This video, the second of four, shows the swales just hours after they were dug. Of particular note is how the swales are already capturing ground water. The entire project is described in greater detail in previous written posts.
We are getting close to actually breaking ground on this project and two parts of the design are still not completely decided; swale placement and planting density. I am posting this in the hope of getting feedback before we start digging.
Our original plan was to add seven swales at intervals of thirty to fifty feet moving from the wet area near the pond north to the drier area near the top of the field. As we have studied the field and planned further our thinking has changed. We now think we might be better served by adding a small holding pond near the top of the field (North End) which would enable us to catch water and use gravity to feed a watering system for the swales below it. At first this would simply be a hose but could be made more elaborate if needed in the future.
Field with food forest swales and holding pond
Below the holding pond we would build four swales about seventy feet in length, across the field, each overflowing into the one below with the final swale overflowing into the main pond at the south end of the field. We plan put the swales about thirty feet apart. This would allow us room to add additional swales, in the future, if more production is desired or to use the wetter area, near the pond, for some other type of planting like rice paddies, a cranberry bed or …
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. –Chinese Proverb”
Our thinking on swales is guided by several ideas. The first is dollars. Since we neither own nor know much about driving heavy equipment, our first consideration is the dollars necessary to hire the needed equipment and operator. We will only be able to build the number of swales that our budget allows. (We are hoping that there will be enough in the budget to do the holding pond and four swales in the food forest area and another project to catch runoff, that is currently a problem in another area of The Land, and divert it to a place where we might build “rice paddies” some day. More about that in the future, hopefully.) The second is the height of the plants. Thirty feet is about the height of some of our larger berry bushes and our smaller nut and fruit trees.
Our swale design
By setting the distance between the swales at thirty feet we hope to allow for maximum sunlight penetration. The larger nut trees will be planted on every other swale, accounting for their higher maximum height.
The picture to the right shows, in cross section, what we hope our finished swales will look like. They will follow the natural contour of the field and spillways on each end will keep the water from getting deep enough to wash out the berms on the lower side of each swale. The swale containing the water in our holding tank will be used for planting but will be built a bit stouter than the other swales, more of a dike.
As mentioned above, the original plan was to build seven swales. However, the budget does allow us to buy enough plant material to densely plant all seven swales. The budget would allow us to buy enough plants to densely plant four swales and at the same time allow us to plant with greater diversity. We believe this is important because The Land is in a place where deer pressure is high. We hope to “defeat” the deer, really limit deer 
damage, by using planting density and a seven foot fence made of T-posts wrapped with bailing wire at one foot intervals. Once again this is a plan that we believe will work without busting the budget with thousands spent of fencing. Researching on-line and at sites like Permies.com we found others with similar problems and are hoping what worked for them will work for us.
Long term we hope to create a natural deer barrier using selective plantings like Seabuckthorn, Maximilian Sunflowers, Black Locust and Black and Raspberries. When this barrier matures we hope that it, along with plant density on the swales, will allow us to remove the fencing and be in a position of sharing food with our furry and feathered friends while still harvesting a good crop of human food.
As the new year begins, many people’s minds turn to the coulda, shoulda, wouldas of life. Like most people, my mind follows similar directions but when it comes to Landscape Design, I think my entire process is riddled with coulda, shoulda, wouldas. I find myself constantly saying if I had known this or that, I would have or I would not have. While there is absolutely no way to completely avoid the shouldas, learning, studying, observing and in depth planning can help to avoid some, if not most of them. Below are some of my thoughts for someone entering the design or redesign process today.
My first thought is PERMACULTURE. Back in the early 1990’s when I was making the initial plans for The Land, permacluture was in its infancy and I knew nothing about it. I learned about it, from a friend,
My Permaculture Guru
when discussing with him how I wanted to make a vacant field on my property more productive. Permaculture is a very large topic and encompasses many ideas from the designing of communities for efficiency and sustainability to using plants in combinations, called guilds in permaculture, to make them more productive, disease resistant and sustainable. If I had known more about permaculture principles and design:
My second thought is soil fertility and food production. When making my first decisions about meeting my goals for The Land, my efforts were focused on accessibility, timber production and recreation. In the process of meeting these goals, I paid very little attention to soil fertility and crop production. A big mistake. My excuse is that my dreams of living at the property and having the time to tend to crops were well off in the future. Looking back, there were many things I could have done to enhance soil fertility and food production while building roads and ponds.
What I could have done differently:
I don’t believe that any plan is perfect, nor can all mistakes be avoided. Everything we do on our property and in life are functions of who we are at the time and the resources available to us (time, money, tools, etc.). However, a lot of mistakes can be avoided by taking more time in the planning process and taking the long view, considering what you might want to do in the future and allowing for those posibilities.
This is meant to encourage a new land owner or someone who owns land and is at a place where they want to develop it, to do the homework. Observation and education can be more productive in the early stages of development than perspiration.
The side bar of this website has a few links to websites I have found helpful and books that are good at getting the imagination started and talk about what is possible. Here is a fun TED talk that I think provides an introduction to the idea of Permaculture and its possibilities.