Swales - in depth guide, theory, how to build them, and why they work.
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- čas přidán 22. 02. 2020
- 4 out of 5 dentists recommend it.
Big water wants you to keep spending time and energy watering your plants. What they don't want you to know is that at more than 29% of the world's land mass is covered in their product, and falls for free during giveaway events called rainstorms.
However, they are in cahoots with "Big-Contouring" who have set up the entire world to drain that water to rivers and oceans.
With these simple land hacks, you can reshape your land and "fight the big powers" by keeping that water in your soils. Combing this with soil building challenges (discussed in a future soil microbiology collaboration / soil unboxing video) you can keep months worth of this premium product in your soils, all for free! these hacks work anywhere in the world, any climate, any zone.
This is the best video on the internet.
Permaculture, swales, water harvesting, gardening tips, fortnite, tik tok, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, makeup tutorial, google find my video and show it to unsuspecting strangers.
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This is literally the perfect video. You are pure genius man! I felt like we were on the same wavelength the entire time. You explained everything in a way that made it all too easy for me and I can’t thank you enough. I am using this as a basis for my garden and can send you progress/end results from start to finish if you want. Thanks again!
I would love that! Do me a favor though, make a CZcams channel, document your journey there. Come to my videos and post links to your videos. Come "steal" some of my viewers. Tell them to make videos and do the same to you (and me).
Then we build an army of people healing the planet, SHOWING people how to do it, showing people actually doing it, showing the results, showing how easy it can be.
This is how we can start a revolution, a back to the land revolution. Even if it's just a one apple tree guild in every backyard in every suburb in the world. That is a lot of freakin trees, it's a lot of food for bees, it's a lot of pressure off industrial agriculture that is killing us, it's a lot of decentralized food production, right at the source.
We need to reach everybody, and not only get everyone to be acting and healing, but get everyone to be TEACHING. Because we only truly understand something when we can successfully teach it to someone else.
This goes for anyone. Make videos and come spam my channel with links to your channel of you planting food forests. Let's change the world together.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy hey my friend is there an email address or a better way of contacting you? This is my dream my passion so much it aches, I would love to learn from you 🙏😍
Good reply. I will
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy You are so cool!
can i "steal" this video too? 😁
watching this again 2 years later... Finally finally, bought some land! 3/4 of an acre. Time to start back at your earlier get-a-food-forest-started videos. Thanks so much for giving us all this valuable information, totally for free. I honestly don't know why you don't have a million subscribers.
Thanks 😊 Onr day maybe LOL. Hardest part is just getting people to know your channel exists.
Very informative! Would love to see the swales in action in the spring or summer
This is such a fascinating video. I am delighted that you are explaining this to this extent. It really helps non-technical, non-engineer types like myself. I might not know science but I can follow such a reasoned, clearly explained lesson like this. Your videos are so informative, without a lot of wasted time on bits of quasi-spiritual comments about this or that. I really appreciate that. I come for technical explanations and amazing examples and you deliver every time. Thank you.
Thanks so much! I'm glad there is a niche out there where I can make technical gardening videos. I know sometimes it can be a lot. I try to do a mix of video types for all the different kinds of things people want.
This is how I would flood our 3 acres , in southern Idaho. Now, I'm designing a system to come off of our rain gutters to keep swells moist, in dry, hot, windy, on a narrow 1/4 acre plot downtown Terry, Mt. I would sure love property with natural water flow. Loving your channel. 😊
This description is hilarious, especially the keyword block. And I agree that this is, in fact, the best video on the internet, even if 20% of dentists don't.
lol, glad someone read it
Thank you for covering smaller swales! Almost all the information I've found is for the desert where there are flash floods and monsoons or massive swathes of farmland. My smallish suburban back yard slopes quite a bit. The plan is to plant trees, but first I want to make sure I'm maximizing the benefits of rainfall as I'm in San Antonio seems to be in a perpetual drought. I look forward to watching more of your videos. Thanks again!
