Say you want to start a permaculture project, and you want to do it right from the beginning - where would you find specific advice, as to:
How large need your swales to be?
How much horse manure do your plants need / tolerate?
Is your readily available wood ok for hugel beds?
Where and how to plant trees?
What plant associations make sense in your climate zone?
Right here on Permies, is one place, you can search the wiki pages.
Your local library is another great place, look for books on building the soil, water management methods, etc.
A third option is a book store, where you can find the books by the authors that are leaders in their field.
Good luck and happy learning.
Redhawk
List of Bryant RedHawk's Epic Soil Series Threads We love visitors, that's why we live in a secluded cabin deep in the woods. "Buzzard's Roost (Asnikiye Heca) Farm." Promoting permaculture to save our planet.
For question 1. How large need your swales to be? Brad Lancaster's great book Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands Volume 2 gives methods of calculating how large rain collecting earthworks need to be.
Break all of your questions down to to subject and look for a forum on the right side of the main forum page that matches your question, then post your question.
What also helps for your question say on how big should a swale be is to post pictures of the site you are wanting to put a swale at and tell why you want it there, soil conditions may also help.
Do this for each question and you can normally get great help here, as permies like to help other permies.
Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days.
Henri Alain
Cats say "meow" because they think that is what people sound like. This tiny ad told me so: