First time doing permaculture

Hey everyone, I've been a reader on this site for about 2 years but I never had any amount of land to really try out the ideas I see on this site. That has all changed now as now I have a 25' x 25' corner of the yard to freely experiment with as I wish and I want to see if I can turn it into a nano food forest if you will. So far my current plans are to build a dry creek bed from the patio to a depression in my corner that is the lowest lying area on the yard.

Doing this would be all around beneficial in my opinion as it would collect the water somewhere I can use it while stopping the rain from simply going everywhere and making my yard a muddy mess (we have 5 dogs so there's depressions of varying depth and width all over the yard) and finally as an area that gets lots of water it would be prime territory for my mint plants.

My only other plan besides that is making an unmortared cinder block wall on the one side of my corner that doesn't have a fence on it. The cinder block would be filled with gravel because my thoughts are that with the cinder block absorbing all the daytime heat the gravel inside will always be cool and thus collect a good amount of condensation that will reduce watering needs for my area. Beyond these two ideas I'm at a loss for what to do with this so any advice/ideas would be much appreciated.  

I live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania zone 6a. The soil is pretty good as far as I can tell with the main issue being terrible drainage from all the small depressions. If any other info is needed I'll try my best to provide it.

Kadin, welcome!  Glad you decided to make a topic.

I like your idea about making the dry creek bed.  Sounds like a good plan.  Have you considered using a french drain which might make mowing a little easier?

Having been on the forum for a couple of years you probably already know the benefits of compost leaves and woodchips.

Other than adding those I can't suggest much other than please ask lots of questions.

I don't know much about French drains but if it makes mowing easier I'll definitely look into it.
I'm also planning on leaving some of the dog holes unfilled so that if more of the yard becomes dedicated to this I can add additional creek beds for drainage using the dog holes as starting points. Does that sound like a good idea?

Since the creek bed will be draining into one of the lowest points of the yard I'm assuming it might actually form a permanent pond there, which if that happens should I plant reeds/cattails there to clean the water?