Very good explanation for where to place swales. I’ve 10 acres that was forested 100 years ago then planted with crested wheat grass in the 1930’s. The soil is clay and depleted of organic matter. I wish I had built swales last year but had too much on my plate then. Will definitely build swales in the dry land fields this spring to take advantage of the snow melt next year. It is amazing how the land can be regenerated with know how, some hard work and love for the land. Thanks, Keith.
Love the video description, my kind of humor😂
This is classic attention and focus. A lot of excellent observations with applied science. The science in each episode is just enough... for my brain. your textbook diagrams are a great tribute to the knowledge of yesteryear. A reflection on our need to reach out to our elders (i.e. grandparents/grandpeople) more.
Thank you so kindly for the feedback :)
Awesome deep dive into swales. I was a bit under educated and unsure how to utilize and design them into my current landscape. You are a wealth of knowledge and I will surely direct any future questions I have your way. Cheers!
Very kind words, thank you. I actually watched your video on thermal mass in the greenhouse today. Really fun experiment. I meant to leave thos comment, but had to run to my kids hockey...
I have a friend who made one, and he struggled a bit with it, but then realized that they key is LOTS of thermal mass. He went from two 55 gal drums to 14. Then rocked the entire bottom 3 feet, on 3 sides with massive 500 lbs boulders.
It was -30 here last week and this guy sends me a picture of the thermostat curve (he downloads the data and graphs it). It got to a low of 2C (34F) at 4Am.
That thermal mass greenhouse had a 30C delta across it. Crazy.
Something you may want to consider. As much thermal mass as you can squeeze in there. Another 4 jugs and rock the outside. The more the better.
I enjoyed your videos today with a nice warm coffee. Keep making them. Glad we found eachother on CZcams lol. Let's build an army of tree planters all together, all thousands of us making content.
Yea man, for sure!!! This is just a tiny little seed starting greenhouse. Upping my game this year with that aspect and will definitely over engineer!!! Thanks for the tips! And I totally found this video by googling "best tik tok makeup tutorial video on the internet by Bernie Sanders" 🤣
@@3FeathersFarmstead I knew it would work!
haha love the description. Great video too. I have flat land, so this was perfect. Thanks for addressing this issue, as all the diagrams I've seen online always show a moderate slope.
Glad you enjoyed it! I just reread the description... I must have been in a weird mood that day. Wow.
Very interesting and informative. Love your videos but this one doesn't apply to me. My yard is quite flat and climate very dry. Swales would do nothing but make it harder to walk across the yard. Keep up the good work!
Am I the only one that read the description fully and find it great marketing ? Good idea including all the top word searches so Google finds you.... thats brilliant.
Good thing im subscribed, keep it up
Haha, it was a long weekend and I was definitely in that mode of "tired" where everything is hilarious to you, and you are acting way too silly for an adult.
I will leave it up, even though a lot of people actually thought I believe there is a "big-water" conspiracy. Not even joking, someone told me: "big water? Oh boy people are getting stupider every day".
I enjoyed that one. One thing I find about making videos and putting yourself out there making content on the internet is that you will run across all types...
Brilliant. Thank you.
Wish I had a “property” with many acres of “land”. I have 150 square meter of land I rent. On a little hill. Our formerly known as rainy country is now having its fifth dryiest year. On this mini land, I’ve made two hugels with primarily old dead wood and have dug under the rest of the beds and filled them with dead wood underneath. A layer of straw mulch everywhere. Now I’ve planted several fruit and nut trees and bushes, and started with green ground cover layers. And just this weekend I dug tiny 1 meter long and 20cm wide trenches in front of the beds to mimic swales. I feel like I’m in a doll house, doing a poverty trap miniature simulation of what all you normal folks do on normal scale. For what it’s worth, a tiny interesting experiment in itself.
