Small swale on a steepish hillside, planting out to trees and shrubs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- They say swales aren't really for steeper slopes, which we have, but I am going to take a chance as we have very dry summers and I really need creative ways to trap water on our land. This small swale is maybe halfway down our property, dug in about 20 minutes, and intended to feed a bed of raspberries, sunchokes, plus new trees that I am planting out gradually. It's not truly a "swale" yet because it doesn't extend across my entire property, but let's call them "moisture sinks" that will hopefully provide extended moisture to the trees just downhill of them, and I am digging these wherever I plant new trees now - eventually I will join them up, although my land is all downhill and only about 20m across!
What you need is a few loads of wood chips
I'm desperately trying to get hold of some, unfortunately I don't currently know of anyone that just gives them away, people are a lot more aware of the value of stuff around here..! I can buy them quite cheap but they cost a fortune to transport :/. However, I MIGHT have found an arborist company that has woodchips sometimes, watch this space!
@@thehillsidegardener3961 Try Chip Drop I used them in Toronto area here in Canada .Good luck
While you may not have (or perceive) an erosion issue on your hillside, you've definitely created one with the swale ;) The backslope being essentially vertical is absolutely going to erode into your swale until it reaches a stable slope. I would have recommended shaving that back slope to a shallower angle and putting the earth removed on top of the wood in the swale. It would help with water retention in the wood, promote its breakdown and manage the erosive tendency. You recognized that the berm itself will erode and planted things to address that, which is wise. I might have recommended putting some mulch on there while the plants are getting established, to help manage erosion until the root systems are there.
Thanks for this heads-up, I was KIND of aware of that danger but I guess I didn't take it entirely seriously, and this one is still sort of experimental. I like the idea of making the approach angle more shallow and piling more onto the wood material. I guess I am not sure how much the erosion could become a problem in and of itself, but I can see that the pioneer species like the spot (bees are going CRAZY for that lambs' quarter right now, as well!) so something positive is happening there for sure. But I will have to keep an eye on that spot to see if anything is happening that we don't want, maybe swales aren't best for my location (though the "food forest" further down is on a smaller grade, I think) and I just want something more like a moisture sink. My swales in any case aren't going to convey water laterally, I don't think, water just doesn't collect in our soil, it sinks straight in.
you need - looking at the steepness - much more swales especially higher up. higher up you build a pond for gravity fed watering
Higher up is quite steep, so I am thinking maybe to make slash borders (piled up wood etc.) on contour instead? Yes, I would like to have water storage nearer the top, right now our main water tank is right up at the house so that is OK but that's for the house needs, would really like some sort of additional (maybe overflow) storage like a pond. Our soil won't hold a natural pond unfortunately, so I am thinking about what would be best, IBCs are ugly and anyway aren't huge capacity...
@@thehillsidegardener3961 for water holding in Ponds that are leaking just use bentonite....even Geoff lawton uses this - it's natural and closes the ground
@@lobotomie66 Yes! I have looked into this but have been unable to find a source of enough bentonite or any clay in my country, there must be though... I've tried some other experiments too, layering a lot of organic material in the hole to see if that gradually improves water retention, we'll see, it's definitely something I have given some thought.
this is so helpful. I needed this today. trying to get some aquaponics and terraced garden going here. saludos desde Costa Rica :)
All the best!
Good job, hope it works.
Curious to see what your findings are
Will do an update video for sure, in the heat of summer probably. I expect this little swale to be all overgrown with grass in spring, plus the other stuff I planted on it (have dumped tons of other seed on it, including wild flowers, in addition to the gooseberry, pumpkin etc.) I had a feel down in the organic material in the ditch and it's really wet down there, I hope it retains plenty of moisture for the hot season and works the way it's intended because dry weather is becoming a serious problem for us.
Also I think I forgot to mention in the video that the plan will eventually be to extend the swale (and I've done lots more now for other new trees I have planted) right across our land - it's only 20 metres total anyway. At the moment it's not really what you call a swale but I think it will still partially have the effect of one.
Looking forward to it. I am just starting out but have a mix of relatively flat to fairly steep land to experiment with. Last week i dug a hugulbed which will be the first true experiment. Other parts of the yard are currently being sheetmulched go turn grass into garden area. It's all pretty compacted though so may need to stick with stuff like daikon radish this spring.
@@stijnt2377 Yes, this is sort of like hugel, though I guess I am not planning to plant anything on top of it (yet). All the best with your project - less lawns, more good stuff growing, sounds good to me!
Good for you. Love the (just do it) attitude! Too many are afraid to try.
Thanks, I guess I am lucky to have kind of a "blank slate" to work on. I feel like something isn't right with the way the land's been managed up till now (orchard, rows of trees, nothing else growing) and part of this is about not actually doing anything and letting it get a bit overgrown, and seeing what happens :)
Hi! I’m on a steep hillside, too, but wet and dry and wooded so digging swales is impractical on the steeps. But I have dug small swales to keep the water from pouring down the hill and disappearing down the drain. I’ve been experimenting with various native (NE USA - I’m in Vermont) plants to control erosion on steep dry slopes. I’ve also got other pressures that exacerbate steep slope growing even more - overshoot population of invasive surface dwelling Asian jumping worms, bad earthworms! Crazy!
Thanks for your perspective, I hope these small swales will have some effect over the next couple of years, but they rely on having SOME rain, and we have had next to NOTHING all summer, it's crazy! I guess I should count my good fortune that we don't have Asian jumping worms! However, we do have stinkbugs, both the brown marmorated ones and the green invasive Asian ones, and they are a REAL problem. I hope to do an update very soon, just editing the material. To be honest it's been a very disappointing summer, SO little rain, nothing has grown, lots has died, I am not anywhere near achieving any resilience yet, but have a few new ideas I will show in the next vid!
I have no suggestions regarding the jumping worms (nasty problem), but I might recommend you look into "net and pan" systems for directing water on your hill side. They're a lower impact approach better suited to steep slopes, as compared to swales.
@@peterellis4262 That's a term I haven't heard before, so that's kind of ripping trenches between trees to keep the water around them rather than running off? Will have to look into that, one thing I am not yet sure of is how much water really flows around in our land. Rain soaks straight down, very quickly, because of our sandy, loamy soil, and doesn't collect in any areas at all, so really not sure how swales or anything else along those lines really even performs.
Not dike, think berm my man 😂.
I was just trying to remember the word :D
This carbon sponge/moisture sink is extremely successful. My version (since my property is only lightly sloped) is a dune shaped pile with a deep hole in the middle filled with all kinds of carbon/wood rich material. It gets water infrequently and is an extremely productive tomato/pistachio/nettle/flax bed....
Thanks for the idea, so it's basically a pile of organic material that stores moisture and you grow stuff around it, not actually in it? Similar kind of thing for sure. I wonder, is it generally slightly greener downslope? Even though you have a mild slope, I believe swales still work to disperse water downhill. Just curious, still not decided whether to go big on swales, or more like what you are doing, or maybe just both :)