Joey Miller

Myron Platte wrote:Well, one of the massive advantages of swales is that you can take water right out on contour. Have you considered positioning the swale to catch the French drain runoff, and continuing the contour out to the east side? Maybe you can put a gray water system in on the east side, making a basin in the bottom of the swale partly filled with gravel planted to cattails and reeds for the gray water to drain into, and plant willows and cottonwoods and comfrey on the berm and downhill slope on the east part of the swale. That way, you can do a low pollard/high coppice system on the trees, and modulate the amount of sun to your garden, generating mulch and firewood at the same time. Reeds and comfrey are awesome mulch, and willow branches on the ground can also be.

Yes that's the plan, to catch the French drain run off with swales. There is quite a lot of water that comes out after a bit of rain. I'd like to catch it in a pond first, and then the overflow to go into the swales. Thanks!

Dave de Basque wrote:

Joey Miller wrote:Hi guys, I've been thinking of putting some swales on a part of my property and would love to hear some thoughts. I've attached some photos.

I'm thinking over installing some swales on this section of hill, it's not a particularly large area and I imagine that I will dig them by hand. I'm thinking maybe three or four and having the tank overflow to them, as well as my kitchen and laundry grey water, perhaps after being filtered by a Reed bed or something similar. I also have a large pond/dam that the swales would over flow to, as seen in the pictures.

I live in Tasmania, Australia in a very wild section. I have a lot of kangaroos, Wallabies  and possums come through and graze the land, so was thinking of intially growing some native pioneering species that they will hopefully not pick on too much. I can grow some of these from seeds as I have 20acres of native bushland and have sourced some seeds. Was thinking of experimenting with other non native species also, to see how they go with the wildlife. If they become too large of an issue I may fence off the area, at least from the hopping animals (possums are much more difficult to keep out).

A concern I have though is my soil type. I have poorly draining clay soil, there are actually quite a few springs that pop up when there is a very heavy down pour and the water table has risen sufficiently, (which is naturally quite high). These quickly dry up though after a day of dry weather. There aren't any springs in the particular section I'd like to swale, but I have noticed in some sections the ground can make that squishy noise when walked on. This only persists a day or two after rain, and only after a few days of consecutive rain, after the ground is waterlogged. In summer though, things can get quite dry (we get majority of our rain in winter) and only have an annual average of 665mm (26inches). So I'd like to store that winter rain as long as possible in the landscape, I also rely completely on rainwater harvesting, so the less I need to water the better.

I have quite rocky soil and these rocks are quite large (have attached pictures). So I don't want to have the swales dug very large, to minimise the amount of rocks I'll have to sort through.

Anyway, just wondering if you guys have any thoughts? Does it sound like an okay idea? Is there another method that may suit better? I thought maybe a hugel type system on contour instead, as I have a lot work woody debris in the bush that I need to clear up a little for bushfire safety? Am also concerned about the slope of that land, not sure if it's too steep for swales. Thanks

Hi Joey and welcome to Permies!

First question I would ask is what are your goals for this section of property and why are you thinking of installing swales? It seems that different permaculturalists have different ideas about how swales are built and what their purpose is. I kind of follow the Bill Mollison/Geoff Lawton idea that swales are tree planting systems, and they need to be constructed dead level, with a good, sufficiently wide, undug spillway that empties out into a planned place where it won't cause erosion in an extreme rain event.

I see one of your ideas is to rehydrate the landscape, so swales + trees would be a natural for that. But of course, trees need to be protected from the roos and wallabies for a long time before they're potentially safe from them. So fencing might be where I'd start. (I live in a possum-free area so can't advise on them).

Re digging the trenches, with soil full of big rocks I'd be gagging for a small backhoe, but that's me. If you're gonna dig by hand, get some kick-ass tools, maybe something like the prong. You could use some of your rocks below your spillway to help prevent erosion. Or hell, reinforce something or build a gabion or a check dam somewhere.

I would not recommend trying hugel swales, as Jack Spirko says in this article. Go ahead and build hugels but do not make them into swales, I'd say.

Re your slope, I learned 18° as a maximum without calling out an engineer, especially on clay. Wet clay is pretty slippery. I really can't tell your slope from the pix, in the photo of the house it looks very steep, maybe over 20°, and on the more bucolic one it looks very gentle, more like 6°. Photos are very deceiving as you say. Maybe you can get an idea from Google Earth but that can be really inaccurate too. Does your state or local government have any contour maps available? 5 m contours would probably do to give you a general idea. Then with the distance on the map and the scale of the map and a friend who's good at trigonometry (or using an online tool like this one), you can calculate the degrees of slope. Of course then you need to use your noodle and on-the-ground knowledge to know when an area is a lot steeper than average and avoid swaling that up if the average slope is borderline.