Have you seen this one yet? I know a lot of people in your situation have really enjoyed it. No land, no problem: czcams.com/video/oiIJkzahH1k/video.html
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy thanks, planting seeds is a great tip. I do love to bike around hours per week to gather forgotten and hidden fruits and nuts, including people’s driveways. Because I live in the one of the it most densely populated countries in the world, which has been tilling and controlling 97% of its soil since the 1700’s. So it’s very time consuming to find spots to gather and barely rewarding to plant something that will be reconstructed soon after. But heck, love the spirit of it, it’s not like my native country shouldn’t optimize by engulfing itself in food forests instead of neat fields of grass and hedges, so I’m gonna try.
I remember my dad talking about the swales he was putting in at a new farm he bought..I was about 5...that was more than 70 years ago . I didn't remember exactly what he said as to why but every property that I have lived on I dug swales ...
So cool. I would love to see really old and developed swales.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy the last farm my father had (1961) was purchased, sold and purchased again to be cut up into building lots.. the 2nd place I put them in as an adult was filled in as they wanted a big sweeping lawn, the 3rd place the house got built almost on top....i wonder if they had a water problem with their foundation. I haven't been able to go out here to see how those i dug 23 years ago faired as I have been in bed for 5 years...somebody said use it or loose it...nobody said anything about abusing......well anyway seems like few people want to know anything about conservation....ps..my mother spent my teenage years and till I was in my 40s as chief clerk at federal soil conservation service.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy p.s. used swale at house that got built on to start a black walnut grove...I had an old friend talk about walnut syrup...??? And I had saplings growing all over a lower property and had great luck in transplanting...one reason I put swales in....the trees when I left the area were between 6 - 10 "" in diameter...all got cut down....
As somebody new to swales, I found this somewhat confusing with all the snow cover. Will be taking a look at your other videos on swales to get a better idea.
Nice video. Clear explanations, thanks.
GREAT video! You described it so well- I'm going to work on my future swales this weekend in the RAIN :) - THANKS
Haha! Its actually a good time to do swales in the rain, especially super heavy rains. That way you can see the water in the swale and use it to help you find contour very easily.
Every swale I've done, my wife has thought I'm nuts because its torrential downpour and I'm digging our lawn up!
Great info!! Finally found it. Thank you so much!!!💜🌎✌
Glad it was helpful!
So fascinating!
Great info !
Great video! Thank you❤️
Thanks for watching!
Excellent video! I just came across your channel and I subscribed. I am just starting on building my permaculture homestead. I have built some hugelkultor raised beds, installed a pollinator garden, and my next project will be to dig swales in order to start an orchard. Most of my six acre property is flat; however, approximately one acre has a significant slope to it. It is that area that I plan to plant the orchard. Thanks for the info!
Welcome aboard! Sounds like you have quite the project on your hands! Super exciting!
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you sir. I am excited about it!
amazing content
Hi Keith, Thank you for this great video. You always manage to take a complex subject and making it easier to digest. I would love to hear your take/comparison on the difference between Swales and Keyline designs for food forests... maybe an idea for a future video update?
I honestly don't have much experience with keyline design, because I don't have access to the machinery /yeomans plough, etc. I think they do a similar function though. Ripping a keyline is faster/easier, but it also holds less water. Better for the side of a hill where there's not a huge catchment area, but worse for a hill whose catchment area funnels large amounts of water to the hillside. That would be my 5 second hot-take.
Great video! I am just getting my channel set up. This video really helped me understand swales better. I am so excited to get started to build some on my land in the spring. Let’s heal the planet together!
This is the kind of army the world needs right now :)
I have to laugh when you say “4-6 inch rainfall”, only because if we get 1/2 -1 inch rainfall here in SW Colorado, we’re feeling pretty blessed and stomping in puddles like little kids! 😁
18:11 that's the way I do it. I have my garden surrounded by native meadow. I never have it mowed all or mow really short when I mow a section. That leave the rabbits with their traditional food outside of my garden.
Beautiful. They need to eat too. The moment we decide to box out all life on our plot is the moment we decide to take on the role that all that life was fulfilling.
I am a big fan of changing from gardening to foraging inside an ecosystem I helped create. It takes a bit of a mindset change, but it is so rewarding.
This is irrigating all the time the easy way!😆
Fantastic video and perfect timing for my PDC you always explain everything so well.👏👍🌱
Do you usually fill the swales with woodchip etc and use them as paths or leave them exposed like a stream?
Would you plant any water loving plants into? any of the swales as well as in the burms?
Thanks as always
Jay🌍👍🌱
I filled the swales with leaves last fall. I kay do so this fall also, just as somewhere to store extra leaves. But if you put woodchips and leaves in the trench, just understand it turns to soil. It will also limit the water holding capacity. But there is jothing wrong with going a bit deeper and putting some woodchips in there.
Just understand that if you fet a HUGE rain, it will float the chips and send them over the berm potentially. Could damage some trees or bushes in a big raibfall. For that reason, before snow melts, I shovel off the swale berm and rake leaves away (much is solid ice). Its a several day a week job.
Actually, just stating that, I remember how much of a pain it was. I may just leave them empty this season.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy thanks for the advice, where I am in London 🇬🇧 the ground is so well draining that it tends to soak straight in rather than run off, so filling with leaves and woodchips could potentially help retain some moisture in the newly created soil as it breaks down.
When it comes to speech, areas of Canada, could pass as Minnesota. Add the cold and you could get confused. (Yes, I live in Minnesota.) Glad I watched this video. My food forest: check, rather proud. My vegetable gardens: not so okay, made to many mistakes years ago, this year I plan to, at least, fix some.
Interesting! I totally agree... sometimes I think Minnesota is the real Canada lol. Especially when I get closer to Toronto (no offense to my Toronto watchers).
I would argue that daming ponds and creating swales actually contributes to more stable and higher water levels in rivers and streams. My property never had a stream but just different outflow drainages coming from lowland drainages that would drain out as it rained... I damned up two of the drainages about 2 feet high, and now they hold water and steadily release it all year round into streams that now somehow acquired minnows.
After the first spring they filled up to the top from the run off and now have seamingly stayed full ever since
Wow what an incredible success story of ecosystem rehabilitation.
This is how humans can be true earth stewards! Your actions, even if you left that land and moved somewhere else, will completely heal and regrow it in time.
Amazing story Mordy, thanks for sharing. You should make a video this spring, I would love to see it. It sounds like you have a lot going on over there based on some of the comments I have seen you make over the past year or so, here and on other channels.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy im thinking about starting a channel, once i find some people i can turn too for ecological and geographic systems information. Alot of what ive done hasn't turned out...
The property was once logged, tightly rowed pine replanted... I have no understory so most of what i plant has been eaten by deer and rabbits. Right now im just messing with a couple acres and leaving the other 78 alone...
Ive done some clearing to make atv trails and know it has some benefit because grasses now grow in them and the animals bed and graze in them, and the ruts hold water and i always see frogs in them.
Id like to thin out the whole forest but i have no idea how much or how little it should be done, should it be done incrementaly or all at once, effects on soil erosion since there is no mulch in this forrest.
It would kill me to show bad managment practice and for other people to go on and do it themselves.
@@mordyfisher4269 yeah you nailed it. Work on 10 square feet at a time. Get that sorted out, move to the next 10 square feet.
If you clearcut to rebuild a large portion of it, you could cause further soil destabilization, etc. Its best to just take it slow, start from the 10 square feet outside your back door. Get that set up. Move to the next 10 sq ft.
Rince and repeat over the next 50 years.
Excellent information; it's a shame it doesn't show any shots without the snow for anyone that isn't so great at visualizing.
Regardless nice info.
Yeah it was all shot in the winter. The really awkward part is that they work so well, in the spring, summer and fall you can't even see them. It's just a thicket of plants. The winter is actually when you see them the best.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Interesting! Thanks so much for that added info.
