we were talking about :)
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