No Till after establishing swales

Combining permaculture swales with No-till?
I know the whole concept of no till is obviously... NOT DIGGING! 🤣 howerver after 2 decades of solely doing best practices NO-Dig methods I'm abandoning that for my property and wanting to try what might be a divisive hybrid system instead. because while it worked great for growing all manner of berries and annual vegetables  i just haven't been able to get consistent moisture to soak down into that subsoil for my orchard as I'm finding my fruit and nut trees have genuinely struggled once they've hit that hard clay layer underneath. I'd like to transition more towards agroforestry and a permaculture food forest system instead of just mostly annuals, so I'm starting a new patch to test my theories.

I'm a strong believer in the benefits of permaculture swales in a poly cropping and food forest system. I'm on sloping very heavy clay soil and if our water doesn't  just run off down hill then infiltration can take 2-3 days! Swales on contour in the area have had great results. What I've done so far is I've had about 5 acres of untouched clay ground ripped with a dozer to 1m depth then rotary hoed, gypsum added and green manure crops sown straight away to cover the bare ground and start the process. I'll then start putting in swales on contour and using the strawbale bed system (mentioned below) on the downhill side/ontop of the swales which will continuously have truckloads of organic matter added every year to the downhill side until it joins up with the next swale downhill.

My no dig worm farm strawbale garden bed method:

So far I've been developing this hybrid no till method for adding nutrients to my veggie garden over the last 20 years and found its given me amazing results ontop of my my heavy clay soils but unfortunately  not much underneath. As a teen i started off with bathtub worm farms, hot compost piles, Lasagne beds, leaf mould piles and what I've now ended up with is a combination of all of the above in one system. No digging, no turning, no aeration. Just build it in autumn (fall) and collect as many deciduous leafs as possible. I use mostly new straw bales but some old straw bales as well that are FULL of compost worms as the walls for my "beds". Then i essentially build a hot compost pile inside, i always start with a thick layer of the old straw from last seasons beds (full of compost worms) then add a very thick layer of autumn leaves which i find helps insulate the worms below from the initial heat. Followed by adding layers of cardboard, fresh wood chips, news paper, grass clippings, comfrey leaves, manure and anything else i have on hand, water well and cover with an old blanket and let it heat up for a month or 2 until it cools down. Then at start of winter add a final layer of the last if the old straw on top in biscuit form and leave to break down over winter (watering occasionally) until time to plant out with veggies in spring. My favourite in this first season is a combination of pumpkins (squash), corn and climbing beans as they seem to work best. The plants act as a fantastic moisture indicator over the growing season. If they start to wilt the worms definitely need water and also shade the surface. Over 10 months the worms eat all of the initial layers and turn everything into castings and migrate into the straw bale walls. Once the summer crop is harvested and finished in autumn i remove the very soggy worm filled outer bales for the new beds in a different location and start the cycle all over again. The pile of worm castings can be spread out a little and planted in for other crops or what i do is build the next seasons strawbale beds right next to the previous on and slowly move it around the garden each year.

Great going Nic! Sounds like you've got the system down for your soil type. I have also found that swales are the way to go for clay soil. Mostly because its collection of organic matter which causes the biology to loosen the clay underneath and allow infiltration. The first year my swales were veritable stink ponds; the second year were marshy trenches filled with weeds; third year the water would completely soak in within 24 hours of a large rain. Now the swale has completely filled in with organic matter and soil, but the whole plot is now a giant sponge thanks to continuous mulching. So a combination of swale and organic matter is pretty much all that's needed.

I would recommend the same for your orchard: after digging swales, lay as much wood as possible on top of the ground around your trees and in the swales and the biology will significantly increase infiltration.

Your garden sounds like a "creeping Ruth Stout" method; nice way to implement a slow and steady solution. It seems you have Gaia's Garden in hand so you can't go much wrong. Good luck!

Nathanael Szobody wrote:Great going Nic! Sounds like you've got the system down for your soil type. I have also found that swales are the way to go for clay soil. Mostly because its collection of organic matter which causes the biology to loosen the clay underneath and allow infiltration. The first year my swales were veritable stink ponds; the second year were marshy trenches filled with weeds; third year the water would completely soak in within 24 hours of a large rain. Now the swale has completely filled in with organic matter and soil, but the whole plot is now a giant sponge thanks to continuous mulching. So a combination of swale and organic matter is pretty much all that's needed.

I would recommend the same for your orchard: after digging swales, lay as much wood as possible on top of the ground around your trees and in the swales and the biology will significantly increase infiltration.

Your garden sounds like a "creeping Ruth Stout" method; nice way to implement a slow and steady solution. It seems you have Gaia's Garden in hand so you can't go much wrong. Good luck!

Thanks! Yeah I've taken some inspiration from Ruth stout for sure. Got "Gaia's garden" too but also taken influences from "dirt to soil" on no till and organic growing with worms by david murphy