Efficiently making swales

hubert cumberdale wrote:how big are these swales going to be? 5 ft wide? 10ft? 30ft?

Jay Ritchie wrote:How many acres of watershed would you estimate drain to the creek that your land is on?

Jonathan McCoy wrote:

hubert cumberdale wrote:how big are these swales going to be? 5 ft wide? 10ft? 30ft?

I was thinking 1-2' like most swales that I have seen in the various videos and discussions. Should I be considering a larger size?

Jay Ritchie wrote:How many acres of watershed would you estimate drain to the creek that your land is on?

From the west, up to 2000'x500', from the east, maybe 300'x500' plus any runoff from the old growth forest (large trees, little underbrush), and from the south, up to 2000' x 3000'(?).

I'm not sure how many acres that is, but it's a LOT.

I don't think the swails will prevent flooding, but they would help retain water on your land after a rain or a flood.

Here's an article about building swales with a bulldozer: http://permaculture.org.au/2009/11/30/keyline-swal...f-lawtondarren-doherty-hybrid/

Sounds to me like a berm that keeps the excessive water off of your property might solve the flooding issue.

Jonathan McCoy wrote:
I'm thinking of putting some brush dams in the creekbed/drainage areas right where they enter our property as another way to slow it down.

Jonathan McCoy wrote:What was your experience with using a bucket? My concern with a bucket vs an angled dozer blade would be that dirt would build up into the bucket, instead of naturally being pushed to the side to form the berm on the downhill side.

We're planning to put in brush dams this winter. The scary thing about brush dams is you can have a "blow-out" if the first flood is a really big one, bringing all the brush downstream where you don't necessarily want it - in our case probably right in the middle of our driveway. I'm hoping we'll get a few smaller floods first so the brush dams can get nice and packed in and collect some soil and - I hope - grow some plants.

We weren't building swales at the time, just moving dirt. We were working on a hillside that is Milton silty clay loam (Mtd3) and it was compacted enough that the claw was needed to break up the ground. Each bucket full was dropped to the side; later we moved the earth elsewhere. Unless the soil was very moist there really wasn't a problem with it sticking in the bucket.

Rufus Laggren wrote:Been looking at methods/machines for roads and berming. But no experience. Just a question from what I've read in the last couple days:

Do you think a back blade (no box) on a tractor would work better than the box? Survey/mark the contour on the low side, keep the blade about the same depth as the low-side wheels, tilt the high side blade down a bit for cutting... End up w/a swale a litte deeper on the high side. No box sides so would cut into the high ground easier (no riding up); tilts more to cut deeper on the high side to offset the tractor's yaw (lean) on the slope; angled to continuously deposit the cut earth in the direction of the mound on the low side. A big enough tractor to operate a blade wide enough to cut the full width of the swale (after taking account the blade angle). If the blade could be offset to the (high) side it might make the cut easier on steeper slopes. If slope was steeper, more than one pass would probably be needed to cut the bottom of the swale all the way across its width. Not sure about trimming the contour flat-level after roughing in; maybe would self correct after some time if the rough line was pretty good?

It seems for building purposes a swale can be considered a quite narrow (or wide, depending) road cut across the slope on the contour. So some of the same tools and methods seem plausible.

A backblade by itself can work if your ground is soft enough. I use a box scraper because it has rippers that will loosen the soil, remove any roots, and will lift out rocks. Keep in mind that a tractor can't work on much of a side slope.