I just rewatched this video because it has some really great stuff but around 8:00, you talk about a bramble patch to keep dear out i was wondering what plant did you use and if it worked to get the deer out. Thanks man you got some really good content!
We have roses, seabuckthorn and raspberries there. So far so good, that's one of our highest traffic areas for deer and every plant has survived 3 years now.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thanks for the info man i appreciate it, damn deer are a nuisance over here
When it rains the ditches along the front of my aunt's property by the road overflow, flooding the front half of her property and creating like a river that runs to the west. Could swales help that situation? Right now it floods her gardens, but could a swale help to direct it I guess and help it absorb around the gardens instead? I am completely new to this so I hope that makes sense!
Great Videos! Huge Thanks. How does sweals work in potted plants? With containers, like your title?
Kind of the same way as a garden bed. The containers can be laid out on contour and take the role as the berm. However, you will need to put soil between them, so that water cannot flow between them.
Hi, I am intrigued about your channel. We have seven acres of land in the interior AK. Been building a home for the last two years. Next year is all about setting up a garden and I am so delighted to learn from your tips. My question is in regards to moose. I would like to plant apples and cherry trees but every book I read its talking about the damage that moose do to fruit trees, this is specially during the winter when food is scarce. Do you have any tips to distract the beautiful moose or book recommendations? Out of curiosity, when you moved to your land, was the start of a pond there or did you do it all? I am amazed at the amount of water that you have collected. That's definitely something we will have to consider because we are living off grid and we haul water because the quality of water around here contains a lot of harmful minerals plus there are issues with permafrost. However we do get lots of water during breakup and rain, meaning I can easily collect it and use it for plant watering. So if you did it and the water of the pons is solely from rain and snow melts, that's the answer to my prayers. I appreciate kindly your advise and for sharing your knowledge.
Oh man! Well, I really dislike giving advice on things I don't know (I feel like it waters down all my other advice). I would recommend talking to people who have successfully dealt with moose before (I haven't had to deal with them ever). That being said, I think the approach should always be to try to feed them in a way that it deflects them away from your property and towards where you would rather they go. I'm not really a fan of just fencing things out, because a hungry animal will do everything it can to survive (won't we all?!). I'd rather see someone provide for nature, but in a way that strategically keeps the unwanted animals away - because they are happy eating somewhere else.
This swale concept is going to make a difference in our fruit guilds - on their way to becoming a food forest. I'm thinking that adding native rain garden plants will make a difference too. What is the benefit of swales vs rain gardens to manage water runoff? Or is it that a RG is an endpoint whereas it looks like swales are through-points so to speak for rain water.
Yeah, rain gardens are meant to act almost like a pond and use the water and store it there. A swale is only meant to hold and slow the water for long enough to have it infiltrate down into the subsoils and recharge underground aquifers.
Dude take those black pipes (if you haven't already) and use them for a budget ground to air/soil heat transfer system 6 feet deep under a greenhouse budget build style.
That's definitely in the plans, just need more time to make it. If I build a greenhouse, it will absolutely be a walipini (sunken thermal greenhouse, with airflow inlets from as far away as possible, all under the frost line)
Awesome video 👌👌👌I am your new friend stay connected please
A somewhat unrelated question but your talking on toots and heights of trees made me think of it- so onn the roots of trees & water & surface planting: doesn't that also depend the type of tree? I.e. some trees are by nature surface rooting types where they will spread their roots more horizontally underneath the soil than down vertically and can still grow tall? And then they eilt leave very very little water for surface planting.
Absolutely
Loving your channel...but I am in So Cal, maybe that is why I absolutely cannot visualize what is happening with all the snow in the way :) I'll have to find a desert version to help me understand!
Check out The Weedy Garden. He just did a great video on swales.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you so much. Random thought: My bf is an engineer, as you mentioned you are, and I appreciate your more technical side and willing to share other sources for the sake of learning, as it is helping him find an interest in gardening with me (I am the crazy artist with no rhyme or reason!)...thank you so much for all your efforts!
