Suzie Park

Our permaculture adventure started with the 10-acre property. We hired a permaculture guy to make huge swales and berms. We've been doing misc stuff on it over the last two years but just improving the soil for now. Our first silly experiment planting bareroot trees in Groasis waterboxxes and some on the berms was not great. 3 of 4 Chinkapin oak in waterboxxes are sort of alive 8 months later but probably in the wrong spot and the wick isn't working great. I knew that it may not work based on some comments on this forum and elsewhere. We planted a bunch of saplings on the berms with a dibbler, but I was puzzled as to how to water trees on a slope. I guess I need to make a downhill berm for each tree - kind of a pain but better than complete failure - plus really really have irrigation. We will be ready with IBC tote gravity-fed irrigation for this fall/winter's tree plantings, and I will not go nuts planting huge # of trees.

My most effective and quick permie experience was at our suburban home, when we removed a sickly ice storm-damaged tall tree. Suddenly we had a lot of light in a 30x50 space, but still having winter protection from surrounding neighbors' trees and our remaining tree with a very high canopy.

Your place now has built-in wind breaks! And I'm not sure how much sun you get but many fruit trees don't need as much sun as you think.

Even though I'd read through many permaculture, etc. books and watched so many videos, etc. I was overwhelmed with the volume of information such that I suffered from not knowing where to start. Then I saw an offering for a short course to plant your first fruit tree guild by the end of the course. So I enrolled and planted my first guild within a few weeks. And I shortly followed that up with a couple more guilds and then random other fruit trees planted solo. I made mini earthworks as an experiment. I strongly recommend some subtle earthworks to really soak the water in - and irrigation in times of no rainfall. One of mine, the middle raised portion was too high and the moat-like swale too deep such that filling it to feed 3 fruit trees and some plants would require maybe 30 gallons of water, a huge waste of water. Some of the planting too high was because I did a one-time till with garden soil and that naturally made the planting area higher. The easiest earthwork to do is a crescent moon berm at the downhill portion of your guild. I of course didn't do that - I wanted circles haha. The great thing about sticking a small berm or a swale in is that you can take it down, build it up or fill it in if you need to. I will be doing some corrections this fall/winter.

Oh, and I am more or less following the Ann Ralph small tree method to fit as many varieties into a small space as I can. I have over 50 fruiting plants in now, though some are not permie-based, like dragon fruit and some citrus which will be affected if we get a power outage and I can't keep them

Good luck and enjoy the experiment! And feel free to sit and wait and learn first for a time.

Ben Brownell wrote:Haven't seen mention of your soil profile...

We have a variety but it's all calcium/limestone rich and there's a good amount of clay in it. Some parts are less rocky, some parts are mostly rocks but the bedrock is an unknown distance below that. Some is riparian and deep - live oaks, etc, plus by the pond, which was excavated about 3 feet deep to test for pond repair and looked awesome (there were deep layers, the lower ones darker), some is not riparian but deep - two really big pecan trees are there - we personally excavated a distance away at the same elevation to dump a chest freezer's worth of compost including meat and found it nice and deep and a better ratio of soil to small rocks than up on the pasture. The pasture is very rocky- lots of varied size rocks. Deeper down were large smooth rocks from when the land was a river my husband says. Sunflowers on some berms are 8 feet high - taller than last year - which means their roots went pretty deep and I suspect soil is improving farther down. The areas about 4-10 feet uphill of the swales are greening with native vegetation - grasses and mostly perennial flowers, as are the immediate downhill portion behind the berms about 4 feet. That's exciting!

Ah, and I found what I was looking for on page 110 of Brad Lancaster's Volume 2 book Rainwater Harvesting...Earthworks where Chris Meuli had used 4-foot windberms made of brush to protect young trees perpendicular to the berms - aha! That is perfect! My mulch supplier has a lot of brush to get rid of!! Also, the horseweed that went gangbusters this year on some berms makes very nice woody stalks that can help create those windberms - a fake bamboo without dealing with bamboo. A bunch of grasses are lying flat on the berms now, which makes nice anchoring and mulch for seeds. I may have to separate them a bit where they're too dense.

Anyway, this discussion has been super helpful. Thank you all! That's not a the-end but I have a lot to work with. I just started dabbling into Bill Mollison's textbook and the advice of planting trees uphill that will eventually seed downhill sounds fabulous too! I will have to keep rereading books as I have forgotten so much because it wasn't relevant at the time. Very excited!

I think the next wood chip loads will go directly to the fenced gardens. I can plant some trees there - one is very wind protected and the other is definitely protected on the North side.

I got a lot of recommendations from the native tree seller and he has a few of many varieties which we'll buy after I get irrigation ready to go - probably in the next 2 weeks. Of windbreak trees, Arizona cypress is my top choice.

