wayne fajkus

The runoff is being collected, its seepage thats not being collected. No matter how big your swales are, there's probably a thousand times more water seeping under the swale. Im proposing that seepage be collected underground. Dammed, slowed down.  We are collecting 100 gallons when we could be collecting millions.

With all the emphasis we see on pigs for sealing a pond, it turns out Sepp doesn't seal a pond. He dams up the seepage.  This is assuming Zach got this method from Sepp. The vid was so eye opening. We in the permies world focus on the pig. The pig is not needed. Damming the seepage is THE key. Its huge. Its not talked about here.  You can interchange between ponds and swales easily, so use whichever context makes sense to you. If you can envision this with a pond, use a pond as your thought provoker. Its not a different type of construction if this is the method for Zach and Sepp. Its the preferred method. And we have missed it in favor of pigs.

Tyler Ludens wrote:

wayne fajkus wrote:

1. I believe my swales are more of a depth guage than a water retainer. I can get 1" of rain and it fills up, but is empty the next day. If i get 12" of rain (it has happened twice), the swale stays full for weeks. The first week it is full, like water sheeting out the down hill side of the berm. As weeks pass,  the level drops "slowly". The only water the swale retained was the first filling.

I guess I'm a little confused about the cause of your unhappiness with your swales.  Swales aren't meant to retain water - they are meant to slow it and allow it to soak in.  So by your description, your swales are working correctly.  After 1" of rain the soil is still dry so the swale soaks quickly.  After 12" of rain the soil is saturated so the swale soaks slowly. 

It does its job but is it? The swale is a 100 gallon solution to a million gallon problem(,or a million gallon potential). We are capturing and slow releasing such a small part of the whole. The surface runoff is small compared to whats happening underground. The underground is happening for days(or weeks), the surface runoff happens for hours(or days). Its obvious when you see Zachs presentation.  Green and lushness upstream of his pond. Thats from damming the seepage. 

This seepage dam is holding and releasing like a swale, just much bigger. Where a swale provides water down stream, the dam provides it upstream and downstream and around the side. 

The earthworks no longer have to be on the highest part of the property. It can now be in the middle, or down low

Ancient may be the term needed to differentiate.

Ancient farming techniques

Thats enough to separate this from modern techniques. I think any technique this new forum is probably trying to promote would fit the definition of being ancient. The inclusion of other ancients (rome, etc) would be minimal if none.

Ancient is almost synonymous with Asia from my earlier "Ancient Chinese Secrets"...... at least in usa.

Thanks for the reply Chris. I hope others will join in. It's gonna take "this won't work cause....." to get to the pros and cons.

As far as mudslides, this technique is already used by Weiss and Sepp. I am just proposing to make the dam less tall, invisible.

The pros of this is:
No loss of farming or ranching land.
The ability to dig a shallow well thats subsurface clean,  where pond water is not, in an area where that would not be possible.
The ability to  provide clean gravity fed water down stream via a monk pipe (submerged) or a spring casing (submerged). Either option can be added when slice is cut for dam. The equipment is there to add it. Both of these are covered in Zachs presentation. Brilliant man! Its worh noting that my clay dam is burried, thus stronger than a pond dam or berm, both of which can blow out.

On the water dropping and adding clay in  a swale. I'm not saying its a problem. Its actually good. Sinking in 3 days eliminates mosquitos so eliminates other methods to remedy the mosquitos . My point was that it is a depth gauge of the seepage level. The only water "collected" happened immediately, all subsequent water is the result of underground seepage, which would occur whether there was a swale or not.

I

Ancient Chinese Secrets

Cut a slice of ground out of a slight sloped area, fill it with clay. You have a dam below grade. This will slow down the seepage,  raise the water table, and force the water around the edges of the "dam" which will cover a broader area for a longer time.

This should avoid blowouts also.

2 things led to this idea.

1. I believe my swales are more of a depth guage than a water retainer. I can get 1" of rain and it fills up, but is empty the next day. If i get 12" of rain (it has happened twice), the swale stays full for weeks. The first week it is full, like water sheeting out the down hill side of the berm. As weeks pass,  the level drops "slowly". The only water the swale retained was the first filling. After that, it's was showing how far below the surface the water was still seeping. Had the swale not been there, the water would still be flowing underground. So the swale is actually doing a lousy job, collecting 100's of gallons instead of thousands of potential gallons. This is my opinion and would like opinions if this is correct.

2.  Best video for anyone contemplating a pond. Watch Zach Weiss presentation on Paul Wheatons 2017 PDC course. Its on Paul's youtube page and is free! When he builds a pond, he looks for the clay layer that the seepage is flowing on. His dam is dug down to this layer. and has a clay core. NO OTHER PART OF THE POND IS SEALED ! brilliant. He is catching the seepage,  everything up hill is greener. You can see it in the pictures. Without the dam into this clay layer,  you have a hole in the ground. I think he called it a basin. I have a basin. The seepage is going under my pond. My pond is filled by runoff only and needs to be sealed to be effective. If it caught the seepage, the thousands of gallons instead of the hundreds.........

Combine both thoughts and it seems viable.

This is tuff. Anything that doesn't have geography in description sounds like natural gardening, which will get off topic posts. So geography is a must.

Would Fukuoka(sp?) Inspired gardening be included ? If so, "traditional" would not be included as he was a disrupter. If he's not included, I like the word.

These are my thoughts, but still thinking about it.

Haha. I love this but i'm gonna break the rules. Why? It seems like a way to legally "should" on Paul.

I will kick $100 to paul (or whover he wants it to go to via money or gift card like amazon).

This is to imbedded patreon supporters into all new youtube videos on his subscription.

I'll also commit to 4 vidoes per month at $10 per video on a longterm basis through patreon. It has to be youtube videos though, not podcasts.

Anyone else willing to join in on this? I have a theory that imbedded names thanked in the video itself (where its actually seen) will increase  the number of patreon supporters he has. 1,000's watch and dont know what it is, or that he even has it. He can manage it as he sees fit (publish all patreons, publish only new pats, rotate them out, etc)

The upper pipe is the overflow . It's big cause you want it sized to the water coming in. You dont want 3" water coming in and the escape route being 2". That is the biggest problem (imo) with buying tanks from tractor supply, etc. A storage tank is not a rain collecting tank. They can be modified though, adding a bigger bung. The overflow can also be incorporated into the main fill pipe.

The bottom pipe is where i am taking it from. There are 2 thoughts on this. As john c daley stated, he wants large storage, let the sediment settle, and collect from the middle water. I take from the bottom, continually filtering out the sediment. The funny thing is, there has not been any sediment filtered out. The water going in is clean, this leaf eater, first flush is what i contribute to it. You can see the small gunk held back in my pics.

I'll keep updating. Next thing may be pics of the filter after a month of use.

I do get freezes but very minor (TX). The only issue i had was years ago when the filter and pump were outside exposed under a carport. The filter housing broke when the water froze. It's now in a well house and what little pipe is exposed can be insulated as needed. I've never been in a true freeze area so i can't give any advice on it.

I think i cover it in pretty decent detail here:

https://permies.com/t/76631/Waynes-rainwater-harvest-start-finish