I made a swale with a shovel and a chicken tractor

This was where the swale is going. There is a lot of water coming from the front yard, through my carport, off of my house to this area of my back yard. My back yard had no fertility to grow a garden because the water flows down and off of my property. I wanted a way to capture all of that water and use it where it is needed, so it can penetrate into my dry soil. Even in the middle of the summer or a drought, any rain must be captured. I did all of this work 2022 and  Spring 2023. I used my shovel and my chicken tractor to work through all of those brambles called dewberries and help me move the soil. I live in Gladewater, Texas in East Texas. We are about 30 minutes from the TX/LA border and Shreveport, LA. I am new to the SKIP. I am hoping to earn some sort of badge from this. I am planning on adding another swale this year, if this doesn't qualify for a badge, I can try again with the new project. I will add more pictures soon. I do not consider this swale complete because there's more to be done with it to improve it further. I have almost a 1 acre to work with. There is more space in the front yard but my garden is more protected in the backyard.

That is a great effort.

Welcome to the forum, Amy!

Making swales to capture water is a great idea.

Where we used to live I had a similar problem with water washing across our property.

Our neighbor even came over to yell at dear hubby about that happening.

The land gently sloped from a property about six houses above our house.

After the neighbor came over, I got a hoe and dug a ditch along the edge of our driveway to divert the water into the ditch in front of our house.

That worked like a charm.

After it quit raining dear hubby made some french drains to drain more water off at the property line.

I am so glad you are interested in the SKIP program.

I am not familiar enough to point you in the right direction to earn some badge bits (BB) in the PEP Earthworks though all it takes is taking some pictures of the process and following the instructions in the right PEP BB:

https://permies.com/f/401/pep-earthworks

Welcome to Permies Amy!

That looks like a great project, I'm just getting into chicken keeping and figuring out ways to have these hens 'earn their keep' and this is a decent idea.

Please look into the following link - https://permies.com/wiki/pep

Do a little digging into the badges and the specific badge posts. They will give you requirements and pictures needed. I encourage you to look at other people's submissions to get a feel for the style.

While you might not get credit for this event, you will with future! I enjoy the PEP program as a sort of push to do things that I have been meaning to try/do for my household.

I can't wait to see your contributions to the forum!

You can see the dewberries were quite an obstacle for one person with a hula hoe. When I rolled my chicken tractor over the brambles with ripe dewberries, they made quick work. I do not have a picture of that. I did not get a picture of the chickens rolling through on the first side of the swale. I wish I had.

The chickens got rid of any vegetation, loosened up the earth and dropped their holy chicken squat (as Justin Rhodes calls it) I went in afterwards with the hula hoe to get rid of the dewberry brambles (they are thorny)  and I used the shovel to get below the roots.

I was making good progress here. I was in a rush because it was late April, and I needed to get this done so I could get my tomatoes and peppers in the ground. It was my first try growing tomatoes in a spot that got afternoon shade in the summer. I was successful with cherry tomatoes but we needed more water and I needed more support for the Cherokee Purples

more work with a shovel, hula hoe, and the chickens

Lots of progress here

The actual test of a swales function is when it rains

My 13 year old son is a reluctant model

I will take pictures of it today to show how it looks as of 9/27/23. I do not consider it finished nor professional. It has helped me preserve the peppers I started. They did not produce during our 110 degree temps but they did survive to start producing now.

These pictures show the swale as of today. We had temperatures at 110 during the summer and no rain since mid July. It has rained a few times this month. I had to water to keep some things alive. I planted tomatoes so they would get shade in the afternoon and also a variety of hot and bell peppers. There are some cherry tomatoes putting out flower. My peppers are starting to produce. I started clearing out the unwanted grass this week as the weather was pleasant. The soil in the swale was surprisingly moist and the grass was easily pulled. I have tomatoes, cherry and Cherokee purple, a variety of pepper, okra, and amaranth growing in or nearby the swale. I also planted peanuts in the middle of the swale. I got the peanuts from the produce area of the grocery store. I have been planting them for the 4 years I have been here. If I harvest all of the peanuts, I will still get peanuts as volunteers.

That is a great range of photos.
You mention not much rain, have you thought of capturing the rain from the roofs, in very large tanks?
Or do you have an adequate water supply?

I don't have the skills or resources for that. I have to work with what I  have.

I located a video I made explaining how I was using my chickens to prep the area for a swale.
https://youtu.be/y-64cWA7yF8.

I am still learning how to post a YouTube video

https://youtu.be/y-64cWA7yF8[/youtube]

I made surprisingly easy work removing tall grass from swale and using it as mulch for my pepper plants