Thanks! It's something unique I can bring to the gardening stuff. Everything is energy flows and efficiencies for engineers.
Hey there, did you mention you do consultations??
I used to. I got so overwhelmed that I kind-of burnt out. I may do some more in the future, but with work and kids and the youtube channel, I was just taking on too much.
I have raised beds. I wander if I put a small trench through the center so water would stay longer. ?
Depends on the contour/level, but yes that is a great way.
I am currently working on turning my whole (almost food forest) into a lumpy swale land. After watching Geoff Lawtons latest video on Zaytuna, i was VERY inspired to have something like that.
especially with the droughts we have in Australia where I live.
The only problem I have is that I live on the edge of a steep valley and a lot of top soil erosion has already occurred. and there is clay at about 10 cm down and even less in some areas. So I am not sure how much of a sponge effect will occur with such shallow top soil and so much clay.
Just start with root busting crops like radish and keep chopping and dropping. You can build about 3 to 4 inches of topsoil a year with a good green mulch growing on top of wood chip mulch.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy thanks, I am working on it, have been planting daikon radish plant guilds for about a year, the soil is building, but the floods keep undoing my effort, and I wish I had implemented the proper swale technique sooner. I didn't use woodchip mulch though, I am trying to do this on a tight budget. i will keep trying and learning. thanks
@@SlinkyDrinky yes if you are flooding on a regular basis, you need to prioritize fixing that with earthworks, or like you said, weather will undo all your work.
Swales are their most impactful in areas that flood and dry in extremel ways. Very few but very large rain events, surrounded by sandy soils that drain very well, and drain into you! This us why Geoff's greening the desert site prioritized building swales so highly.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Ok I have some designs figured out now, I am gonna get to it! Thanks for the advice man! peace
@@SlinkyDrinky take videos and document it. Share your journey with all of us. Let's make an army :)
We have an old well on our property but it’s been dry since we’ve been here and I’ve been wondering if I can get it to fill up again by digging swales uphill from it
I'm not sure if it will be possible, but IF it is, that's exactly how you would accomplish it.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I don’t know if it will work either but I need to build swales anyway so want to try it
Someone spent a lot of time building the well, it’s all rock and concrete. Idk how far it goes down but it’s really deep
Hello,
Is it possible to do a sale in a small garden thats level? I have a few fruit trees that are small , I do the back to Eden gardening method.
It depends on what the uphill land is like. If you have a lot of land that funnels its land down towards you then yes.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy
Thanks, no hills or slopes for miles. I think the closest I'll get is a moat around one of the trees. 🤠 or maybe a watering spike.
I have no moral or logical with swales, but something inside me just doesn't feel comfortable doing that much digging.
Is there a good alternative way to ensure plants are getting enough water.
It seems like planting crops that only need the amount that naturally rains, and filling the land with plants would be a good start?
You don't need to dig to build swales, you just need to change the contour of the land. You can also do that by building upwards. So for example if you can get leaves and woodchips for free and spread those out on contour in the same place each year, then over time you will build up.
Also yes all the other things you mention can also be done. They all can be done. None of those options are mutually exclusive.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Brilliant, thanks 😀
It’s van der waals forces.
Not “Van for Walls”. (See 9:23)
Oh funny that was an autocorrect that I never noticed! Are you a scientist or engineer also?
9:22
"Van for walls" forces?
Molecular Physics phenomenon discovered by Dutch physicist Johannes Diderik Van der Waals.
Thank you.
As i go back to your earlier videos, this is one that i am skipping, i am studying permaculture and regenerative agriculture for a piece of land my son has, it is in southern new mexico where the annual rainfall is 20 in (pre global warming, much lower now) and at 7000 ft. With these conditions swales harm the environment more than they help (any soil disturbance is long term there). My point being, swales are great for most areas, but not all.
