Suburban backyard swale

It's been dug out to a shovels depth and then refilled with ramail wood chips. The topsoil has been moved to a future garden bed location. The start of this path is level with our back patio and should catch the overflow from a rain barrel. I didn't want to cause a backwash over the patio and so didn't want to raise anything above the original soil level. Other than following the contour, it's identical to the path I made two years ago in the front yard. The front path has held up very well to traffic and successfully kept us from having a mud pit leading to the front door. I'm feeling very accomplished looking at it today.

In the background is my first swale with an apple tree planted down slope of the berm where the contour curves around it. The berm is covered in wild flowers that are just barely starting to bloom. We'll used a chainsaw to finish cutting down the dead tree, later this year. Behind that is a two year old hugelbed with a little asparagus and a lot of self seeded cilantro. Eventually I hope the hugel will settle to be a permanent buried wood bed. It's come down to about three feet from a beginning of five. I gave it an honest attempt, but even with the extra wet spring last year the raised hugel just hasn't thrived. Give me another eight years or so and I think I'll have the backyard where I want it to be.

One more swale planned down slope of this. That'll trisect the back yard. I have survey flags marking the contours. It won't happen until after the wild flowers are done blooming. There's a band of wild flowers growing right down the contour line. Not sure if that deserves a for flowers or a for delayed plans. Probably gonna let them drop seed before I dig.

Reading through from where I started... I have killed so many plants over the years.  Still, I have had some success as well.  I won't try to detail six years of ups and downs in the garden.  I will just give you some updates on a few of the longer-term projects.

My escarpment black cherry tree from 2015 is taller than my house and I love it so much I planted two more black cherries this fall. The first one was planted specifically as a shade tree for the house and it is already working.   When the new trees start blooming in a few years we might get fruit, too. It is in the ground just upslope from where I built a semi sunken hugelculture before I planted it.  I abandoned the idea of that as a garden bed because I couldn't keep the grass from taking over.  The roots grew through and around where it was.  The ground by now is only a low mound but it still serves as a great water reservoir for the tree.  

The swales I have dug do a very good job catching water for the yard just off the patio where regular traffic had made it to compacted for water to infiltrate the soil.   I n the picture you can see there's an area of grass that is lusher than what's right by the camera. Last year we had a full hedge of sunflowers sprout in the swale itself.  For most of the year you see nothing out the back window but blooming sunflowers and all the animals that were enjoying them.  

If I were to do it again I would go with many smaller swales, though.  It is navigable if you know it's there and are careful but it still makes it harder to move around the yard.  If I had gone with many micro swales I think there would be less worry about someday straining an ankle and it would be easier to get support for digging another one.  

Someday maybe I will plant a hedge specifically to guard the edge of a swale from being stumbled through.

Came home from work this morning and had to double take at the mulch next to my Feathergrass.   It looks like someone mixed in hair clippings or fur.  First thing I looked was the rest of the animal. I pulled on a couple of strands and there were seeds on the end. They're feathergrass seedlings.

I  will be perfectly happy for this bed to fill with feathergrass, though in a few years I may be passing divisions out to everyone around me.  Depends on whether these sprouts can successfully root in or through the mulch.  The grass doesn't photograph as good as it looks in person.  When the wind blows it ripples and the more you have the better it looks.