Bob Hall

I think swells would still be the way to go, I have some wet land even in summer not swampy but heavy clay soil and always wet and sticky. I built swells for a few of reasons first is water control to prevent flooding and best use of water. The second is I wanted a large berm, with a berm you get wicking which allows for controlled watering just the right amount of moisture not sopping wet like I normally have there. lastly this configuration allows me to cover the berm and swell with old hay, as it breaks down it is healing the soil turning sticky clay into rich soil. I have a YouTube video on it if you want to see it

 

Where only swamp grass would grow I now have 30,000 garlic cloves planted and they are growing well, I soon will be adding trees and in the flats grow alfalfa and grasses. You never can count on the weather to be in your favor but if you set things up correctly nature will take over and regulate herself.

Hello everyone my name is Bob, we have a 70 acre ranch in central Texas. We use sustainable farming practices on the farm which include aquaponics, free range chickens, wicking beds, bees, and a food forest. I am a certified permaculture designer and our goal is to provide healthily food for our local community. We also teach classes and recently started a YouTube channel.

I refer to the 80/20 rule when it comes to what's on the internet about sustainable farming practices, that is 80% of content is bad information. Some content is bad because people just want to sell stuff so they publish anything, the other reason is you get someone watching YouTube videos for a couple of months then they decide to build a better mouse trap, filming themselves being the week end warrior then posting their efforts proudly to the world, the problem comes when a few weeks later they discover their project to be a failure they don't delete it or post an update of what they learned it just stays out there. We may live in the information age but it doesn't mean it's good information.

Because of all the misinformation out there we created our owen YouTube channel "Hallsome Farm"  [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzSt59HZedFpmEbQvu7ZZww[/youtube]  to show people what really works and what doesn't. We do our projects on a small commercial scale, the beauty of sustainability is it can be done on any scale, a small family can benefit from our information and hopefully save themselves time and money by doing things successfully the first time. Whenever I see something new that looks like it's worth trying I do it small first. I have built 4 fodder systems for example before I built my last one which works very well, this is the one I made a YouTube of   [youtube]https://youtu.be/XGS2ZhOTPO0[/youtube]  it is not costly to build and produces 30 pounds of fodder a day. Another example is the chicken tractor  [youtube]https://youtu.be/qfNAL2YNCmM[/youtube]  even though this tractor works very well it has somethings I don't like so I will solve those issues in the next build. That's how we all learn and I tell you all about it in the video, the good and not so good.

To be truthful I do wish to promote my videos. When people watch the ads or "like" them "share" them or comment it does help rank the videos. And there is a small financial help (very small) when ads are watched but it helps us keep making videos, my biggest reason by far is the outreach and effect these videos are having. In just 7 months our videos are viewed in 192 countries and I get question from around the world. I've been able to help a lot of folks already and that is fun to do. Just like here on Permies, or like Justin Rhodes, Joel Salatin and so many more we are doing some good for folks and the planet and that is an awesome feeling. We hope you like content of our videos and please leave us your thoughts and ideas. If you feel it worthy please share our videos with other.

I notice that most who have planted food forest like to pack in as many trees as can possibly fit into the space. I know trees are vital to a food forest but I plant mine 50' apart so I have plenty of room to grow vegetables in between the trees. For me there's no point if you can't produce a balanced diet from the forest. Also you can plant other types of trees maples and trees that just flower for the bees to use. There should be a difference between an orchard and a food forest, that's a balance I have been working towards, but I hope to be big enough for small commercial production but it works on any scale. I have a YouTube channel showing some of the stuff I'm doing with our place if you're interested. Channel is "Hallsome farm"

I use old hay, I lay it 8 to 12 inches deep and it last for six months. The soil has really improved using the hay, I have some YouTube videos on it if you care to watch. https://youtu.be/Zkvv1UpjhJk is a tour of the food forest. This video shows how we put down the hay https://youtu.be/RibWqnRyubg. Hope that helps, it has made a big difference for us and we get hay given to us, no farmer wants old hay but for us its perfect.