You may be correct, but from my understanding swales are at greatest advantage in desert climates. For example, they were critical for the greening the desert project in Sudan. 7000 ft is quite the elevation though, and that could play into it as well?
Often in desert climates it's not that you don't get rain, it's that it comes all at once. Even if its only a few inches. If I were you I would check out videos of the "greening the desert" project in Sudan before you make up your mind on it. You may be right, but it may also be one of those things where everyone was telling Geoff he was crazy and going to do damage, and he ended up completely changing the ecosystem there.
One thing you may also be able to look into is a technique called Zai/Tassa. It is used in very dry climates as well.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Yes, i was considering swales to be the answer, but the more i learn about soil and how it works, it seems in a water scarce situation not to be the best solution ( because any disruption takes so long to repair). His property is littered with granite and steep, and i think terracing would work much better, using much the same principles, albeit much more work. i also have seen the concept of digging holes near where you plant and could be incorporated into terraces, thanks for giving it a name for me.
The only thing is that he hasn't just done it in one place, but all over the world. And he always says they are most useful in desert climates. If it were me I would at least try it in some places. Or at least don't make up your mind yet. Dig deeper into his other projects all over the planet first.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I started watching a recent Geoff Lawton video on swales, because your comments got me interested in them again, not 29 secs into it, he stated they are not the best for steep hills. That is what my sons property mostly consists of. I am back to terracing.
Oh I must have missed the steepness. 100% correct. More likely to slip, and the swales are also thinner by necessity - cutting too far into the hill in order to make a wider swale gives basically a retaining wall situation.
Terraces are great for that setup. Also have you heard of keyline design? A keyline cut can be really useful on steeper hills. Harder to do on wooded hills, but a great option on grass slopes.
Winter is probably not the best time to make a video like this. I get it's the season where you have the most time to make a video like this, but you can hardly see anything in the terrain. A bunch of drawings would've done a better job or at least helped with imagining what's supposed to be where.
Now what if I'm in central Texas and don't get much rain, but when I do get rain IT POURS... also have think clay soil. Barely could be called soil in my opinion haha
That's actually the climate that swales were invented for. Low rain, food/drought climates are the ones which need swales the most.
😢it would have been SO VERY helpful for you to have done it without the ❄️ snow...as in with the bare ground.
I will try to do an update before stuff starts growing. It's even harder to see it I'm the spring, summer and fall believe it or not. You can't even tell it's there.
What's the other cheat code????
Heh, next biggest cheat code would be to have land on already fertile soil. My lower area has been wild for a few decades and the difference between that soil and the soil that my food forest was built on (backfill from the house) is SO different.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Well, our meadow area we bought was going to have a house put on it but never did and now that we've snatched it up it's been sitting there fallow for a year and was only ever mowed with no spray for years before that. That said, it's all very nitrogen poor so I know we will need a good top dressing for compost to grow much of anything, but I bet a couple years in to wood chipping it will be gangbusters.
My property is flat. Less than 1 percent grade.
That is enough. The biggest misconception about swales is that people on flat land cannot build them, and this is why I talked about exactly that thing, many many times in this video.
People build swales in Saskatchewan. 2 inch drop over an acre.
Unless you live in Salt Lake city, or in Jordan at the bottom of the Dead Sea Valley, then you have flat land use, but not level.
You can very likely do swales, and infact on hyper flat land it means you have almost infinite options for how to lay them out.
For you, they wont be erosion control as much, but a giant swale that goes right around your whole property like a moat would ensure all water that falls on your land stays on your land and sinks deep into your soil, charging your water table.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy similar situation. what was video u recommended above for small property? Can't find it now in comments. Tu . Best explanation on swales ever seen of many.
I may have been thinking of Happen Films.czcams.com/video/Y9ZukMyejLk/video.html
I have bad news for you. I don't think you channel is very big with mono culture farmers. Lmfao.
Lol
I wish you would define a lot of the vocabulary before you start talking about it. I'll have to use another resource to figure out what you are talking about.