Cameron Carter

Just for anyone looking at this in the future:

The general engineering rule of thumb for non-stabilized slopes is 3H to 1V.  Typically the range is 2:1-4:1 depending on your soil type with clay like soils able to hold up a bit more. Note that these numbers assume that the slope is compacted as well which is not the typical case with a swale. Once your swale is totally vegetated, it will be much less prone to eroding and a steeper slope may be permissible. With that said, it is wise to consider the worse case scenario where a large rain event occurs before your swale gets constructed.

Thank you all so much for the responses!  Here is where I am at currently, in thought and partway through doing. I am cutting back the windbreak-hedge area and adding a few soil amendments (sulpher) for the the high ph I have here. Then mulching with the grass and weed clippings from the surrounding areas.  Mostly, this will seed a lot of wildflowers.  I will treat this with compost tea later on once not so hot and if I get more mulchables, may add later on, including more woody bits for fungal initiation.  Very early spring, I am thinking to scarify/stratify, pull back the mulch in the planing location and over seed a bit for each species that I want in that particular spot.  This should give me a bit more control of putting what I want where and not create too much work thinning later down the road if I scattered blindly.  I will also follow up with my counties soil conservation district regarding available seedlings to see if they have any.  Thanks again and I appreciate all the feed back!

Hello all,

I am getting excited to start a planted windbreak as I am noticing that the wind has a large dry-out factor on my land.  i have never done a food forest, much less a plantable windbreak before so I am looking for some advice.  I am hoping to start with 100-50 of wind break this year and then adjust and keep adding every year or so.  

One of my main questions is about getting the thing started... I can imagine three different strategies to get the process started:
1. Put a dense amount of seeds out in fall and let them stratify naturally. Best suited win and start growing.
2. Stratify the seeds through refrigeration, nicolating, etc. and then put them out at the very end of winter tt start growing when the time is right.
3. Setup a nursey and start seeds through method two and then plant the trees a year later.

Some of my constraints are:
I have very rocky soil. I feel like direct seeding will do better as the roots will naturally gravitate to the deeper soil pockets that I won't be able to see if I am transplanting.
Lots of deer.  I will have to put up some sort of semi -temp-permanent fencing to get the system established. However, I would like to remove the fencing eventually and still have it survive browsing.
Very hot and dry summers.  While I would prefer not to, I think I am going to have to some irrigation to get things off the ground, but I want to limit it as much as possible.

Some of the species I am considering (which is an every expanding list) are mostly nitrofixing natives that i am collecting seeds from by the road and in parks.
Black and Honey Locust
Mesquite
Redbud
Texas Mountain Laurel
Pecan
Goldenball Lead Tree (Leauceana)
Sumac
oak
and a smattering of shrubs at the front for lower wind blocking (ie agarita, pride of barbados, others??)

I am not imaging many fruit trees in the mix as I am seeing them a bit behind the wind break in more of a savanna type layout which is more typical to our area but I am open to suggestions.  The winds come mostly from the south so I can stagger the trees and shrubs height wise with the tallest at the north.  

Any suggestions or guidance at this initial stage is much appreciated!

Thank you for the reply's!  Since I am high on magnesium already, I am a bit concerned about adding more.  I know ideally they should be at a six to one ratio to each other, but that would mean a ton of magnesium in this case.  I am trying adding elemental sulfur and once I get my chicken going, i am hoping that the manure will help with the phosphorus.  I know rock phosphate adds some, but is also bound up in calcium while super phosphate tends to leach out, but I might experiment in garden beds with small amounts to see if there is any noticeable difference as these types of amendments aren't my preference, but i know they can help in establishment.  In the garden areas, I will be adding a lot of compost and for the larger areas, I will try compost tea additions.  I've seen they sell seabird guano as well as a phosphate additive, so I might throw that in with the compost tea, maybe?  

Thanks again, and if anyone has good ideas about how to neutralize such high amounts of carbon, i am very interested.

Thank you so much for the reply. I will be tracking down those links.  Aside from the house, most of this land has been left natural and we have LOTS of wildflowers come spring.  It makes me think that may be why the phosphorus is not as bad as it is.  I have some elemental sulfur and I will try adding it to the garden area to see if there is any discernible difference but with so much calcium, I don't know if it will just neutralize or not.  

Can to much calcium be toxic to plants?

Hello all,

I ponied up for a soil test and I was actually surprised by the results.  My states soil testing center didn´t have everything I wanted in one test, so I ended up doing two so forgive the redundancy here.

I was actually a bit surprised by the ph as I suspected it to be much more alkaline as the soil is shallow and just on the surface of limestone which does explain the high calcium number.