Thank you for the reply

Yes I am thinking a tree planting system and yes I agree that fencing initially would probably be the best way to got about this. We have planted trees elsewhere with guards, but they can still get nibbled at if there are any weak points. Possum free! Lucky you, I do think possums are great, but it would be nice sometimes if they played nice more often haha

Yes I don't think I'll he doing the hugel idea, but will be building a few hugel beds in the annual garden. Not the swale types though

I think the slope would certainly be steeper than 18° in sections. I'm actually now leaning on putting some swales in a different section, to the right of the house. It's a gentler slope and has a lot of run off from the French drain exit that runs behind the house. I'm thinking of putting in a small pond to catch some of that excess water and then putting some swales down hill for the overflow. After passing through some of the swales, it will make its way into the dam. The water at the moment eventually makes its way down to the dam (from the French drain exit), so I figure I can intercept it and get the water to work for me as much as possible.

But that leaves me to wonder what I can do for the section pictured.. might still consider a swale system, or perhaps just leaving it open. I don't want to fill that area too much as that is where the sun comes from (it's an East facing hill). Will keep thinking on it! Let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks very much

Myron Platte wrote:That slope definitely looks shallow enough for swales. I believe the figure is less than 20% slope. Your property actually sounds like an ideal site for them. On clay, you want to emphasize swale depth more than width, and plant lots of trees from seed on and below the berms. This helps water penetrate more deeply. It sounds like swales with trees could help your springs run year-round. I don’t have to tell you how awesome that is. It sounds like your soil has low organic matter content. Try sowing buckwheat, daikon, and possibly more rampant plants like Japanese knotweed, giant knotweed and Jerusalem artichoke. Those plants are not for the faint of heart, though. They can really take over, depending on the soil and what deficiencies it may have.

Thanks for the advice, it would be great if I could get a spring to run all year round. Yes I need to look more into different types of initial cover crops like the ones you mentioned. I might actually measure our what the slope is because I'm not sure the photos accurately represent it. Cheers!

Hi guys, I've been thinking of putting some swales on a part of my property and would love to hear some thoughts. I've attached some photos.

I'm thinking over installing some swales on this section of hill, it's not a particularly large area and I imagine that I will dig them by hand. I'm thinking maybe three or four and having the tank overflow to them, as well as my kitchen and laundry grey water, perhaps after being filtered by a Reed bed or something similar. I also have a large pond/dam that the swales would over flow to, as seen in the pictures.

I live in Tasmania, Australia in a very wild section. I have a lot of kangaroos, Wallabies  and possums come through and graze the land, so was thinking of intially growing some native pioneering species that they will hopefully not pick on too much. I can grow some of these from seeds as I have 20acres of native bushland and have sourced some seeds. Was thinking of experimenting with other non native species also, to see how they go with the wildlife. If they become too large of an issue I may fence off the area, at least from the hopping animals (possums are much more difficult to keep out).

A concern I have though is my soil type. I have poorly draining clay soil, there are actually quite a few springs that pop up when there is a very heavy down pour and the water table has risen sufficiently, (which is naturally quite high). These quickly dry up though after a day of dry weather. There aren't any springs in the particular section I'd like to swale, but I have noticed in some sections the ground can make that squishy noise when walked on. This only persists a day or two after rain, and only after a few days of consecutive rain, after the ground is waterlogged. In summer though, things can get quite dry (we get majority of our rain in winter) and only have an annual average of 665mm (26inches). So I'd like to store that winter rain as long as possible in the landscape, I also rely completely on rainwater harvesting, so the less I need to water the better.

I have quite rocky soil and these rocks are quite large (have attached pictures). So I don't want to have the swales dug very large, to minimise the amount of rocks I'll have to sort through.

Anyway, just wondering if you guys have any thoughts? Does it sound like an okay idea? Is there another method that may suit better? I thought maybe a hugel type system on contour instead, as I have a lot work woody debris in the bush that I need to clear up a little for bushfire safety? Am also concerned about the slope of that land, not sure if it's too steep for swales. Thanks

Hi guys, I'm in the early stages of planning a food forest growing area but need a little advice on the best way of establishing healthy soil and eliminating the grass.