My vision is very lightweight, not a burning desire. I don't have a particular future in mind. I am enjoying the present and working on small-scale permaculture daily. I made several mistakes in my mini earthworks but I'm learning very practical lessons. The giant swales I've found hard to maintain during drought since you plant on the slope and then it's hard to target irrigation. Plus on 250-foot runs, to do all of them, I'd need quite a few IBC totes to cover all of them. So I'm not going to in the near future

To Anne's point, there is a tree service down the road that has already dropped off four 40-yard loads of decomposed wood chips and is happy to drop off more anytime. The only thing is that biting ants LOVE the decomposing mulch so it's hard to work with it I plan on getting more from him and hiring his crew to spread it with loaders. 2 of the loads someone or the city/county hauled away!! even though it was out of the road in the easement. Crazy. The rest we've spread around OR the depleted soil has gobbled up.

Anyway, lots of options so far, but I am also trying not to take on too much. Go with the flow. Thanks again!

Thanks for all the input!

The native tree seller (also an arborist) is in the same county just 18 minutes away, so much of his stock is pretty darned local.

I propagate from time to time, but I haven't dedicated the space for it at the suburban place and don't feel I'm at the property often enough to tend to them there. I do realize it can be quite rewarding. I have 3 baby Goldenball Leadtrees in long skinny pots that can be planted soon that I happened to find seeds for off ebay from a seller in the same city! I have a lot of seeds I can make plants out of. Having the seedlings watered while I'm out of town (I'd like to be free enough to do that more often) is an issue. At least I've established some automated irrigation for the food forest while it's establishing, but I think our heat is making those 1/4" connections leak. More experiments will continue. Hmm, the idea of a propagation area north of some big trees sounds neat. The area north of the rain tank is super close to the cottage and very protected by the tank on the south, and big trees to the east and west without blocking much sunlight.

I would love to do windbreaks. The property slopes from West to East and berm/swales are North to South so a bit more difficult. I'll ask the native tree seller what he thinks.

The future of the place is unclear. A lot of things tie us to Austin, including very fun grandchildren and my manageable, rewarding suburban food forest I started last fall. One vision I have is turning the country place into a verdant productive permaculture example for the region, to be visited, studied and the like. I don't know how feasible that is at our ages - early 50's - and we still enjoy Austin. The journey continues.

Thank you for the food for thought, exactly what I was looking for.

Central Texas, NW of Austin, 30" annual rainfall average but can be as low as 8".

Berms/swales put in June 2024.
Cover crops/misc pioneer species (incl. ragweed, pigweed amaranth, silverleaf nightshade, and horseweed) come up at different times. Thankfully, no pioneer has been the scary reseeding nightmare we were warned about.
Sapling plantings in Feb probably all failed. Some we can't locate because we had such a wet spring and six feet tall greenery dominated on the berms.
Existing perennials (we did not plant) go strong for about a month or so, then fade away, incl. blackfoot daisy, Texmenia, Mexican Hat, Antelope Horn milkweed, gaura, black-eyed Susan, prairie verbena, prairie broomweed, frogfruit, Texas sage (the short ground-cover type), Texas skeletonweed, four-nerve daisy, gayfeather, menodora, and many others. Some of the fore-mentioned do indeed ebb and flow so don't just totally fade away. Annuals like sunflower and poppies, plus ragweed and giant ragweed go strong for awhile. Hackberries and agaritas give early-spring nectar to pollinators. Flameleaf sumac, Texas persimmon and various other stuff flower seasonally.

We've set up 3 IBC totes for the 3-acre pasture and will passively drip irrigate SOME areas. A fourth tote is for the front and backyard of the cottage.

First priority:
1) Help along some existing perennials so they flower longer than a month, esp. handy in late summer to help the pollinators (we have 6-8 bee hives).

2) Plant a number of Texas native plants appropriate for the rocky soil there to help the pollinators, provide beauty, and take over from the pioneers.

3) Establish a small orchard. There are two plots great for orchards, with deep soil brought in years ago (now depleted but fixable). One has lots of wind protection and some protection from western sun. That latter spot has a slope of about 5%.

4) Establish a dotting of overstory trees, at first for shade and wildlife feed and to establish little guilds of flourishing that will then spread.

If you were us, what would you do this fall into spring?
I still have three 40-pound bags of cover crops.
I can buy a wide variety of native trees from a local seller.
I can buy a LOT more native plants.
I can buy and spread more wildflower mix seeds, this time irrigating them; the first time I just spread them was a total failure.
I do not have to do all of those things now. BUT I can do a little of each as well.

I am there every week or two for a day or two except in winter. I'd rather not have to fill the IBC totes up every time I'm there. But we have a full 40,000 gallon rain tank ready to go. I don't want to irrigate directly from it in case the system leaks while we're not there. A nightmare is coming back to an empty tank. By late October, we will be installing poly pipe going up the pasture to fill the totes and poly pipe for drip irrigation, which I recently learned how to do by just doing on our suburban lot. Note the swales are far too large to just fill for irrigating purposes.

Anyway, any random suggestions are welcome, thank you.
- Suzie

Thanks for your comments and links - I had missed that permies thread in my searches. Doesn't look like most permies stress about pigweed too much and believe, as I do, that they are there for a reason and to help the soil. I'll try the young leaves soon - I do have a few seedlings popping up again after our heavy recent rains. The gift that keeps on giving indeed!

