I have an acreage design I am working on that has a small food forest (6 fruit trees with guilds). It will be positioned on a hill at a gentle gully that i would like to dam off to slow/store water in a very small scale. if the gully dam w/overflow is just for the food forest do I need to incorporate Swales into this as well or could I just have the food forest around the tiny reservoir. I am not used to food forests with ponds and want to keep the price to a minimum. I understand dams are compacted so that is another concern for planting around it. I see Geoff Lawton build a gazillion Swales and ponds on properties but my scale/budget is pretty small so I want the smallest scale design so my energy input for the food forest is inline with the food forest outputs. I also would like to take advantage of the only water catchment on the property. Suggestions as to where to locate food forests on an acreage would be helpful as well. I am choosing water/planted windbreak over clearing trees and inserting inside a mature windbreak.
Thanks