I live in Tasmania, Australia. A zone 9b for you Americans . I have quite heavy clay soil, it's quite a damp spot. I've thought about using woodchips to mulch the whole growing area, but acquiring free wood chips in my area is near impossible, so that's not an option unfortunately. I do though have access to plenty of fallen leaves that I can take throughout my bushland, these aren't deciduous leaves, they are mostly acacia and eucalypt and can take a while to break down. I can also find pretty cheap hay and straw. The area I would like to initially establish is roughly 450 meters square or 4800 square feet.

Would it perhaps be better to just prepare particular areas where I want to establish perenials and a few raised beds, instead of working to eliminate all the grass and improve the whole area?

Also, I mostly see people heavily mulching growing areas with sandy soil, but not so much clay. Not sure if there is a better method for clay?

Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks

Hey dudes, I'm wanting to harden a dirt car port floor. It's not used as a car port though, so it will only have foot traffic. At the moment it is just a compacted dirt floor. I'm thinking of trying out soil cement, but I have a very heavy clay soil. From what I've read, clay soils aren't ideal. Has anyone had any experience with soil cement with clay soils? Would it work if I just tilled in some sand to get a looser soil? Also, if you guys can think of any alternatives that are more environmentally friendly, I would love to hear them. Like I said, the space is just foot traffic, and wont even see much of that. Thanks

John C Daley wrote: One reason communities build storage dams is to ensure there is water during dry periods.
Its the same in households, storage tanks big enough to carry over the dry spells enable people to live in them.

It is necessary in budgets to allow foir tanks, thinking they are costly should not be an issue, since land purchase, shack building etc would be more than a tank.

You need to work out the volume of water you will need for say 3 months, rainfall data will tell you how many dry months there are.
The tank should be that big at least.
Extra catchment can be created with tarps hung around and draining to the tank.

As for lifting water from the creek when it rains, its possible.
Some questions?
Can a tank be installed above the elevation of the shack so gravity works for you?
Can a pipe be fitted into the stream diverting water to the tank without using a pump?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then building a small dam with a leaf and stick trap would work well.

Depending on the distance from the dam to the tank, the biggest size pipe the budget will stand is best.Sat 90mm stormwater would be great down to 50mm poly pipe.
The tank will fill faster with he bigger pipe.
A smaller pipe can be connected to the shed, say 1 inch and it will be adequate for flow and pressure. Assuming you have at least 4-5 meter height distance between the bottom of the tank, and the top of the shack.

Thanks for the info. Yes our property is sloping, we are currently running a gravity system that the previous owner installed, it needs some work though as the pressure isn't great. We have two tanks, one 22,000 and another that's probably about 2000. Rainwater catches in the big one and we pump the water up the hill into the gravity tank.

Unfortunately the part of the creek that has the most flow is down the bottom of our property, so we would need to pump it up to one of the tanks. Was thinking possibly a RAM pump might be worth a look into? I'm also tossing up whether to look into getting a bore (well) put in as it might be cheaper in the long run than investing in more tank storage. The fact that we have springs coming out of the ground after some decent rain would suggest that there is a good amount of groundwater about, and that they wouldn't need to drill very deep.

No rules to worry about for this little stream. There wouldn't be any fish as the stream often has no water in it. Just for household and a garden feeding 3 people 😁

Hi guys, new here. I live in Northern Tasmania, Australia, and have recently bought a 25acre bush block. On the block is a small creek (approx. 1 meter wide) that flows quite fast after some decent rain. The water will stick around in the creek for a couple of weeks after. I assume This property has quite a high water table, as there are various springs that exit the creek bed when there has been enough rain. It will eventually subside and stop flowing all together if there is no rain to keep the springs going. Keep in mind this is in summer (we've had a wetter than average summer), I've yet to see much of the creek in the wetter, colder months, but I think it's safe to assume that during this time the creek will flow quite regularly.

I'm currently relying on rainwater, this isn't ideal as I don't have much roof catchment space as there is only a small shack. So if I could harvest as much of this water as possible that would be great. I've thought about capturing and storing this spring water in tanks, but they can be quite costly, and I will mostly need this water in summer which happens to be the driest part of the year, so the creeks springs will mostly be dried up. Another potential option is damning various sections of the creek? Not sure if anyone has any experience with this?

Would love the hear peoples thoughts on how I can utilise this spring/creek water. Thanks! 😊