My questions going forward are the following:

1. Phosphorus.  I am hoping to start tractoring chickens soon, and I wonder if their manure will help to add enough phosphorus over the years to help bring that level up or is some other amendment warranted?  There are some areas where I need to plant a windbreak (nitrogen fixers, ie mesquite, locust, etc.) ASAP and I probably won´t have animal assistance before getting that going. Is an amendment going to speed up their growth at all?

2. Will adding sulfur ever help or will the extreme amount of calcium just neutralize it?

3. Sodium is shown as low, but is there ever a time to have more sodium?

4. They didn´t test for CEC but rather for conductivity. Is there a way to calculate out the CEC value from the conductivity, or is there not much value into trying to find the CEC for this case.  

Thank you for any opinions and feedback!  

Thanks for the responses. Im definaitely going to keep rye in the mix.  As for the actual seeding, since I dont have any sort of machinery, should I trim down the existing grasses, spread the seed and then rake in?  Think only doing an acre max this year to experiment on since that is a lot of raking!

About a month or so ago, my family and I purchased a new home with 2.5 acres. I am so stoked to get going on this terrain and make it an abundant paradise!  

I'm located in the Texas Hill Country (8a) with very rocky soil that tends to be very alkaline.  Most folks around here, if they plant anything, start hay/grasses in January and then maybe very rarely do cover crops in late August.  While I don't have my goals totally concrete as of yet, I know soil heath and fertility are going to be the foundation that everything will be built on. I know I need to build a lot of soil mass on top of all this rock and get it full of organic material to help get through the hot dry and long summers.  

I talked with a local feed store about cover crops and was informed those are far past date.  However, grass mixes will come available in January. One mix has Kleingrass, Sideoats Grama, Wilman Lovegrass, Spar Bluestem, Annual Ryegrass, Green Sprangletop, Canada Wildrye, Teff Grass, and Tall Wheatgrass.  Eventually, I'm hoping at some point this year to start tractoring chickens but that will still be a ways off as budget allows.  Eventually, years ahead, I would love to perhaps even have a small dairy cow, but I understand that may not be feasible on such small acreage.  

My question is: Looking at getting something in the ground early 2021 and not having to wait for a whole year, would it be better to shoot for a grass mix or a soil building cover crop mix?  I also want to get some compost tea going to charge up the soil life, but it will probably be later like March before I could have that ready. I am also looking at adding wild flowers into the mix later on at the appropriate time next year but I'm curious what is going to come up as it is naturally.  

My first thought is to try perhaps mixing a bit of the two and seeding an acre or a much as budget will allow with that. Then perhaps some smaller sections I can do with pollinator mixes.  I just don't know if the cover crop mixes (ie clover, vetch, rye, barley, etc) will be strangled out by the grasses.  

Last bit of info, the ground has not been tended for a while and has a lot of natural grass, some smaller broadleaf species in spots and lots of young cactus.  A smattering of oaks (many dead or dying with oak wilt, future hugels or bbq) are scattered about.  There is only a small fenced in backyard and the rest is open to grazing by the local deer hoards.  I haven't done a soil test yet either so no additional info on that account.    

Thanks for any and all advice.  

I am in the process of purchasing a home. Long amd short of it is that it has a rather old septic system that has me concerned. I want to reduce the load to the system as much as possible to extend its life and also get some watering benefits onto to some future trees.  

My wife is a cake maker and is always working with and frostings and thanks to her business we are abke to make ends meet. We end up washing a LOT of dishes as a result and while we try to remove a lot of cream and frosting before washing but I know a lot of grease still makes it down the drain.  I honestly don't know what our average gpd since we are on a well currently.  

My general question is what is the best path forward in terms of grey water design?  

My first initial thoughts are:
1. Start with laundry to landscape to lower the septic load as this looks to be the easier of the two systems to operate.

2. With the kitchen system, is a grease trap in order or is the grey water sitting in the trap more of a danger than anything else? Would an initial small wood chip filter with worms or BSFL be the best initial option before going to either a reed bed or straight to a mulch pit?  

Hopefully I will be able to do a drawing of the existing conditions by sometime next week to get a better idea of the actual feasible options...

Finally, the codes for my area require a tank for grey water storage which as I understand it is a big no no.

Thanks for any and all suggestions as I have no experience with grey water.  

I admit that I haven't personally dug deep into the actual science and raw data. I've been okay to take the summaries of the summaries at face value. https://xkcd.com/1732/ At de the same time, I find no reason to doubt climate change nor the urgency for action.  I do see many reasons to doubt the doubters however as their position seems to be blatantly politcally motivated along partisan belief lines.  

As many have said, action is the best way forward. If you happen to be a persuasive person that through debate, speech or writing can inspire others to act, then please have at it with the deniers.  For every one else, perhaps the best use of time and resources is what you can do individually and corporately in your community. And finally, encouraging people who want to act engage in truly effective changes will make the biggest positive impact.  In these days, words abound but actions are few.