I got an offer by someone in my GSD - Get stuff done - group to rent her pigs to me and I know she's very health conscious and doesn't do yuck stuff. Of course, before I entertain her pigs I need to figure out how to take care of them, transport, and set up systems for them - haha. At least this is a really nice option that I may or may not exercise.

I have large bags of buckwheat seeds plus the warm season cover crop mix contains Sorghum. I will definitely be seeding in the fall another soil building cover crop blend. And in the spring seeding again. Anybody know if I have to do compost again? That was a huge expense.

A local tree service can provide me with more wood chips. If we have a typical dry summer (after our tremendous amounts of July 4-8 rains - we got about 16"), I could wait till the amaranth on the remaining berms just die down. Do the silage tarp on an area or two as an experiment.

We also have access to free spent mushroom blocks which will be great once the weather is cooler.

I am thankful that the overgrazed pasture between berms is still pretty static, so I don't have to plant there for now. Though I'm interested in the basalt dust that is recommended by the Symbiosis TX permaculture aficionados.

Anyway, thank you for the info, Anne! I am feeling better already!

Mid June 2024 professionally installed swales and berms in Burnet, TX - approx 1100 linear feet, on previously overgrazed dead pasture. Berm soil was calcium-rich (from limestone) in quickly-draining clay/rock/dirt. The rest of that pasture is crusted over. The berm portion measured along the curve is 15 feet deep.

Summer soil builder cover crop from greencover.com sown under dairy cow compost on 2/3 of the berms - I'll call those A berms. We ran out of compost. B berms (those without compost) were seeded but nothing grew.

Cover crop on A berms took off for about 1.5 months as did corn from the seed bank, then we had 7 months of only 3" total of rain - atypical. I let the plants just keel over in the lack of rain and I don't think anything reseeded.

Late spring 2025 when rains started coming back, I put out the same cover crop on B berms - with compost on top. Sprinkled a small amount on the other berms which had lots of dead plants shielding the soil.

Cover crops on B berms started taking off. On A berms, new plants that I had not planted started coming up. When they got bigger, turns out they were mostly Palmer amaranth/pigweed and some other types of pigweed, and they quickly took over almost everything except a welcome smattering of sunflowers which were part of the cover crop mix but came up for the first time this year, and local weeds and wildflowers which I don't mind.

On one set of A berms, the pigweed is on its way out, so super seeding time. Not great.

One small set of B berms still had flowering and maturing pigweed, and I decided to pull the small to medium-sized plants with roots attached and cut the large ones at the base on 100 linear feet. The roots looked great, and the soil looked much browner than it had been. So I thanked the pigweed for its service.

I just ordered a farmers friend silage tarp which will cover 200-feet worth of berm at a time. I was planning on laying it out black side up to have the pigweed germinate, then get smothered, without killing the soil. Of course, I can't really do the weed torch method by only leaving them covered for 1-2 weeks, like a YouTube comment said Curtis Stone did, because I dropped pigweed in place to feed the soil. I don't have enough summer left to get 6 weeks for each 200 feet, though I have no problem leaving a tarp on during winter for the last run. Also, I don't mind focusing on a section each season and nipping those seedlings in the bud in the spring manually.

Since we are not at this property more than once or twice a week for a few days total, we can't really figure out a way to get pigs on, which would be a nice, multi-purpose solution.

Anybody have any ideas on managing these berms? I want them primarily for trees (fruit, timber, shade) and shrubs in the coming years. I am patient and will wait till succession happens and all of that.

Thank you!

Strict amateur in the growing arena, but I'd stick damp (pre-soaked) logs and sticks with filler for the biggest gaps - leaves, etc. preferably still green - in the bottom under your lovely soil mix. Your plants will  get to benefit from the breakdown of that stuff within about a year, depending on weather/temp. Note your soil level will go down eventually, but I imagine you're mostly growing annuals so you add more compost on top to re-raise the level next time and replant.

Very cool build btw!

I can finally chime in.

Last weekend, hubs took our 2400-pound mini-excavator with an 8" toothed bucket to see what he could do with the little mesquites resurfacing on our 10 acres in Burnet, TX. I was pretty sure this place had been bush-hogged before, and I'm more sure now. These "little" mesquites 2-4 feet tall up to 3/4" in diameter shoots/trunks all had a big knot a few inches below the soil's surface (fist-sized) and a long root 1-2" thick that stretched horizontally -  very interesting finding that. So these were not saplings at all. Luckily, we have only a couple hundred of them I think, and they seem to grow back from roots slowly. Hubs had us cut the knot off and cut that horizontal root and he thinks that will do the trick. We'll see.

We have many small trees that have just a few trunks so we'll keep those to turn into decent mature trees - maybe 5-10 of those.

There are maybe 30 medium sized super bushy, wispy 5-8-foot tall mesquites. which means in the past they've been knocked to the ground - they have 20-30 trunks  - am not quite sure what we'll do with those but here's an option that is interesting :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2uQpPgFj9U  - November burn experiment, near Fredericksburg, TX
Spring update - none regrew by spring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F2GNLm1Ix8

With a HUGE number of mesquites to get rid of, I think I would bush hog them just to get a handle on them, then either over time burn the stumps, or dig deeper and cut the roots.